What are you doing here...? ...doing here...? doing here...?" He could not tell who was asking the question. He did not know that anyone at all was putting it, or - if anyone was - to whom.

He struggled to make it all out and tried to lift his forearm across his eyes to clear the mist before them. His arm did not respond, except with a twitch of pain that startled him into more consciousness.

"What am I doing here?" he mumbled, beginning to realise that it was he who had been asking the question, of himself. But, he wondered, why he was doing that, and why the question continued to echo and echo and echo.

He squinted his eyes and saw dimly sheer rocks reaching into wild strips of green patches below. And he wondered if they were causing the echo. He did not wonder long. For as he tried to speak out and ask the question more loudly, no sound came from his lips.

From a deeper layer of consciousness, a fragmented memory moved up. He remembered reading a story about a man who had gone to hunt in a valley outside his village, had fallen off some high rocks and lay huddled on the ground, slowly bleeding. The man had seen another hunter going by. He recognised him. He was one of his own workers. He stayed silent, unseen by the passer-by, refusing to put aside wounded authority and call for his employee's help.

Stupid fool, he heard himself saying, he stood by his pride and died.

...he died... he died... he died he heard a voice telling him as consciousness faltered once more.

Will I die? I did not come here to die, surely not?

Emptiness answered him.

What am I doing here? he asked once more.

What are you doing here? a voice asked him.

He was startled and tried to rise. This time his body responded. He found that he was sprawling on the ground, which felt wet beneath him. He managed to sit up somewhat, holding his arms out behind him to prop himself up.

What am I doing here...? He repeated. What... that's what I want to know.

But, you do know, said the voice. And the mist still clouding his eyes cleared a little, and he saw a young man. Why, not much more than a boy really, and dressed so strangely too, as if he had left his home with nothing on but a nightshirt.

You do know, don't you, repeated the voice, gently but insisting. Come on, tell yourself, yes, do.

I do not know, he tried to reply. But, he stopped. Narcissi... he mumbled.

Ah! exclaimed the man-boy.

Narcissi... he mumbled again.

Ah! repeated the voice, narcissi - are you sure?

The man tried to think. He tried so hard that he screwed his eyes shut tight and tiny eyes sparkled behind the eyelids. He tried to free an arm to raise a hand to his face. This time his body obeyed his brain, though hesitantly so.

Yes - narcissi.

Are you sure? asked the man-boy once more.

I... I think so...

You think so... You should think harder, should you not...?

Why...? asked the man, why? - knowing that, yes, he should, he had to.

Narcissus... said the man-boy gently, his tone making the work half a statement, half a probing question.

Narcissus...? echoed the man, asking himself, trying to understand. And the mist came back more thickly across his eyes. Yet his mind was less clouded now. And he remembered the name, yes he did. He had read his story, so long ago when he used to read all manner of things and had also developed an interest in - what was it called? - mythology, yes, Greek mythology.

He knew all about Narcissus. He was the youth who had fallen in love with himself, was he not? He was the son of a river and the lily, one whose beauty was as dazzling as he was scornful, spurning youngsters of both sexes alike. His egotism deluded and angered his lovers. So much that they cruelly asked the goddess Nemesis that he may one day love himself, and thereby not win over the creature whom he so loves.

And so it happened, recalled the man...

...For one day, bent over a spring to quench his thirst during a hunt, the Narcissus was seized with a thirst of a different sort: he saw an image in the pool. And therewith he fell in love with that unbodied hope. From then on the youth would visit the pool to gaze at the object of his love in it.

Yes, said the man, of course I know about Narcissus. His love for himself was a punishment, and it even had to be carried out fully...

...That took place - another burst of clarity told him - when, one day, the love-bound youth realised that there was no substance in what was only shadow. And he suddenly understood that the loved image in the water was his own. And his tears disturbed the pool, making him realise further that the image could disappear.

Yes, yes, I do remember, of course I do, said the man.

And he remembered more, too, recalling that the tragic youth had in desperation beaten on his bare breast with hands as pale as marble, and died at the edge of his own image.

Remembering all that sadness, the man felt sad himself.

It was so sad... he said. And yet...

And yet? prompted the man-boy in not more than a whisper.

And yet, said the man, his final going brought back forgiveness, did it not?

And saying that he remembered Echo, the nymph who had loved Narcissus so deeply that, they say, when he spurned her, she disappeared from woods and mountains so completely that not even her bones remained, which were turned into stone.

Poor Echo, the man murmured. But, he went on, before that happened she forgave Narcissus, did she not? She went back with her sister Oreads, the nymphs of the mountains and the grottoes, to mourn him.

Ah, said the man-boy, mourning is such help.

Echo repeated the lamentations of the mourners as they prepared the funeral pile. And with them she sought his body.

But they found nothing, recalled the man.

Nothing... echoed the voice.

No, but - the man went on, excited now - there was something in place of his body, I know there was....

Was there?

Yes, cried the man. There was a strange resurrection, that's what there was, and the narcissus flower had taken his place!

And he remembered now what he was doing there. He looked around him and recognised the ancient valley that traversed the island and wended its deep course outside the village of his youth. The valley contained so much that he had explored, even into his grown-up years.

He remembered the Grave of the English Lady, standing upright so high in the side of sheer rocks that it must have been dug out as a niche of remembrance, not really as a burial place's grave. And he remembered too the huge empty boulder that played like a drum, the Musical Rock, so he and his friends used to call it when they flung stones against its side and heard its response like a distant rumbling.

And now, yes, he knew why he had come to the valley.

I came to look for narcissi, he said simply, explaining, looking through the mist that still lingered in his eyes at man-boy with eagerness. He was puzzled when he was met with a blurred shaking of the head.

You did not, said the voice, gently but firmly. Looking for narcissi was part of it, but there was more, was there not?

What... what was there? asked the man, feeling himself beginning to shrivel within himself.

Why did you really, really come?

The man did not reply.

You remember another story, do you not, from all that reading you did in your youth. Don't you remember what Oscar wrote about a disciple?

Oscar?

Yes, Oscar, you liked his writings so...

The man thought briefly and said, I do. Yes I do.

And yes, he did remember so clearly the few lines that had struck him so when he read Oscar... what was his name?... Oscar Wilde's version of what had happened when Narcissus died and the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.

When the nymphs saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said: "We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he."

"But was Narcissus beautiful?" said the pool.

"Who should know that better than you?" answered the Oreads. "Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty."

And the pool answered, "But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored."

And feeling again Wilde's sharp twist so strongly made him put his arms around himself as if he did not want to forget the sensation.

Once more he was startled out of his thoughts.

Are you the pool? he heard the man-boy ask him.

The question disturbed him deeply.

I came for narcissi... they flower at Christmas time, replied the man in a broken voice.

You came for yourself, did you not? said the gentle voice. You came to seek the beauty of the days when you rambled in this valley. You want to set aside your old age and, climbing up the sides of the valley seeking narcissi to see your young self in them. You have taken to thinking of yourself nowadays, have you not?

And the man wondered how this boy could know so precisely. And this wondering made him want to know better and somehow seemed to clear his vision.

He saw the youth before him fully for the first time. And he marvelled at his beauty, his long locks framing a perfect face, and in it his clear eyes flashing as if with a light shining from them.

Are you Narcissus? the man asked in a hushed voice.

The man-boy paused for what to the man seemed an eternity before replying. He looked in the questioning eyes of the other, and his own were so full of mystery.

How could I be that? he said gently. I am the son of a god of Love and I was born to help you to love others as you love yourself, and as I love you. There is nothing I would not do out of my own love for you.

And the man felt the light of those wonderful eyes move over him and bathe him and cleanse him.

The earth felt damp beneath him as consciousness began to struggle back. What am I doing here, he said weakly, and with an effort he raised his forearm to his eyes to wipe away the mist from them as he stood up. He knew he had stumbled and fallen down a rocky slope up which he had clambered to walk, balancing precariously on its dipping side, determined to block out all thoughts except to show himself he was still his old self, still able to do what he had not done for so many years.

And an inner voice began to exult, I did it, I did it!

But another voice deeper within his spirit told him that, no, he had not and, anyway, that was not what was really important, was it? And he felt as if he was losing but then finding himself again as, relief washing over him, he saw that he still clutched a bunch of narcissi in has hand and some more strewn near where he had landed, and that clusters of the sweet-smelling exquisite flower growing by the rocks nearby. And he knew now, although he did not understand why he had this image of a beautiful youth gently encouraging him, what he wanted to do.

He picked a full bunch and, with one growing thought in his mind, walked as fast as he could towards his car parked where the done-up road met the old rough bed of the valley. And as he drove home, he cared not at all about the aches and growing stiffness in his body.

You're back early, said his wife, not looking directly at him. Did you lose your way, or what?

He felt the sting of the sarcasm she had grown through the years to protect herself from more hurt.

No... No, I think I found it, thank God.

Her interest caught she turned her eyes towards him.

What happened to you! she cried in concern in spite of herself, taking in his soiled clothes and bruised forehead from the knock he had taken against a rock. What new foolery have you been up to!

He held out his hands. I picked these narcissi for you from the valley, he said simply. It's been so very long since I have brought you flowers. Will you share this Christmas with me like we used to? Will you, he implored...

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