It's In The Blood

THE LEGEND OF ISLAND BEYNINI

There weren't always dragons in the valley. Many an adventurer from Alexander the Great to Ponce de Leon have searched and maybe even found the Fountain of Youth. The tragedy is that they may have found it—and even touched it—but never recognized what it was. Only the inhabitants of Beynini know the secret of the fountain and its true powers.

The island was once famous for great wealth, fortune, and people who lived far beyond the normal years of a human. Since their king’s mysterious disappearance months before the British invasion in the late eighteen hundreds, it has never been returned to its original splendor. The people, prevented from speaking their language, slowly started to die earlier and earlier. Almost all their culture has been lost.

Fortunately the rich legends of what once made the island powerful live on in their artwork and carvings. The island is now only famous for its intricately exquisite boxes and chests that the villagers create to retain their stories. It's ever dwindling mystical creatures only visit the remains of the island to pick at any left over magic that could be in its dust.

Some say the great King Beynabi disappeared because of the wicked ways of the people, inferring that the dark arts and magic are what ruined the island. Others believe that magic is the only way to save the island and search for the key to the fountain to restore the island’s power. They believe their king to be alive even these hundreds of years later because he once held the fountain’s water in his hands.

To restore their glory, they only need to find their king.

GO WITH THE FLOW

T ell her. He pauses to think, savoring every word that ripens in his rich brain. Tell her that her hair is as soft as a feather duster and her knees are as sturdy as a thousand-year oak. Her stare pierces you like a magician’s blade. Just when you think it has delivered the deathblow, you are still alive by the sheer beauty of her magic.

Nicolas, a twelve-year-old boy, dictates as he stands perfectly still by a window. His eyes stopped blinking two minutes ago, waiting only for when the burn would force him to blink again, one of his favorite pastimes.

“What the hell, dude? That is the weirdest poetry I have heard in my entire life. What girl wants to be told she has sturdy knees? That is so random!” Zack laughs as he plays with his basketball, taking care not to bounce it too hard in Nicolas’s hospital room.

“You always say that, but every time you take my advice, it works, doesn’t it?” Nicolas maintains his blank stare.

“Yeah, yeah. I have to admit it does work. You are some kind of crazy Casanova.”

“Don’t be afraid of random. Life is random. Love is random. If you can’t see that, then you are probably blinking too much and missing it.” Nicolas has still yet to blink.

“Well, I gotta get to practice. Until next time, great wise one.” Zack laughs and gets up to leave, stretching his long legs, having had his Nicolas fix today. He can now ask out his latest crush. Or at least get her to sit with him at lunchtime.

“Oh, and don’t forget to bring me more comics, OK?” Nicolas reminds him as Zack walks out of the hospital and into the heart of a congested city.

Nicolas is now alone in a very clean room: white walls, white bed, white sheets, white pants, and white shirt. Only his comic book clutched in his right hand and his brown skin peeking out from the edges of his shirt and pants dare bring color to the room. His eyes tear in desperate anticipation of a blink as he stares out at the buzzing hospital life cycle on the other side of his glass wall.

Through his bleary eyes, Nicolas sees a patient being wheeled in with a morbidly disheveled face. He finally blinks to make sure he is seeing it right. The face does not get any better. Nicolas shudders as he sees a thin layer of skin covering the man’s eyes; his nose is nothing more than two holes on his face, and his lips are entirely gone. The only thing left is a ring of raw flesh marking the opening of his mouth where a few teeth remain. Nicolas tries to peer closer at the man to guess what could have made his face look like that.

As Nicolas attempts to get close, two bystanders struggling to squeeze as far away from the man as possible wind up blocking Nicolas’s view. Nicolas knocks on his glass wall to get them to move out of the way. The couple turns to see an emaciated boy alone in a sealed-off room with tears rolling down his face and run hurriedly back to the maternity ward.

Nicolas wipes his face full of false tears, unfolds a worn comic book filled with incredible drawings of werewolves and monsters, and rests it on the glass wall as he gets his pen and traces the man with the distorted face, trying to add his image to the book of glorious monsters he has in his comic book.

A little girl runs up to the poor man, sits on his lap, and kisses what’s left of his face, unaware of his looks. To her, he is not a monster. To her, he is daddy.

People only think he’s ugly because they see regular humans are somehow pretty. What’s pretty and ugly, I think he’s pretty, but I guess that’s not enough. If that man were one of the monsters in this book, he would be more mysterious. The blind baron, the faceless fighter, the…the…mouthless musketeer. People wouldn’t just fear him. They would respect him. They might even find him… sexy. He just needs the right costume and a lurking hunger for justice. Oh, and let’s not forget a woman he knows he can never have, Nicolas muses to himself as he draws.

Nicolas remembers his nurse will be coming in a few minutes. He carefully hides away his comic and puts on his white hospital gown. Finally he looks at himself in his mirror, checks his breath, and makes a weak attempt at a bicep curl.

I know all about being sexy. One thing my dad taught me was how to treat a lady. My friends would pull a braid, fling a paper airplane, or maybe even punch an arm. That’s stupid boy stuff. You gotta be sophisticated, look her in the eyes, and ask how she’s feeling. My dad was a real ladies’ man. He is…he is a ladies’ man. I don’t know where he is, but wherever it is, he is getting the ladies. I just know it.

Nicolas jumps up and down in place for a minute and has to stop as he starts coughing. He can’t do much exercise, or his body becomes exhausted.

He puffs up his chest and watches Nurse Tara, a tall, slender woman with a fresh, angelic quality to her face, walk toward his room. He watches as the fluorescent light catches a fleck of red in her deep brown eyes and glows like an ember for just a fraction of a second as she looks at her schedule for the day. Her long chestnut hair accents her rich café au lait skin tone.

This point of beauty is lost on most because she always keeps her hair modestly pinned up in a bun. She pulls out the special electronic cards to open his room, kind of like a hotel-room key but fancier. Nicolas sits like a statue on his small, squeaky twin-sized bed with his slightly large ears and button-black eyes and his large bare feet dangling over the edge as he shivers inside his thin gown, wishing he had a cool outfit instead. Every week he has to have a complete medical workup. Today it’s just vital signs.

As she enters his stark room, his body tenses. Nicolas’s pressure reads high every time Tara takes it. He watches her face and feels special when she gets concerned about him.

Tara’s worry is so beautiful. Her eyes pour over me. She is the closest to the sun I have been in a while, like warm light on a frosty day. Nicolas basks.

Ever since Nicolas could write, he had somewhat of a knack for poetry and always had at least three grade-school girlfriends at once. But he has never been in love like he is now. At least he considers himself to be in the middle of his first and only true love. It is unfortunate that he is twenty years younger than she is, but he doesn’t think that should be a problem once he can get her to see his true self.

“Are you feeling OK today, Nicolas?” she asks. Her soft voice floats through Nicolas like a dream.

Nicolas slowly nods his head, trying to think of something important to say. My tongue doesn’t work too well when she gets all close to me. I’m not as smooth as my dad is. But I think I have the look down. I look really deeply into her eyes. She must know we have a connection, but I can never see her show it. She thinks I’m just a kid.

Tara neatly wraps away her stethoscope and strokes his cheek with her gloved hand. Nicolas can catch some of the warmth from her hand on his cheek and sits as still as possible, holding on to the moment after her slim hand has gone to treat everyone else.