Florida -- Fiction; Immortalism -- Fiction; Science fiction; Walt Disney World (Fla.) -- Fiction
My girlfriend was 15 percent of my age, and I was old-fashioned enough
that it bugged me. Her name was Lil, and she was second-generation
Disney World, her parents being among the original ad-hocracy that took
over the management of Liberty Square and Tom Sawyer Island. She was,
quite literally, raised in Walt Disney World and it showed.
It showed. She was neat and efficient in her every little thing, from
her shining red hair to her careful accounting of each gear and cog in
the animatronics that were in her charge. Her folks were in canopic jars
in Kissimmee, deadheading for a few centuries.
On a muggy Wednesday, we dangled our feet over the edge of the Liberty
Belle's riverboat pier, watching the listless Confederate flag over Fort
Langhorn on Tom Sawyer Island by moonlight. The Magic Kingdom was all
closed up and every last guest had been chased out the gate underneath
the Main Street train station, and we were able to breathe a heavy sigh
of relief, shuck parts of our costumes, and relax together while the
cicadas sang.
I was more than a century old, but there was still a kind of magic in
having my arm around the warm, fine shoulders of a girl by moonlight,
hidden from the hustle of the cleaning teams by the turnstiles,
breathing the warm, moist air. Lil plumped her head against my shoulder
and gave me a butterfly kiss under my jaw.
"Her name was McGill," I sang, gently.
"But she called herself Lil," she sang, warm breath on my collarbones.
"And everyone knew her as Nancy," I sang.
I'd been startled to know that she knew the Beatles. They'd been old
news in my youth, after all. But her parents had given her a thorough --
if eclectic -- education.
"Want to do a walk-through?" she asked. It was one of her favorite
duties, exploring every inch of the rides in her care with the lights
on, after the horde of tourists had gone. We both liked to see the
underpinnings of the magic. Maybe that was why I kept picking at the
relationship.
"I'm a little pooped. Let's sit a while longer, if you don't mind."
She heaved a dramatic sigh. "Oh, all right. Old man." She reached up and
gently tweaked my nipple, and I gave a satisfying little jump. I think
the age difference bothered her, too, though she teased me for letting
it get to me.
"I think I'll be able to manage a totter through the Haunted Mansion, if
you just give me a moment to rest my bursitis." I felt her smile against
my shirt. She loved the Mansion; loved to turn on the ballroom ghosts
and dance their waltz with them on the dusty floor, loved to try and
stare down the marble busts in the library that followed your gaze as
you passed.
I liked it too, but I really liked just sitting there with her, watching
the water and the trees. I was just getting ready to go when I heard a
soft _ping_ inside my cochlea. "Damn," I said. "I've got a call."
"Tell them you're busy," she said.
"I will," I said, and answered the call subvocally. "Julius here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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