A
Prologue to the Philosophy of the Soul Mate (32 Blaring Trumpets Greet the God
of the Brash Rising Sun)
Once
upon a time there was a young man named Jeremiah and a young woman named
Elsabeth. Though they had never met, they were bound by fate to be each other’s
one and only, for time and eternity. In a pre-existent state these two had been
one; they had shared a body with four arms, four legs, and two faces, like
every other pair of soul mates that had come before, and like every other pair
that would come after. But upon coming into the world they were split, then
tasked with finding one another. One could not exist without the other, their
lives tied together. So what would happen if one died?
First
Part: The Girl (Sugar, Spice & Nothing Nice)
On this particular day Elsabeth woke
up and decided “Today I’ll lose a leg!” and went about her way. While not many
people would wake up and decide something horrible would happen to them,
Elsabeth did only because she was convinced that if she kept on thinking about
horrible things happening, they never would. She assumed it was much like the
old saying a watched pot never boils. As with most days lately she was
particularly bitter for no apparent reason and thought the only way to solve
this was by doing something rash.
Among
the foolhardy things Elsabeth had done in her life, the list most recently
included her dyeing her silky blond hair a cobalt blue then insisting on
chopping it off without giving it so much as a second thought. Continuing on, in
the past few months she had changed her style of clothes from perky pinks to
baggy jeans and polos, from all black to army pants and tank tops, and then to baseball
tees and capris. She finally settled on plaid skirts over jeans and ironic
t-shirts that basically said “I’m cool but I don’t care.” She got new
piercings, then removed them; she’d gotten a tattoo of the symbol for infinity
on her shoulder, and thereafter wished it wasn’t permanent; and then decided to
start taking golf lessons because she was going through a plaid phase. Today’s
adventure, she was determined, would involve driving a golf cart through one of
the outdoor malls. How she would get a golf cart she wasn’t sure, but it would
happen.
Dear baby-faced Elsabeth, precisely
cute as a button in lieu of the plaid, stopped at the crosswalk on the corner
of Monroe Way and Hepburn Road on the east end of River City. She waited
impatiently for the light at the walk to change so she could cross and even
thought about jay walking once or twice, but she stayed put. She was restless. She
spotted a dog rounding the corner. The thought crossed her mind that her
patient impatience had been rewarded with a disgustingly adorable distraction.
This delighted her. However, as the dog drew nearer, something didn’t sit quite
right with her.
The deceitfully dandy dog, a lean
Dalmatian, staggered with each step it took. Through weighted breathing it
picked up the girl’s scent, lifting its head and staring right at Elsabeth with
deranged red eyes. The dandy dog picked up its pace and ran at her. Her body
released a smell of fear now and the dandy dog picked up on it, allowing it to
fuel him, motivate him. Before she could fully turn to run the dog had clawed
at her leg, nails gouging her pale skin. Tiny Elsabeth produced a scream bigger
than seemed possible. She swatted the dog with an arm decorated in bracelets
that covered scars, and she wondered how bad of a mark the dog’s scratch would
leave if she got away.
Into the street she stumbled. She
heard a horn. She saw the car. She saw her life. Then, she saw nothing.
Second
Part: The Boy (Hairs, Snails & Tall Tales)
“You are all forgiven!”
Those words rang loudly through
Jeremiah’s head. Honestly, he had no idea he had even done anything wrong.
Granted, as a twenty-something young man he was in fact the most likely
candidate to do something that needed forgiving, on average and statistically
speaking of course. He was in fact painfully average; short brown hair he
didn’t do a thing with, an average frame that he tried horribly hard to build
muscle on, and a slightly less than average but typical biblical American name.
Boring was the best way to describe his life. Mediocrely boring. He woke up,
went to classes, work, and then home. On Tuesdays he hung out with the guys,
every other Thursday was karaoke night at the bar, and twice a month on a Saturday
he would sit in his boxers and watch cartoons all day. Sure, sometimes he’d
stay up late to watch infomercials or poorly dubbed foreign movies during the
week, but did that really put any excitement in his life? Not really, no. The
most exciting thing that had ever happened to him was that golfing cart
accident he had when he was sixteen, the effects of which caused him to forget
how to tie his shoes and the purpose of q-tips. Overnight Velcro had become his
new best friend.
Today
especially all of this information really hit him hard. He needed someone to
stir spontaneity into the mundane soup of his life.
Something felt off-balance in his
universe. There was a shift, like something important had been lost. His entire
being was affected, as if a part of him was suddenly killed off and left a
gaping hole in its place. Jeremiah stared at the man on the box preaching to
all the people who were getting off of the trains and buses. How was he any
more special than any of the people here? He wondered what they had all done
that needed forgiving, and if any of them took the man on the box seriously.
These thoughts gave the young man a strange connection to those around him, a
unique sense of bonding to the complete strangers. They had all screwed up,
apparently. They all needed forgiving. And he appreciated that brief sensation
of xeno.
It
was not the sensation he was looking for, unfortunately. It did not fill his
void. The sensation he wanted was for someone to complete him, the hopeless romantic that he was. Jeremiah couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand
feeling so dreadfully bland, like he was lacking any significant achievement to
make him special.
As
if it were an answer to his unspoken prayer, or by some cosmic force, he saw a
sight he could not un-see; a man stealing a woman’s purse. This wasn’t boring. This
was excitement. The chance he had been waiting for, an opportunity for
achievement. He could be a hero. He saw it on the news all the time, normal
people taking opportunity by the hand and doing something brave for the sake of
helping out a fellow human. He could help himself by helping a fellow human.
The purse snatcher ran from the
woman and right towards where Jeremiah stood waiting, further proving that
opportunity was presenting itself to him. Jeremiah shouted “Stop!” and tried to
block the purse snatcher, who brushed past Jeremiah, escaping his grasp. Jeremiah
gave chase. The thief turned around. He brandished a gun. He pulled the
trigger. With one shot Jeremiah’s mediocre life began fading away.
His
body lay in a crumpled heap on the pavement in the west end of River City. He
could see the preacher from the box standing over him, probably saying the same
thing—You are all forgiven! Was the
shooter even forgiven? The man who had taken Jeremiah’s short-lived existence
without much thought, all for the little money he could gather from a stolen
purse, could he even be forgiven? Yes or no it didn’t matter. What mattered was
the serenity and completion he felt in the image of a girl in plaid that kept
flashing before his eyes.
An
Epilogue to the Philosophy of the Soul Mate (32 Whimpering Trumpets Greet the
God of the Eternally Waning Moon)
Two who used to be one cannot, shall
not, live without the other. Bound by something great in a world filled things
shiny and new, yet terrible too, they will always arrive at their final
destination: Each other. And though happenstance prevented them from meeting in
this life, both died because of their bond. They were united once again as they
had been before their separation. The down to Earth man and the girl with her
head in the clouds were two pieces of one whole, and together were perfect. Everybody
has somebody, and why should one live without the other?
