Thousands of years ago in Greece, a boy meandered by the river’s edge. Olive trees swayed in the springtime breeze. Wild anemones tipped white petals to the sun. A water nymph splashed, playing hide and seek with eels. But the boy noticed none of that, so transfixed was he by his own image reflected back to him as he knelt on the muddy bank. This liquid gaze? That aquiline nose? Curls soft and pale as baby’s breath? Surely, his face deserved to be etched on a vase in the royal palace.
The nymph agreed. When she caught sight of the lad she was stunned by his beauty. She stared and stared at the human God, who only had eyes for himself. Her longing filled the river, tickling catfish, scaring her eel playmates. She forgot she was beautiful, too. Her flowing hair a ripple, her skin blue as sprigs of poisonous larkspur. She forgot she was cursed, with only an echo for a voice. She forgot she had wings.
When he spoke aloud – what matter what he said? – all she could do was repeat his words until he was sure there were two of them. Him and the beautiful boy in the river, cloaked in a mist of clouds. Seasons shifted: sultry to crisp to snow that kissed the river with a thin sheen of ice and still the boy stayed, eating grass, drinking rainwater, craving the unattainable River Boy. The nymph pined and withered, her arms becoming circles that skipped stones traced on the surface, visible only for a moment before fading away. Her voice, rusty from disuse, was stolen by a raven one day. You can still here it near the river some nights. Harsh. Forlorn. Waiting for an answering mating call.
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