Clear Blue

by Elamimax

Pause to Remember

Break now, O waves

Bring us home 

If you will 

“But – But how do you keep people from taking more than what they need?” I stammered as Aria scooped pink fish onto a plate. “Why wouldn’t one person just take everything and make you work for it? If someone has something valuable, they could make you work for it if there were no, like, regulations in place? How do you pay for infrastructure, or the police, or–”

“What’f polife?” Aria said with a loaf of bread no bigger than a bagel between her teeth. 

“What’s – How – What –” With a nudge, Aria steered me to a small table. Wrought iron legs, curved and twisting gently. There were a lot of animals hidden in the patterns, most of them sea creatures. I sat down, slightly baffled as Aria put the plate with the fish in front of me and looked at me expectantly.

“If someone takes things others need, usually someone sits down with them. People don’t take things without reason, you know. Oftentimes, something is missing in their lives.” She popped an olive in her mouth. “I remember, last autumn, Vadia took far more ginger than anyone could need for cooking. As it turned out, her arthritis was acting up. She didn’t like being a burden, and I half suspect she didn’t like growing older, neither. But now the apothecary makes her a salve that’s twice as effective as the footbaths she was making herself, and we don’t have to go without ginger.”

I sat stunned at the table, staring at the fish, blinked a few times, then nodded. “I think I get it. So everyone does their part?” Aria chewed thoughtfully on the bread roll for a few seconds, then nodded while shrugging. 

“Best as they can, certainly.”

“Then why should I get food?” I said, still looking at the fish. It smelled like heaven, but it wasn’t mine to take, was it? This was a tight-knit community, where everyone did their part and was rewarded accordingly. I hadn’t done anything. 

Aria grabbed one of the bottles on the table and poured a little of what I hoped was olive oil on her plate and dabbed the bread. “You’re doing your best too,” she said, staring a hole through the back of my head by way of my own eyeballs. 

“But–”

“Eat,” she said. “If you want a task to earn your keep, then here’s your task for today: Eat. Enjoy the food. Enjoy the company, if you can.” She winked. “Enjoy the evening sun and the smell of food. When the music comes, don’t hold the musician’s inexperience against him, he’s still learning, and when someone asks you to dance, say yes.” Aria put her hand on mine. “There is one more thing, though you should not feel obligated for this one.”

I leaned forward. The way she said it made me think that one was actually going to require effort, and was the most likely to not make me feel like a leech on this little town. “Yes?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager to prove my worth. 

“Think of a name for yourself,” she said. “Woman or not, someone so beautiful should have a name, if only to know what to call you in dreams.” I nearly screamed. What came out of my mouth was the vocal equivalent of alphabet soup. Aria, monster, demon, villain, giggled, then held out the piece of bread and pressed it against my lips. 

Reflexively, I opened my mouth and bit down. The bread was perfect, a gentle blend of spices mixed into the dough, garlic, sesame and even grains of salt on the crust. The oil added an earthy flavor. It made my eyes water. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten something, let alone the last time I tasted something this good. It was almost enough to make me stop shaking. Was she toying with me? She didn’t look like the type, but maybe I was just bad at judging people. There was no way she enjoyed being around me.

Aria smiled at me. “It has your approval?” I nodded as a drop of oil ran down my chin. She caught it with a finger and wiped it off, then had the audacity to gently taste it herself before wiping off her hand on a napkin. “I would tell you to try the fish, but if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to know a bit more about you.”

I nodded as she poured two mugs of water. “What would you like to know?”

“Well… who are you? Not your name,” Aria said, holding up a hand when I opened my mouth. She could read me like a book. “Who are you? What do you do? Where are you from and, perhaps more importantly, where are you going?”

Taking the mug with a small “thank you,” I drank greedily. “I’m from… a big city. A very big one. It’s not as nice or as clean as this one. It has good coffee, though.” I smirked at a joke she couldn’t understand. “I’m a student, I guess. Studying under someone important.”

“Were they teaching you how to take over their responsibilities after they were too old to continue them?” Aria asked.

“Not really? I mean, maybe in like, thirty years? And also there wasn’t a lot of teaching going on. Mostly running errands while I learn how the campaign was run and stuff. A lot of errands.” I rubbed the back of my head. I’d been with the campaign for a few months and I didn’t have a lot to show for it other than having lost twenty pounds from all the running around. Not that that mattered much now, anyway. I looked down. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that I weighed more than I had before, but it was all proportionate. 

“I’m sorry,” Aria said, “I interrupted. Continue.”

“Oh. Uh. Um.” I sat upright, blushing, realizing that I’d been staring down at myself. “I, uh, yeah, I was – am – a student. I don’t know, I’m not sure what I want to do with my life. I’m just kind of coasting, to be honest. Trying to see where I fit, you know? And trying not to get in the way while I do it.”

Aria nodded. “I understand. Frankly, the reason I keep coming back to Azuro is the people, and the food, but I’m not from here. Sometimes you don’t just fit in one place.” She sipped her water. “So, what would you love to do? There has to be something. Some passion, something you care for more than anything.”

“Uh,” I said, thinking back to the past few years. Mindlessly watching shows on my phone while eating instant ramen or a sandwich, until I was too tired to be awake, and then going back to school or a temp job the next day. “Not really. I mean, when I was a kid I wanted to swim, but I was never good enough at it to become a pro. Huh.” I leaned my chin on my hand and looked at the ocean. The sun was setting, a bright orange disk just above the horizon, painting the sky the color of wine. “I haven’t gone swimming in years.”

“Well, other than your adventure by the beach,” Aria chuckled. “Though I doubt you meant the involuntary kind. Well, while you figure out what it is you want you to do, why don’t you go swimming tomorrow?”

“I couldn’t…” Glancing down again. Glancing up and catching Aria staring at me with that intense, enigmatic smile. “I don’t have a bathing suit.”

“You’re not taking a bath,” she said, slightly confused. “And why would you wear a suit? It’s water. Just swim.” She shook her head. “I’m going to assume it’s a custom where you’re from. Look, I’m planning to return to the Marina tomorrow. Why don’t you come with me, and you can decide then if you want to go swimming or not. But for now, you have to eat!” She pushed the plate closer to me. 

The fish was still steaming slightly, but didn’t look as scalding as it had before. Gingerly, I prodded at a piece with a three-pronged fork. It looked a lot like salmon, only slightly more… pink? There was more red in it. I took one careful, solitary bite, and the taste obliterated my senses. It was unlike anything I had experienced before. It practically dissolved in my mouth. The salt and sour, the slight oiliness, all of it was perfect. 

It tasted like summer nights. It tasted like the ocean breeze. It tasted like the sound of waves lapping at the shore. It tasted like waking up on a Sunday morning with no responsibilities. I had to put a hand in front of my mouth to keep from drooling. 

When I opened my eyes, I saw Aria smiling at me that same way again, and realized that I’d seen the expression before. When I was young, my older sister had rescued a kitten. It wasn’t eating, and we were worried it hadn’t been weaned, and without its mother, we were scared it would starve until, one day, we got a brand of wet food it was crazy about.

The look on her face when the kitten had finally decided to eat was the same one Aria looked at me with. That mixture of pride and pity. Why did she look at me like that? I was just someone who was hungry.

Scratch that, she wasn’t even real! I was having a stroke, probably in a coma in a hospital bed somewhere, and I had made her and this whole town up from whole cloth based on a painting I saw! None of this was real! Why was she pitying me?! 

I swallowed the food to say something, and found there was a frog in my throat that made it hard to speak. She reached over and touched my fingers, very gently rubbing the back of my hand with her thumb. “You’re panicking again,” she said. “Would you like to leave?” Shaking my head, I took another bite of the fish, briefly stunned again by the perfection of the taste. It was hard to stop eating it when I’d started, and it wasn’t long before I was looking for scraps between the grates. 

“No,” I said when I’d swallowed, and it was the truth. Real or not, she was helping me, and the least I could do was stay and do as she had asked of me. “I – I’d like to try more of the food? If that’s okay?”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, and grabbed our plates. I tried almost everything. The briskets, dripping with fat and glazed with honey, were decadent. Grapes so fresh they practically popped like balloons when I bit them. Fresh cream on warm fruit, served with pancakes so thick and fluffy you’d be forgiven for worrying they might float away. After a while I gave up on trying to wipe my hands on the napkin and just licked my fingers clean, much to Aria’s delight. 

We shared a glass of wine, although she mentioned not being particularly fond of its bitter taste, and switched to juice after that. As the sun set, more lanterns were lit and hung from the lines around the fountain, creating a roof of light. 

Washing our hands in the fountain, we looked at the people gathered, eating and drinking and chatting happily about the goings-on of their day, when the music started. A young man who was still finishing his meal had something that looked like an overly large mandolin shoved in his lap, which he took with a laugh. It was missing the neck, essentially a big drum with a string and a handle on one end. 

Still learning my ass, he was fantastic. He started playing a happy tune, and a few people started stomping their feet to the infectious rhythm. An older man added playful percussion with a couple of spoons. After some jeers from the audience, one of the women went inside and came out playing a violin. From what I could tell, everything was improvised. The song itself was simple, but that meant that the musicians could improvise, and one after the other did their own thing with what I figured was some kind of sailor’s tune. 

People started dancing, and one of the kids ran over and pulled Aria away. Laughing, a sound more hearty than I would have expected, she let herself get dragged onto the cobblestones. She flitted from one person to the next. It seemed everyone wanted to dance with her, and I couldn’t blame them. She was gorgeous. Her hair whirled around her as much as her dress did. She moved almost like she was underwater, weightless and effortless, like in a dream. I was woken up with a shock when she stood in front of me and held out her hand.

“Dance with me,” Aria said, ever so slightly out of breath. A strand of hair clung to her forehead. Very carefully, my stomach suddenly in knots and my whole body shaking, I took her hand. As she pulled me up, she very quietly whispered in my ear. “Just hold on to me,” she said. “I’ll be gentle.”