Mei Longaevi

Stars and I went on the P'ville circuit this afternoon, swinging up the bike trail, down main street, through the ice cream shop, and back via the neighborhood, in order to make sure that she had all her Rhetoric prep down for tomorrow's exam. It was a delightful time, especially the part that we spent going over schemes and tropes. You see, Stars is familiar with my Longaevi...

"And Simile is like Metaphor, only she's more explicit. And she has beautiful eyes!"

"Right!" I laughed. "Simile is beautiful, but Posy is darling. Did I tell you, Posy discovered Emma (our ferret) this weekend?"

"Oh?"

"She thinks that Emma is her pony."

"Awww! How darling!"

"Yes. And Emma actually likes it, so it's very cute. I based Posy on a combination of Marjorie and Emma, you know."

"I thought it was Marjorie who gave you the Longaevi...?"

I raised a quizzical eyebrow. "No, it wasn't. Marjorie doesn't even really know about them yet."

"Are they with you now?"

I smiled wryly. "No, I left them in the room. They'll have a royal temper-tantrum when I get back, but..."

"But it's better if they don't hear what we say about them."

I grinned. "It makes them fearfully conceited."

Stars laughed at my quotation, and we proceeded on to tropes that have nothing to do with Longaevi... anaphora, for example, or paralepsis.

It's odd, talking to people about the Longaevi. Sometimes I wonder if I've simply regressed back into my rather regrettable Freshman year, in which I was so homesick that I invented an entire mythology of PHC to try and make it seem more like I belonged. I succeeded only in being labeled: ROMANTIC. That stung. But surely it is ridiculous to be a sane adult, and at the same time to claim that one has a flock of seven fairies who nest in one's room and follow one about?

Well, it's too late now. They exist for me, and I can't pretend it away. Not ten minutes ago I heard Posy singing her nonsense-songs in the jewelry box... songs which are composed mostly of "Zing boom BANG! rattle pop splatter fizz!" Posy lives up to her name, and is as messy as most small children. Every morning I find my earrings tangled up in the rings and laced together with necklaces.

Posy is delighted with the pink-and-silver earrings, which she believes are for her especial use, since they match her wings. She loves to hang herself all over with them and wind the necklace around her middle and parade for me. It is all I can do to keep from laughing, for she is so serious about her dressing up, and if you have ever seen a six-inch fairy wearing a pendant which is to her the size of a dinner-plate... well...

"Posy, cara, mirabile visu! Tu es pulchra puella!" Nor do I lie--she is "marvelous to see" and "a beautiful girl." She also looks quite ridiculous, but I love her for the fact that she doesn't know it, and wouldn't care if she did.

I can hardly wait to explain my Longaevi to Marjorie, and Danya has promised to draw them for me with his magical computer programs. Perhaps soon I will be able to post pictures! They are not as people expect--at least, they are not what I expected. The tiny, slim bodies are there, and the elfin features and large graceful wings, but they are a good deal more... oh, I don't know how to express it... more human than I ever visualized them as being. That is, with one important difference. None of them understand human love.

I noticed it early on, because of Posy. Her older brothers and sisters would lose her in the most careless manner, and I never could make them understand that they ought to look after their smallest sibling. Since then I have seen it in a thousand ways. They have a certain strange detachment. They all like one another, and me, but there is no sense of loyalty. If it were a good joke--and because they haven't sense enough to see the danger--I could easily imagine that Paradoxus would push Posy into a lawnmower and leave her there, not consider what would happen when the lawnmower was started and the blades began to spin.

Thus, even when one of them is bearing towards me wildflowers and their small bits of poetry or snatches of music, I know that the next hour may bring a tantrum and cries of "I hate you!" It is a little heart-aching, and keeps me from wishing too much that I could be one of them. They are like Peter Pan, each of them. They cannot love, and will never grow up. In the end, they make me grateful to be human. Meanwhile, however, they are still very sweet, and are fond of me in their own fashion, like cats, in fact. Yes, they are quite like cats: independent and conceited, but willing to purr, and tending to orbit me as a sort of home base and hobby.

Only two days more, and I shall show them my Atlantic! Oh, what will Simile say? Will Paradoxus be delighted? Will Litotes have no comment to make, for once? Will the twins dance, and Posy turn somersaults in the air for joy, and Chiasmus consent to run about the beach with me?

For, you see, I am human, and I do love them.

Domine, te gratias ago pro meis Longaevis!