Soul

1.

“What are you doing?” he asked rushing to her.

“Look at it. It is so tiny”, she answered, holding out her left palm for him to see.

“What is it?”

“Can’t you see it? I thought you might not. It is so tiny I can barely see it and I know how it looks.”

The man moved closer to his lover concentrating his gaze into her open palm. And there it was. The most beautiful little sparkle. A blob of energy containing remnants of thousands of galaxies, right there in front of him.

“That’s incredible. What does it do?” he asked in awe.

“What does it do?” she laughed. “You silly man. It’s a soul. It doesn’t do anything and yet it’s everything”

Whatever that meant. He was lost for metaphors. And he had so many questions. Like how could she hold something like that? And whose was it? And most importantly…:

“Is it alive?” he muttered.

Her face blanked for a moment but then the smile returned.

“It is. Can’t you see the way it moves?’

And it did move. It was swaying gracefully and very slowly. It was erotic. (if it’s appropriate to say that about a soul.)

‘But…’ she continued, ‘It won’t be for long, unless we do something’

‘What? Why are you saying? Is it dying?’

‘So many questions, I wonder if you can speak without asking anything’ she laughed. ‘It is…consuming itself. Not dying per se but melting and going back into nothingness of the space. The only way to stop this, or at least delay it for some years, is to make it grow’

The man stared to ask how to make it grow, but then thought better and said:

‘So, we make it grow. We have to. It is too beautiful’

He was mesmerized. The soul was full of colour, singing through its shape to him.

‘We do. I just…don’t know how.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I have no idea.’ She paused for a second and then she said something he wasn’t expecting it:

‘I have had it my entire life. I believe it is my soul. Somehow it didn’t come inside of me when I was being born, it was around me, covering and protecting my body. My mum said that when she pushed me out, the doctor fell back on his chair, not because he was scared by the sudden light that came out from my mother’s body, but because – he later said this – he was convinced he was in a presence of something higher than God. Obviously, he was mistaken, but it just shows how much he was impressed by the beauty of it. Imagine this tiny blob, being bigger, covering a new-born with its colours, protecting it, and moving like that around him. Oh, I wish I could have remembered it!’

‘But why didn’t it grow with you I wonder? Or why didn’t it, at least, stay the same size?’ he asked, not sure whether to believe this tale or not. He was starting to have doubts about this soul thing.

‘I can’t remember my toddler years and I don’t know what happened around that time, I only remember tiny pieces. The first good memory I have of it, was from my first day of school. My soul was still big, covering my torso like a blanket. I was shinning and I was happy. We went inside and the teacher welcomed us all to school, we had juice and sweets and we got a colouring book as a welcome present and my soul grew a little that following night. I was as if happiness made him bigger. And it was all good until I started to notice how the other kids were looking at me. I knew I was different, but I didn’t think I was scaring them. They were confused and hesitant at first. But then they started to say mean things about me. How my light was disturbing them in the morning. How they couldn’t see properly when we were playing in the yard. The teacher even put me at the back of the class saying my light is too bright to be in the front. Days after days passed, and they treated me worse and worse. My teacher didn’t protect me. She was annoyed by my light, annoyed that she got me in her class. And it is then when I first noticed my soul getting smaller.’

She paused and looked him in the eyes. Was that pity she was seeing? He looked confused, sad, and as if he couldn’t understand what she was saying. But she had to continue. Too late to go back now.

‘As I grew, my soul got smaller and smaller with each sadness. But the changes where slow and for a few years I didn’t think much of it. I always assumed it was going to grow back, little by little, with each happy moment. But it didn’t. Because, you see, my soul only grew with every new happiness, with every pure innocent moment of joy. Not every good day was a growing day. Only memorable happiness was helping it. It grew a little, you know, when I realized I am falling in love with you’

He smiled and took her into his arms. He kissed the top of her head.

‘I love you too’

‘I know you do. And don’t feel offended, I am extremely happy to hear this every time, but my soul doesn’t grow from it anymore’

She pushed him away.

‘Let me tell you this. I have to finish, please’

‘Of course. But…how did I not see your soul in all the years we’ve been together?’

‘I was afraid to show it to you. It is so small now I am afraid the wind will blow him off, although I know that is impossible. He seems attracted to my body as if I have some sort of special gravity for him. No matter how far he falls or if I were to throw him, he would come back, like a magnet.’

She smiled.

‘I hid it. In my pocket, behind my ear, between folds of my skin when we were making love. You never saw it, but it was always there with me. And I knew that someday I had to show it to you. You had to know so we can try to make it grow again. If it disappears…I don’t know what would happen to me. They say you die without a soul, but is that really true? I think you don’t die because you have no soul, but rather you soul leaves you because you died. For everybody else loosing their soul is impossible because they have it inside. For me? I am sure he will melt away soon, and I will remain an empty husk.’

He took her once more in his arms and said:

‘We will fix it. I promise. We will make you so happy that it will grow. And then we will keep it big and healthy for as long as your body lives’

That was a comforting promise and she felt better, even though she knew it was not going to happen. She tried very hard her whole life to make it grow or to at least keep it as it is and never succeeded.  Her soul demanded pure, fresh happiness to grow, and it simply wasn’t much to give it. Where could she make some? How? She didn’t know. But she stood there in his arms, with her eyes closed and feeling protected by his love and his promise.

2.

Tragedy hit 2 years later.

She was walking home from work one Friday evening when the brute attacked her. His arms were strong, his breath revolving. He pushed her to the wall, while holding a knife to her neck and she could feel him pushing himself down below her belly. His rough arms touched her in places she didn’t like showing at the beach. She tried to scream, but he hit her so hard over the face, her lip cracked, and her eyes couldn’t see properly for a few seconds. She felt like vomiting. And when pushed himself inside of her, the pain engulfed her with so much strength that she thought she was going to die.

When he was finished, he just left, laughing at her, as she sat on the pavement, with her clothes next to her, cold and alone.

She felt despair and she felt finality. She was sure the tiny soul departed now. There was no way he could have survived this.

Later, when she got rushed to the hospital, everything seemed surreal. She couldn’t focus, she couldn’t answer. All she cared was her soul, but she dared not look for it.

When the nurse examined her, she felt violated again. She was gentle and she was saying sorry repeatedly, but still her palms felt too much like the brute’s.

And then, the nurse stopped, and she heard her say:

‘What is this?’

She jumped from the bed and looked where the nurse was looking. Inside her bellybutton, a tiny fleck of energy was pulsating.

Her soul was there, and everything was going to be all right.

3.

She rejected the treatment. She rejected all the pills.

No wonder she found out a few weeks later that she was pregnant.

4.

Her love was still there, with her, but he changed.

She knew he was a good man that couldn’t abandon her after she’d been raped. But she also knew he couldn’t understand why she chose to keep the brute’s baby. He probably still loved her, but he was revolved by what was growing inside of her.

She didn’t want to kill it. Her soul was protecting the baby. It was there, in her bellybutton, too small to cover her, but enough for the baby.

As months passed, what she wished for, finally happened: the soul grew.

Each month, as the baby grew, the soul did it too, trying to keep up the pace, as fi wanting to cover and protect that body with his entire being.

She was happy.

She was so happy that she didn’t even hate him when he asked for forgiveness and left, saying he couldn’t deal with this anymore. She understood him and she wished him happiness like hers.

5.

One September afternoon, a sudden pain cut through her entire being as she sat on the sofa reading and stuffing her face with cookies. She barely swallowed and had some water when a second one hit her.

The soul started pulsating harder than ever, sending blinding light across the room. She was shooting rays from her belly and that made her laugh uncontrollably.

And then she knew the baby was coming.

She took her already prepared bag and walked to the hospital. It was very close, and she couldn’t risk driving with such pain coming more often now.

The leftover cookies remained on the table along with the crumbs on the sofa.

6.

A few hours later she was pushing her baby out, just like her mother did all those years ago.

Only this time the light was out, attached to her belly, like a magnet.

When the baby got out, the pulsating energy stopped moving for a little while, then split in two, one half remaining on her and the other attaching itself to the new human, covering him and protecting him just like it did with her when she was born.

The midwife put the baby on her chest and their combined light of the split soul seemed brighter than ever, stronger than the hospital lights, blinding like the sun’s light but without burning.

She breathed in his tiny innocent smell and her soul piece grew.

She laughed as her eyes closed and she could hear faint screams on the background as she bled out.

7.

When she died, her piece of soul detached from her body and stuck itself to its twin, making the baby shine even brighter. I

It turns out not every soul departs when you die. Some attach to the people you most love.

8.

He came as soon as the hospital called him. He was the person she loved once, and he still loved her.

How, as he opened the door to her house, he was crying a little, wishing he never left. How could he not love the small baby that she was growing? He was innocence. He was purity. He was perfection.

He sat down on the sofa covered in cookie crumbs and held the baby to his chest.

THE END

Image source: nasa.gov