Born Different (26 page)

“Ha, you are
funny Gabe. But it does sound nice. Perfect.”

“Do you think
people will talk about us? You know...being together.”

“Of course not
Gabe. Not for long anyway. Hell, everyone’s far too concerned about
their own little orbit and gossiping about things that aren’t true
to really see what’s going on with anyone or anything true for that
matter. Everyone feels like the paranoid central nucleus of their
own universe with everyone else looking at them.”

“Do they?”

Grace poured
herself some vodka. “Yes! Now that they have all been trained to
have a low boredom thresholds, even if they do look up from their
game stations or computer monitors, which they won’t as they are so
addicted they are in a mass consciousness of denial that will take
nothing short of a major disaster to break, it will all be
forgotten in a week. It is a crazy world.” Grace finished her drink
in one gulp.

“You know you
don’t have to drink so much Grace.”

“I know Gabe
but it is like my medicine for now. I don’t know if I will actually
be able to function without it, if that makes sense. When you feel
like you are swimming upstream alone, it’s nice to feel you have
company.”

“But you’ve got
me now Grace, you don’t have to drink. You’re so beautiful and
funny and clever and talented. The world is your oyster, you can do
anything that you want to but the alcohol will steal all that away
from you. I hate to say it Grace but we can break the cycle, you
know. We don’t have to end up like our parents! We can find a
better way. A way that we think we might have preferred.”

“You’re right
Gabe, completely. But just for tonight Gabe, just for tonight…I
want to get a little drunk. I want to dance naked on these hills
and sleep with you in the middle of nowhere like we are the only
two people left on this damned planet. I want to watch the sun set
and rise and feel like I own the horizon. Just for one night Gabe.
I want everything to be just mine and perfect.”

“Well, when you
put it like that…” Gabe couldn’t help but smile at Grace. “Your
wish is my command, my lady. But first, you must eat this meal I’ve
made for you. I’ll feed you myself if you like!” Gabe found the
torch and turned it on and left it in the middle of the blankets so
that the beam from it illuminated Grace in the twilight.

And as Grace
watched him, Gabe walked around picking up branches, logs and twigs
and he dug a hole in the ground and piled the kindling and wood
logs in to a circle and he lit them a fire. The fire instantly
burned and flamed bright and warmed them up and made them both feel
more relaxed and comfortable. The orange, red, yellow and blue
flames danced and rose and flickered unpredictably, with no
thought. And it looked beautiful, perfect in its imperfection.

The fire was
entrancing and hypnotic, warming and magical, it brought their
attentions and their thoughts back to the here and now, to the
simple things in life. No technology, no stress, no demands, just
the warmth, the healing, the connection to the most simple and at
the same time to the most powerful, to the fire. To each other.

“I think I
could live like this forever Gabe. No need for the house in the
woods, just me and you, some peace and quiet, a nice log fire,
close to nature and enough to keep us going without starving.”
Grace let herself fantasise about if everyone could live like that,
live in harmony, with each other and with their planet. What a
wonderful world it would be.

Gabe took her
plate of food and started to feed her. He fed her olives and then
thin circles of salami between the kisses he gave her, until he had
fed her the whole plate of food.

“I could eat
forever with you feeding me like that Gabe.”

“The sea air
makes you hungry.”

“You make me
hungry Gabe.”

They lay on the
ground with Grace’s head resting on his chest, for what could have
been minutes or eternities.

“Do you think
that dreams do come true, Gabe?”

“Yeah I do
Grace. Some of them have come true already. I really believe it
sometimes, that it is possible, that anything is possible. If you
put your mind to it! Dreams and all that, maybe they can all come
true.”

“I think that
they can, we’re living proof!” Grace snuggled up to him so close,
like she couldn’t get close enough and Gabe put his arm around her
and held her tight. He looked down at her face, lying on his chest
and he was in no doubt that dreams could and did come true; only he
was a little scared of admitting it for fear that in doing so, some
kind of spell would be broken.

“I don’t know
Grace, maybe if you want something enough then the universe will
bring it to you. Or if the want is enough, then nothing will get in
your way. There will be no hurdles that can’t be overcome, if you
want something that badly. If you want something enough, when there
are no other choices left to you…
that,
I suppose, becomes
your fate. If you want it enough, above all else…then it is your
destiny.”

“Like me and
you?”

“Yeah, just
like me and you. So whatever it is that I want I can have!”

“I suppose you
better be careful what you wish for then Gabe but just in case you
are right, I would like to pass my exams with good grades.”

“Yeah, sure,
whatever you want babe. You know that’s going to happen anyway, you
wanted that. You went to school, you studied in your spare time,
you took the exams, I think you want it enough that it will come
true.”

“And maybe a
little house somewhere. With a little garden where we can grow
vegetables so that we can try and live quite
self-sufficiently.”

“Ok. Done!
Anything else on your lists of wants you’d like me to ask the
universe?”

“Ha ha, I could
go on. I wish for so many things my head hurts. You with your wings
out like it’s the most normal and natural thing to do. And not
forgetting World Peace and harmony and healthy families. Recovery
from alcoholism, recovery from domestic violence, drug abuse and
general all round suffering. Heal the world, heal the people to
love again. So that they can love themselves and love each other.
Or just tolerate each other, maybe love is asking for a bit too
much, even from the universe. But for a fairer world, a better
world where everyone is far more happy and content and loving. Can
love heal everything?”

“Well, maybe
not the whole world. That is the big question Grace. But if it just
heals us that would be a start. We’ll have to just want these
things and see what happens. At least we can try and be part of the
solution rather than part of the problem.”

They lay for a
while longer, reflecting, contemplating, fantasising,
philosophising and dreaming and wondering of a world of love and of
kindness and of freedom. Of a future full of log fires, laughter,
love and lazy sunny days on deserted hill tops. The future of them
both, the two of them...together.

“Do you think
you are the only one with wings Gabe?” Grace turned onto her side
to look at Gabe who was staring up into the black night with the
fire lighting his features.

Gabe knew now
that he wasn’t but he hadn’t even had the chance to tell Grace
about his father yet. Gabe was still trying to absorb and make
sense of all that himself.

“I know now
that I am not the only one Grace. I thought that by the time I grew
up that maybe loads of people would have come out as having wings,
you know, so by the time I was an adult no one would be
particularly bothered by it.”

“But that
hasn’t happened! What makes you think then that you aren’t the only
one?”

“Ha! You and
your big questions. I met my dad last week, he’s got wings
too.”

“You never
said.”

“There’s been a
lot going on Grace.”

“But apart from
your dad then.”

“Maybe it would
be nice to be unique but then it might also be nice to be part of a
group connected somehow by our differences. It can get a bit lonely
thinking that you’re so different.”

“Hey come on
and take your shirt off, all this talk of wings!”

Gabe rearranged
himself and took off his jacket so that Grace could reach his
shirt. Grace gently leant over to him and she undid the buttons,
one by one. Gabe freed the shirt from his arms and Grace started on
the bandages, slowing unwinding them for him, around and around. It
was a weird sensation for Gabe, having someone else do his
undressing for him.

Gabe stretched
out his wings wide and tried to ease the pain of the cramps from
keeping them bound up, they felt extra tense today, no doubt caused
by the earlier confrontation. But, despite all that, they were
stronger and healthier than they had been in a long time.

Gabe and Grace
just stared at each other for a while. That was enough. Everything,
for a moment, felt perfect. They sat looking out at the starry
night, drinking and eating occasionally at their midnight picnic.
Gabe felt the drink go straight to his head tonight and the
thoughts that were going around his head had, obviously to him,
lost their inhibitions. He was tempted to do things that he would
not normally dream of doing sober.

He wanted to
undress Grace and he imagined pulling her jumper off her gently and
unzipping her dress. He imagined undoing her bra and gently freeing
her of her knickers. He imagined her naked and unashamed. He
started to imagine her undoing his flies and reaching for him
beneath his underwear.

“Gabe, why
don’t you try to fly?”

“What?” Gabe’s
train of thought was interrupted and he felt slightly paranoid that
she had been reading his mind. He struggled to catch what she was
going on about.

“You know, here
and now.”

“Fly?”

“Yes fly! Well
you do have wings and you said that you used to be able to...”

“Well sort of
used to be able to. It was more running around and doing bigger
jumps and gliding a bit. It was a long time ago now, I don’t know
if it would be possible.”

“But now, can
you fly now? Can we try Gabe, please?”

“I don’t know
Grace, probably not. Look at them, I have not used them in years
and they’ve gone all weak.” Gabe had built up some strength in the
last couple of weeks but he had not actually flown in years. His
proportions had all changed and he suspected that it was too late
to start again. And besides, what was the point? Where and when was
he going to fly? And if the muscles got big and the wings got
strong, his hump would just get bigger. Any bigger and he thought
that he would no longer be able to find any clothes that fit or be
able to leave the house due to being so hugely deformed.

“They don’t
look weak to me Gabe, they look magnificent. Why don’t you try?
Come on Gabe…” Grace jumped up and stood with her arms out
stretched, palms wide facing the night sky.

Gabe stood up
too, slowly, and he went over to her. He took hold of her jumper
and he lifted it over her head. Grace smiled at him, so he
continued. He unzipped her dress and it fell to the floor, leaving
her standing there in her underwear. Gabe turned her around slowly
so that he could admire every part of her; her breasts, her legs,
her arms, her back, her shoulders, her neck. All the parts of her
that he wanted to study and could just stare at for hours and
hours. All the parts that he had imagined. Gabe loved her even
more. He fell deeper and kept falling, nothing was catching him or
holding him back. He kissed her and undid her bra and as he did so,
she undid his flies, hooked her thumbs into his belt loops and
tugged his jeans down so that they were both now standing in their
underwear.

Gabe took his
boxer shorts off as Grace took off her underwear. Naked, they held
hands and again they ran and skipped and they shouted out to the
world from under the stars, shouting in the way that you can when
you know that no one can hear you and tell you to shut up. They ran
and danced until they were sweating. Gabe held on to Grace’s hand
tight, afraid that she might fall over as she swung wildly about,
around the heather bushes and down towards the stream. He tried to
extend his wings, to lift the tips of them up and he felt
invigorated as he felt the air and wind beneath his wings.

Gabe felt his
wings growing large, strong and proud and, for a moment, towards
the bottom of the hill before they reached the stream in the dark,
with only the moonlight and its reflection guiding them, they could
have sworn that for a few seconds, their feet had not touched the
ground. For the last few metres in their run, it was like they were
flying; at the stream’s edge, the glided down, skimming the rock
pools before coming down to rest softly in the shallow waters.

It seemed so
natural now just to carry on going into the stream, to swim free in
the wild. They were so close to nature that they breathed it, felt
it and tasted it. It washed over their bodies and washed away their
fears.

They swam
together as if they were the stream, changing and flowing yet
tranquil. They were part of the bigger plan, the consciousness of
it all, the meaning, the things that no one could quantify or name,
a feeling of pure bliss and awareness enveloped them. They both
felt a connection with all things; and yet with nothing.

The feeling was
that each tiny moment was an intense place to be. Here and now,
just to be. Here and now, was all that mattered, was all that there
ever was or will be. All and everything that they had now, was all
that they would ever need or ever want. There was something about
simply now that felt enough. More than enough, there was nothing
else but the now.

Gabe realised
he was always wishing his life away, thinking of the future,
regretting the past, but now he wished he could just slow time
right down and stay in these moments for as long as possible. Hold
on to this electricity, this magic, this vibe of wellbeing and
serenity.