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Saps dreams sometimes.
.
This town’s the small type, where everyone knows everyone. Houses on mountains, overlooking the endless sea, lined with markets. To Saps, it was the perfect place. It’s picturesque; the type of scenery you’d see posted on a travel billboard. On top of it all, there was the sense of community, everyone’s connected, like the branches stemming from an overgrown tree. But no one knows that boy. That boy that stands idly in the sea water, half his body underneath the shore.
Saps first saw him when visiting his grandparents, some sunny day. He was sent to do some errands down in the market before getting distracted. He paused on the stone brick road to look, mesmerised by the giant sea, gleaming from the dawn. Before Saps even realised, he was running towards the beach. Down the mountain road, past the market stalls, cascading stone stairs, and into soft sand.
Beautiful.
He stares. The boy, submerged in water, was beautiful. The sun on the horizon gave him a halo, one of an angel’s. For a second, all Saps saw was violet. A bright, entrancing purple, framed by long lashes curled downward. He catches a passing thought if anyone else has eyes of this colour. Then, a lifted brow.
“Are you crazy?”
What? Saps doesn’t know what to say, he’s still panting from running, so he only nods dumbly. Maybe he is dumb, he surely feels like it right now. He’s distracted by the boy’s straight hair— it seems to sway lightly with the salty wind, like it knows it well. A streak of that same entrancing violet is weaved in as well, perfectly sewed in.
“...Did you run here?”
Then there’s pouty lips, soft and pink. The boy’s brows, once lifted, were now pushed together in a tight expression. Saps wonders how a person can just casually exist like that, looking like how he does. He finds it curious, how has no one else been serenaded into coming down here. Perhaps the boy is a siren, he thinks. He still isn’t listening, everything beautiful was being splashed unto him at once—
Wait, no, that was water.
“Stop staring.” The boy says. And Saps doesn’t have the decency to look sheepish. Not when a voice, deep with an ariose accent, was speaking to him. He recalls his grandparents using a French idiom, something about being struck by lightning. He supposes that’s what he’s currently experiencing. The voice calls out again, and Saps finally snaps back to attention.
“You look– you sound– are you from here?”
The boy looks at him weirdly before nodding his head. Saps nods back, loosely, without thinking.
“Uhm–” breathe in. “What’s your name?” He asks.
The boy continues to give him a weird look, skeptical, but he answers anyway. Saps has the slightest hope that perhaps, he’s just as enamored. “Fluixon,” he says, “or… Flux.”
“Flux. Okay. You look beautiful.” Saps blurts.
Flux’s eyes widen as he turns red, his face a soft combination of purple and pink, “do I?” He asks. And Saps forgets to respond, instead walking to stand in the sea beside him. It’s warm. The sun has fully risen now, illuminating the two. In the distance, he sees two giant rocks and thinks, maybe, one day he’ll swim all the way and stand atop one of them.
A straw-woven bag drops beside him, and Saps remembers the market. He doesn’t want to go, but his grandparents are likely starting to get concerned now— and he still has breakfast to eat. He picks it up and turns to run back up, but pauses to see Flux still staring at him, shocked.
“Who… Are you?”
“Oh. Uhm, I’m Saps.”
“Saps..?”
“Saparata— Saps is better, though…”
Flux is still confused, still beautiful, but he simply nods dully as Saps rushes out of the beach and back into the forest-filled mountains.
.
The second time Saps sees him, he’s standing a bit closer to the shore, in the seafoam. He recalls a myth about Aphrodite, about her being born from seafoam. Maybe Flux is her child, he thinks. Why else would he look divine? Like a figure you would devote your time into sculpting stone statues of, perfecting every curve and line. Someone you would worship.
Saps calls out, tells him to come up the stairs of rock. Isn’t the water cold, he adds. Flux shakes his head, “I don’t like the sand.”
He’s a bit taken aback. “Why not?” If you’re at a beach, sand is to be expected, and… “Aren’t you standing on sand right now?” Saps asks.
Flux scowls, “dry sand is coarse,” he explains. As if it’s evident, something straightforward. “Unlike wet sand.” Sure, that makes sense.
Saps just nods, going along with it. He thinks he’d rather die than disagree with Flux. “Uhm, okay,” he descends down to the sea. Stretching an arm out to showcase his silage basket of fruit. Holding a few out, “do you want mangoes?”
Flux looks at him like he always does; weirdly. But he nods either way, taking the fruit off Saps’ hands. They smell sweet and feel a bit squishy, Flux thinks. He quite likes the bright yellow of them, how they seep into an orange, almost like the sunset. He looks back to Saps, and almost gets blinded by the way he’s beaming so brightly.
He blinks at him slowly, “weirdo.” Yet his voice sounds charmed, brightened even. Saps thinks he sees a subtle crinkle in his eyes.
Saps only continues smiling, weird as he may be.
.
When he sees Flux the third time, he’s a lot farther out in the sea; closer to the giant rocks he thought he may one day swim to. Normal people would probably question him, theorise about his varying position in the sea. But Saps has never felt normal, and he doesn’t want Flux to be.
Saps hesitates in calling out his name this time. Would he even hear him, he thinks. When he’s almost fully submerged in the sea. But his soul will always lead him to the boy, like a string, that starts from Saps’ finger and ends right in Flux’s eyes. So, instead, he runs down and out towards him, as far as he can before the sand exceeds his feet— which just so happens to be right behind Flux.
The beautiful boy doesn’t seem to notice his presence, so he taps him lightly on the shoulder. It doesn’t startle him, but he turns around. Looking at him, Flux’s heliotrope eyes seem to be glazed, glassy, gone. It’s only when he catches his gaze does Saps regard the fog around them, drowning them in a plethora of nothing. He’s concerned about Flux’s wellbeing, but can’t help observing how melancholy seems to suit him so well.
“Flux?”
The boy only resurrects at the call of his name. Flux stares at him for a brief moment, though it felt like an infinitude, only to tilt his head. He opens his mouth as if to say something, before deciding to keep quiet. Saps notices how his eyes appear more narrow, lashes sheltering his soul, slanted downwards. Shaking his head, the child of Aphrodite turns back to the sea. He points out towards the foggy distance; to the sun, “do you think you could swim to the horizon?”
What a stupid question, Saps thinks. Firstly, he can’t swim. Secondly, “you can’t reach the horizon, silly.”
“...”
“But if you wanted me to, I probably would try.”
.
Saps forgets to dream this time.
Saparata’s on the car ride “home” with his parents in the front seats. He hates it. He wants his grandparents again. He wants Fluixon again; the beautiful boy, the child of Aphrodite, eyes the colour of his mind. The white-haired boy looks out the window, watching as the glimmering sea slowly fades out into forgettable rocks and terrain. He wishes he could ambush his father in the driver’s seat and turn this car around. But he can’t, so they continue down the boring bridge. Away from home.
His mother asked him why he likes that place so much. Doesn’t the ocean make you feel alive, he wished he asked. But he stayed silent instead. Leaving its spark, foam, and mystique in the greater part of his mind.
We’ll come back next summer, his parents attempt at comforting him. Saparata doesn’t really care for what they say. So in his head, they sit in that vehicle in silence.
When Saparata comes back to school, everyone’s first question is about his holiday. He gushes about the water and sand, and about a boy he met. His friends tease him about his “imaginary boyfriend”, and he can’t exactly give them proof to counter. Thus, Saparata concedes to closing his eyes and simply imagining him and his silhouette, as they all tell him he did.
.
It’s next summer. This year, the heat hits harder than last. But Saps is nothing if not a natural athlete. So after he apricates in the sun, he runs down to the endless waves again, to the lueur of the setting light, where purple meets blue.
Surprisingly or not, the beautiful boy is still there, illuminated by the evening star. Fluixon. Flux. The divine spirit that lingers in seafoam. His incandescence, Saps thinks, could steer sails by. They’d rely on his lucent eyes, and pray he guides their odyssey. “Sailors would love you,” he says.
As if it’s the only response he knows, Flux tilts his head, mouthing a small “huh?”
“I’m good at sports— do you think I could swim until I reached that boat?” Saps points at a lone sail out sea, rocking on a tide as moving seems asleep. Une mer d’huile, he finds it to be. “I don’t know how to swim, but I hear a clear call,” His parents would probably say he’s insane for thinking he could try. He probably is. But he knows Flux is too.
Because Flux looks at him, bewildered. Is he crazy, he probably thinks all the time. Maybe it’s because the boy doesn’t know how to swim either, which is a funny revelation. But Saps blinks, and for the first time, Flux smiles. It’s a wistful, special, angelic smile. No teeth, all spirit. “Go,” he says, breathless. He thinks he’s casting a spell on him, because there’s a semblance of magic around them, enveloping them in stardust. “You can do it.”
And God, Saps never dived so fast, having never dived before.
He’s underwater, arms flying left then right, kicking his head legs swiftly. When he comes up for breath, he turns and thinks: I was right. Flux would be the perfect light house. And thus, Saps keeps swimming. Left then right, coming up for breath, looking back at Flux, submerging himself again. Repeating the sequence of action and devotion. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, wonders if any has at all, but when he comes back up again, he’s at the giant rocks. Saps doesn’t see large white sails anywhere, but it doesn’t matter. He swam.
And now, he’s floating. He twists towards where he started, and despite the vast distance, Flux is still so visible. Moony, beatific, ardent Flux. He can tell when their gazes catch one another’s, because he feels that spark of souls colliding, connecting despite gravitational forces. He gets the feeling of dès vu, but it doesn’t matter. Saps forgets about feeling tired. He jumps up and climbs the rock, finds a flat surface atop, and waves excitedly at the beautiful boy. He smiles blissfully and shouts, “alive! I’m alive!”
And in the stretch, he sees his light house wave his arms too.
.
It’s a windy day today with white clouds flying and sea-gulls crying.
Saps brings down mangoes again, those sweet sunset things, and thinks of running to where the stars kiss the ocean, where his soul ignites. The beautiful boy called him “Sol”, because his soul was the sun. It was a funny play on words. He asks Flux who stands right at the bar, the borderline of ground and aqua, if he has a home. Flux’s eyes widened at the question, laughing, surprised and vivacious, before answering with another question— “does the sea count?”
And Saps’ eyes crinkle as he grins, laughing with his fellow-rover. Of course, he answers mentally. Of course it does. He realises why he comes down each time, to the vagrant life. We’re some type of flâneur, observing the ebb and flow of movement— of water this time, instead of people. “O captain! My captain!” He yells, and Flux laughs even harder at that. “O heart! Heart! Heart!”
The wind knocks them over like a whetted knife. Universal forces pushing their anima to coalesce. With the mangoes long forgotten, simply rolling in the sand, he gently holds Flux’s beautiful face and connects his lips with his. The first thing that comes to Saps’ mind is the softness of Flux’s lips, how easy it is to just eat him alive. He can feel his soul flaring up, burning him alive. It’s passion, he realises. That saccharine scorch. The boy freezes, eyes large in shock, before kissing back. As their souls connect, Saps thinks he can feel what Flux can— thinks he can feel the same sear in his heart, a glowing celestial body in his, and a vivid eternity.
And God, they feel alive. It’s as if violins started playing the moment they closed their eyes, and sparks of light were coming out of their fingertips, where invisible strings tied. He discerns Flux’s crying, tears quietly dripping down his face. Each drop landing on Saps’ hand. This is what his duty is, he declares, to catch every bead of the boy’s sadness. Here, Saps thinks: Home is the sailor, home from the sea.
“Raison d’être,” he calls Flux.
That night, Saps is given a quiet sleep and a sweet dream. Submersed in a pool of luminescence.
.
“For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place,” Flux recites. “The flood may bear me far,” Saps sparks as he recognises this poem and continues, “I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crost the bar.” He recalls the elegiac poem, the extended metaphor of the sandbar between the river of life. The ocean that lies beyond death, the boundless deep, to which we return. He wouldn’t mind dying, he thinks, if it’s by the side of Flux.
The child of Aphrodite offers him a saturnine smile, the same smile that enamoured Saps, and it’s the dark after the evening bell. He outstretches his arm and says, “dig my grave and let me die,” and Flux giggles, like he’s just as enamoured, just as infatuated as him.
“I have neither joy, nor certitude— but let us be true.” Because glad did I live, and glad did I die.
The beautiful boy’s eyes glinted, and his fingers kissed Saps’ right cheek. Under the starry sky, Flux looks so divine, and he feels that familiar nexalune, the longing that no one else can name. Leaning in, a small kiss is planted right beneath the edge of his eye. Sometimes, Saps forgets to dream of his parents and grandparents. But every time, he dreams of Flux. Thus, Saps stops his breath.