*My five latest tokenized pieces -- five out of the first 11 -- are the stars of this story on NFT Showroom! If you love the way the story makes you feel, the links to the art are at the end, and you can collect them ALL!*
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You know you are tired when you wake up in the house you grew up in and don't have a clue where you are or how you got there.
After 62 freighter runs all across the edges of human exploration, and an extra week added on obtaining an apartment building to support myself and my future family in Ohio without reference to the slow growth of my main business, I had reached that point and beyond.
I was so tired I woke up, looked around, couldn't figure it out, and turned over and went back to sleep anyway, not even rested enough yet to be scared.
I came to myself hearing my fiancee's voice.
“He did *what?*”
It was not a judgmental tone … there was disbelief and love and a bit of a laugh.
“It's not because you are an admiral, Vlarian,” I heard my mother saying. “Marcus Jr. is so much like Marcus Sr. – they don't get with a woman until they feel they have together what they need to have together, although they propose quickly so the woman they want doesn't get away!”
“Mr. Kirk did that with you?”
“We went on one date – he proposed marriage at the door of my home. But we wouldn't get married for a year. I needed to get out of Cleveland – my health was delicate and the pace of city life wasn't good for me. So, Marcus Sr. got us all this land near our Amish neighbors. We're not Amish, but we have picked up a lot from them in how to live with the land and enjoy a simple, healthy life. I was cured out here – and the proof was Marcus Jr.”
“Wow,” Admiral Vlarian Triefield said.
“My son inherits his father's desire to get things just right for you,” she said. “Yes, it looks crazy, but, that's just how they are. You're a beautiful, accomplished woman who is used to a cosmopolitan lifestyle even though you are happy with something simpler. To either of the Marcus A. Kirks, that would mean they have to get ready to provide you both. Y'all can always come out to the homestead to enjoy this side of life – but that apartment building in Columbus is so you can have any kind of life you want there or anywhere.”
“That's scary – because he's been out for almost two days now – but sweet,” my fiancee said. “I really don't need all this and that, but … I see where he is coming from, now that you explain it.”
“He'll be all right. Like his father says, this is what age 24 is for!”
My fiancee sighed.
“Your son is working for the life he wants to provide me in some of the wildest and woolliest places in the galaxy – like the Ohio Territory of old, spread across the galaxy,” she said. “I love him for who he is, and, chances are, that is what allows him to be comfortable with being me. I don't want to change him … but I am concerned.”
“Welcome to the family,” my mother said. “That's the price we pay for marrying a Kirk, and why few of the men in the family are actually married. Very few women can live with the tension of both her man being this way and then watching her children become this way.”
“Oh well,” my fiancee said. “I am the admiral daughter of the men that made a planet inhabitable for humankind for the first time. If anybody can live with it, I can. My whole job? Nobody can plan rest and relaxation like an admiral! I'll be back this weekend!”
By the time I came to full consciousness later that day, she was gone. The reason I know what the conversation was is because I asked my mother about it, and then called my fiancee. She was concerned largely because I was faithful on calling and hadn't called for nine days – I had said I was going to sleep for a week, but that eighth day came and went and then the ninth day, and then she came halfway around the world to see about me.
The weekend was coming, though, and we wanted to make plans...
“Please let me create a weekend for us,” she said. “You already have provided us both a frontier life and a cosmopolitan life paying for itself – can an admiral create a weekend?”
“Sure,” I said. “I'm willing to be surprised, as long as you and I are in the same place at the same time.”
She sent me a link to the difference between the time zones we were in.
“Your early morning is my night here,” she said, “so be ready to travel at 5:00am on your Saturday.”
“Are you going to be all right?” I said. “Your night is for sleeping, though.”
She smiled.
“I'm an admiral. I'll get all that figured out. Just be ready, please.”
The two days flew by … and then, standing outside my house on a Saturday morning near dawn, I was waiting for my pickup when I was beamed up!
My fiancee had access to things like personal transporter services – admirals didn't have to take public transports unless they wanted to, and neither did their friends and loved ones. So: one minute I was in the Ohio countryside, and the next minute I was at California's Black Sands Beach, at dawn.
That was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen until the admiral beamed in … and then her running toward me was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, ever. In the next second I was spinning around and around in the sand, holding her, her hair flying loose and settling around us when I stopped … a nice privacy screen for a kiss!
We beachcombed for a while – she loved all types of jewelry and I loved gathering seashells as much as she did – and talked as we walked. It took us until midday to just get caught up on everything that had been going on with us …
… and at that time the first picnic basket was delivered. We had our picnic on the beach, and then sort of walked and hiked – Black Sands Beach was a lot rougher than Ocean Beach in San Francisco, so it was an adventure by itself! That was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed seeing how young-minded my fiancee was ... she loved the tideline, and she was not in the least scared of the crustaceans and mollusks that we found. We made videos of tidepool life to enjoy later on – both of the life that lived there and of our adventures.
We stayed out on the tideline until the golden hour …
… and then had our second picnic through sunset, when we took a last walk along the beach, and then hiked up to our accommodations as the fog began to come back in and the twilight deepened.
We still spent another three hours in the lobby, snuggling and watching our videos while drinking hot chocolate before going to our rooms, going to bed … and then getting up again to do the exact same thing the next day, although we had breakfast compliments of the inn.
“It's so nice to wake up and go to breakfast with you,” I said, “and the next step is to wake up next to you.”
“I'm ready when you are, Marcus. We can be in Las Vegas to get this done today in 10 seconds, and then come back here and enjoy the day and the night.”
That was super tempting, but … .
“I am my father's son,” I said, “and I don't have our apartment furnished yet in our new building.”
“You're such a Marcus A. Kirk,” she said, with a sweet laugh. “Okay … I'll come out from Hyderabad next weekend and I'll put some touches on all that then. Of course by that time, I'll arrive and you will have traded that apartment building up to a mansion or something.”
“Or something,” I said, and she laughed again.
We at last had some time – Captain Dixon my partner wouldn't be back from his runs for another two weeks, and then we had to sit down and plan our next serious of long runs before either of us left again, particularly since we really needed to buy a third and maybe a fourth ship at this point and hire not only new crews, but new captains.
Of course, by that time, we would have a third business partner.
The admiral and I set our wedding date for two weekends away from our weekend on Black Sands Beach – she would be finished with the conference, and I would have time to get the apartment and the whole property how I felt it needed to be for her.
*The four fractals were created and rendered in Apophysis last week, and I made one into a complete shoreline scene Sunday night just to see if I could ... and then I tokenized all of them in NFT Showroom in 45 minutes on Monday! Links to the entire series are below -- and yes, you can collect them all!*
[Summer Waves on Black Sands 1: Dawn](https://nftshowroom.com/deeanndmathews/gallery/deeanndmathews_creation-through-the-lens-of-fractal-art_summer-waves-on-black-sands-dawn)
[Summer Waves on Black Sands 2: Midday](https://nftshowroom.com/deeanndmathews/gallery/deeanndmathews_creation-through-the-lens-of-fractal-art_summer-waves-on-black-sands-midday)
[Summer Waves on Black Sands 3: Golden Hour](https://nftshowroom.com/deeanndmathews/gallery/deeanndmathews_creation-through-the-lens-of-fractal-art_summer-waves-on-black-sands-golden-hour)
[Summer Waves on Black Sands 4: Sunset](https://nftshowroom.com/deeanndmathews/gallery/deeanndmathews_creation-through-the-lens-of-fractal-art_summer-waves-on-black-sands-sunset)
[Summer Black Sand Shoreline](https://nftshowroom.com/deeanndmathews/gallery/deeanndmathews_creation-through-the-lens-of-fractal-art_summer-black-sand-shoreline)
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