Farewell to Ben

And so it went and the days grew to weeks.  Ben told his stories while my mind raced to keep up with the images he lit.  Sometimes I caught them, held them in my hands, even turned them gently about before letting them escape like butterflies from a net of gauze.

Rick and Fanny marveled at my smiling face and wondered where I found the stories that I shared with them – especially since I no longer went back to the Haven.  Yet somehow, I sensed I was slipping away from them and spending more time in my stories than in my life.

“Ben, we have to talk,” I said a few weeks later.

“Mmm,” he purred lying on his back in the springy grass, a stalk of green between his teeth.  “We always talk,” he grinned.

“No, seriously now.  What do you do when you are not leaping about in stories and roaming through leaves of adventure?”

Ben looked surprised and reddened.  “Well, I do have a job you know.  I am gainfully employed,” he said and puffed out his chest.  He looked good in his James Dean T-shirt. “Although I’ve been neglecting it lately, … but that hasn’t been my fault.”

“What hasn’t been your fault?” I tossed my head and raised my eyes to the heavens.

“There haven’t been any rainbows,” he said quite matter-of-factly.

“Rainbows?  What rainbows?”

“That’s just it.  The pots of gold.  It’s my job to look for them.  But it’s damn hard when there aren’t any rainbows.”

I burst out laughing: “And I suppose finding pots of gold is easy?”

“Oh, yes,” he was serious now.  “That’s the easy part.  It’s shinning up the rainbows that’s difficult.  But it’s fun,” he added”

“Well don’t you miss it?  I mean, the exhilaration of finding pots of gold?”

“Of course I do.  But I’ve been traveling,” he pouted.

“Traveling, drifting, … drifting in a cloudy, lovely world …” My voice trailed off in a hum as Rick and Fanny came out to play in the grass.  I watched my husband lift the child onto his shoulders and gallop around with her like a fiery steed.  They waved over to me sitting in the shade of the white lilac bush.  I waved back at them. “Ben, I think it’s time I took you back.  I can smell rainbows,” I said and smiled.

“So can I,” he said.  “Don’t take me back, Liana.  I can catch one from here.”  He balanced a kiss on the tip of his finger and placed it gently on my lips.  “Keep the book of verse though.  And if you need me, just dip in amongst the musk roses, the ones blowing in a green island far away,” he twinkled.