He showed up one day, right there, on the beach.  The sky was clear, the ocean blue, but there he stood, as alien as frozen lightning.  I had some sense of who he was, even then--but I could never have imagined what he was capable of doing. The boy--young man?--would be part of my future, part of my pilgrimage, and part of my story. The question is: what role did he play? Hero? Sidekick? Love interest? Villain? Even now, all these years later, I still don't know how to describe who he was to me. Who he was to this world, in fact. I hope that by writing this all down, I'll understand--or at least, someone will.