French Boy - July 28, 2011

I once dreamed of a Parisian boy who gave me a spectacular necklace of opal beads and swore eternal love to me. I was quite taken by him in the dream but once I woke up, I realized his deepest wish might never come to be. So instead of letting him sink into oblivion in the land of forgotten dreams, I visited him in my daydreams where we strolled along the Seine, rode gondolas in Venice, and sat quietly at café tables throughout Europe. We never talked, for I only came in that world to rest and to forget about heart-breaking crushes and romance when I felt myself weary of them. He was my friend who wished for anything but that, yet was content in having me visit him at least.

French Boy, I called him. This careful friendship we had I always tried to maintain so that it did not turn into some whimsical fantasy of meeting him in real life and actually falling in love with him. I did not wish to fill me with false hopes on that with an imaginary courtship. So we stayed ‘friends’ and his name French Boy. This lasted for about a year until we met once again but during a ball. I was letting my mind wander and be carried by the wonders of classical music during a concert and we danced at a ball happening above my head. We visited a village near the Swiss Alps on that night and we laughed as we stared at interesting toys in a shop window on a cobblestone street and raced on it as well. During a waltz, both of us dressed in sumptuous old-fashioned garments, he whispered in my ear for I had been calling him French Boy just then. “Call me Jean-Phillip,” he said.

From then on, I called him by that but I didn’t visit him for a long while. Then, on a day at random, it occurred to me that I was hurting him, both by visiting him and allowing myself to have him stay in my head. I was being cruel and I was using him for my own personal benefit. I tried telling myself that imaginary beings have no feelings, but I countered by saying that if they had, then this one felt used but wouldn’t admit it because he loved me. The imaginary companion business is quite complicated for someone who feels too much and it was better to be rid of it. So I did, for good.

Ten years passed, and I found myself in Paris where I was studying for my Masters degree abroad. I was sitting on a bench, reading, when I heard someone ask, “May I join you?” I had a good knowledge of the French language by then, and turning to the person who had asked me, I found my “Of course” catch in my throat. At that moment, I was looking at the exact copy of my French Boy whom I had abandoned so long ago only a man now. Then seeing that the man was expecting my answer, I stammered out my response, blushing and turning away. He had a textbook with him that he was studying and I asked if he attended college nearby. He answered that he went to the University of Paris, like me, and that he was also studying for his Masters. Then we started talking of our hobbies, our families, and a great deal of other things at length. When it became late in the afternoon, I realized that I was late for an outing with my friends and asked him to meet me at the same bench the next day. With a smile exactly like that of French Boy, he agreed.

So there I sat on the bench the next day, waiting for him when I felt something cold and blue-green wrap around my neck. My eyes widened, as I recognized the opal necklace from my dream from a far off time ago. The man from the day before, laughing at my reaction withdrew the necklace and explained that he had fashioned it in his youth when his parents had taught him to make jewelry, since they were craftsmen. He said that it was the last time he ever made something like that since he had no interest in continuing his family’s business and instead he wanted to become an engineer.

“I want you to have it,” he finished. “Opal is your birthstone, right? I wanted to put it on you to see if it looked good.” I didn’t know what to say. “T-thank you so much!” I managed to stammer out. And so he fastened the necklace around my neck and it occurred to me that I didn’t know his name. “I completely forgot to ask you. What’s your name?” He winked at me and I saw the boy I had dreamed of and abandoned in the depths of my mind in the years of my adolescence.

“Call me Jean-Phillip.”

-Lady Stormparade