The Last Nymph

The Invaders

Doc's young Greek friend, Dimitris, finally arrived with his with Speedboat at the Kalamos Port. At the same time Maera could be seen returning from her long swim. Doc was relieved at the sight of both of them.

"Where have you been, Professor?" the youth chided Doc about his absence.

"I took a trip over to Lefkada . . . to see how the other half lives," he replied.

"Forget it," Dimitris said in Greek. "It's all dirty money. And from everywhere in the world these days. Dirty politicians, drug dealers, criminal bankers . . . and those are just the good ones who play with their yachts over there."

Doc laughed. "You're probably right," he answered in Greek. "Unbelievable money, my friend!"

At that point Maera walked up, still dripping from the sea and smiled at both Doc and the young man.

"Our friend here will take us over to our side of this wonderland," he told her. He then gathered up their things, stuffed into the shopping bags, and the two stepped into Dimitri's small craft. In no time, they were speeding along across the water against the cool wind with the salty spray refreshing them and the sound of the outboard motor preventing anyone from speaking.

Arriving at the abandoned, ancient site of Kastro, the young skipper beached the boat for Doc in the familiar cove, just as he had done on many occasions. The former professor gave him the customary transport fee, and with a wave, his friend left the two on the beach—just below the cliff. Above was the converted piece of castle Doc called home.

As he and Maera made it up the steep trail, still in their bathing suits, there was a familiar silence in the air, which Doc had missed. For three years he had lived there alone and the sound of just the breeze in the pines, a few birds and sometimes the cry of a hawk was what he had grown accustomed to as his selected place in the world.

But now things were considerably different. Somehow originating when he first made Maera's acquaintance that fateful day she appeared to him. It was odd, he thought, how he had spent his whole illustrious career academically studying and chasing ancient texts about mythological characters—and now his passions resided with just one of them who seemed to have found him, instead. Passion was indeed the word for it, for Doc had over the course of the small trip, off the island with Maera, came to the conclusion that he truly did love her.

Whether the Nymph's feeling for him were as strong or even possible of being to any degree congruent to human feelings, was a consolation he had already accepted—especially knowing so well the nature of who he had chosen to love. All indications were that Maera did have strong and sincere feelings for him, whether it be out of their shared independent spirits, some fatherly figure he represented to her, or merely the observation that was most fascinating: that she was just as intensely interested in him, as a different entity—human, as he was with her—a creature from the nary world of myth. The fact that they had by now communed so intensely on both a physical level as well as an emotional one, confirmed to Doc that some beautiful things should remain ineffable in this world and just allowed to go unquestioned.

They both remained silent walking up the steep incline to Doc's house. Realizing that the beautiful time they had spent together over the last days and nights could not possibly be improved upon, Doc expected the two would at least temporarily separate for a while. Maera, no doubt, missed her ancestral home in the sea, and he would need to regather his Spartan ways to settle back into his own, more terrestrial life. It went without saying as the two embraced at the doorway of the small battlement tower, that Doc would see her again in good time. Their hearts now seemed confidently joined—both as companions and lovers in this solitary world they shared.