SOUL MATES

I’ve always wondered what the concept of love at first sight means. Is it souls connecting? Or the desires of the flesh reaching an apex of utmost certainty? Or a rapid and wondrous secretion of chemicals exploding all at once in the body? All of this telling you how much you want and need the other person, more than your lonesome soul has ever needed another before.

I saw him too late. The black Toyota swerved right into my car. I wanted to say something or maybe shout, but my hands reacted instead, wanting to get my car out of the way. But it happened too quickly.

There was a split second before our cars collided. I saw him across my windshield and across his. He looked at me too and we both felt it; behind our fears laid that tiny sliver of electricity, before it all turned into chaos. His car hit mine and I felt as though I’d run into a mountain. The impact seemed to sear my skin and reach my mind to rip my being into half. I wanted to shout again, to make another sound. I’d never needed to yell more than this moment, but I had no control over anything. I felt my mind stop as the darkness embraced me.

***

I gasped, jolting into a sense of awakening. I pushed myself up and felt sharp stings in my palm. I looked down to see the sand beneath my body. Before I could react, I felt water touch my skin. I blinked, seeing that I was dressed in a diaphanous white cloth swaddled around my waist. I instinctively wrapped my arms around my bare chest but I couldn’t feel the cold I was expecting – or even warmth – as I looked around me and realized that I was on a beach. I moved to stand up while my mind jumped around, trying to understand.

“What am I doing here?” I pondered.

The vast ocean of the beach stared right at me, and behind me was a vast world of sands. I could see nothing but ethereal sand for miles. The sky was a dim azure, resembling the daylight but also the evening sky. I blinked, thinking that this phenomenon must be a trick of my eyes. But the impossible night-day sky remained the same.

Just as I was starting into panic, I saw another person. At this point, he looked at me too. He seemed just as confused.

He began to run towards me and I moved back involuntarily, my heart racing just because I knew he was getting closer.

“Hey! Hey!” he shouted as he approached me. He was an inch or two shorter than my 6ft height, clearly older and his light-brown eyes searched mine as though I had all the answers. He was dressed just as I was, the cloth wrapped around his waist transparent enough to let me see the outline of his dark naked body. I gulped.

“Where…where are we?” he asked, clearly relieved to see another person.

“I-I don’t know,” I stuttered a reply.

He looked at me, scrunching up his face, clearly bewildered.

“I woke up right here,” I added, pointing at the waves moving back and forth towards us.

I looked back at him and saw that he looked familiar.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said, scrunching up his face again to stare at me.

Scenes of a man in a car crashing into mine flashed through my mind and I blanched.

“Wasn’t that a dream?” I gasped.

He stared at me, his eyes widening as realization set in.

“I crashed my car into yours,” he simply said.

I nodded, unable to keep my trepidation from showing on my face.

“Then…what is this?” he asked, looking around.

“Are we dead?” I asked before I placed my hands over my mouth, my expression showing the horror I felt.

He looked at me again, his expression showing nothing but worry.

“Hey, it’s okay. We can’t be dead. There has to be a reasonable explanation.” Even though his words came out with a calmness, he didn’t sound like he believed what he was saying.

“Reasonable explanation?!” I yelped. “Look at that!” I pointed at the endless sand. “Something tells me if we keep walking, we’re not going to find anything but sand.” My voice was shaking.

I was shaking.

My mind was crumbling. I was remembering the crash. It was too real to be a dream, and I knew I had to be dead. My knees felt weak and I fell to the ground. I remembered my family. I’d left them. I wanted to sob but I couldn’t because I wasn’t sure what the appropriate response to dying was.

Before I could feel any more, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shrug it off, but it felt too warm to let go of, and so I involuntarily leaned towards it. He noticed, knelt beside me and held me. His hug seemed to soothe my racing mind.

I decided to ask the one question I knew he’d have an answer to. “What’s your name?”

“Michael,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Seyi.”

“Seyi,” he said it in a low tone, and I loved how my name sounded off his lips.

I squeezed his arms around me and he held me even tighter. It was the first moment of calm I’d felt since I woke up here. I closed my eyes and basked in his embrace, and in that moment, I wanted to never let go. I suddenly realized I could finally feel warmth and it was coming from this good-looking stranger.

I couldn’t tell how much time was passing; the concept of time felt fuzzy but it seemed like such a long time since I’d woken up.

He moved to stand back up, his warmth threatening to move away. I turned and hugged his body, pulling him back to me and looked up to stare at him. I was presumptuous to do so, I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. And when our eyes met, he smiled.

I wanted to smile back, but the world around us began to shake. The dim-blue sky trembled, growing out of focus.

“What the…”

Panic darted into my heart as the sand beneath us began to lose substance and a golden light flashed before our eyes. I held on to Michael even tighter.

As soon as the aureate lights began to dim even more, a world of myriad stars displayed itself. We were pushed out of each other’s arms as we floated in a void that seemed to have no material substance. There was a dark world beyond our sights. I looked towards the distance, wanting to understand where we were. But all I could see in the void was darkness that clawed at my soul when I looked too deeply at it.

My head began to ache as I clutched at my head and I let out a loud groan.

“Seyi,” Michael softly said, worry all over his face as he tried to pull me back into his embrace.

But his hands passed right through my body.

He stared at me, at my now-translucent skin, and he stretched his hands out to me. I moved my own hands to try to touch his and we watched our fingers pass through each other’s.

We’d become impalpable, our bodies becoming intangible in this new world.

I looked at him and focused on his eyes. The pain soon vanished as fast as it had come. I couldn’t help the laugh that came from me as I moved away from the body I couldn’t touch anymore.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

I hesitated before answering. “Your warmth…I miss it. I miss it but I’ve barely known it and you for— Wait, how long do you think it’s been since we, you know, died?” I asked.

He didn’t laugh but smiled back sorrowfully.

“I miss your warmth too,” he said, his brows scrunching up.

“You do that a lot.”

“Do what?”

“Squeeze up your forehead when you’re thinking.”

He laughed this time and nodded. “Yeah, I do. Bad habit.”

I shook my head. “No. I think it’s cute.”

We stared at each other, smiling and somehow forgetting that we were in a bizarre situation.

I felt myself getting flustered so I turned away from his gaze. I finally became aware of the weightlessness of my body and I spread out my arms and laughed.

“Are we in space?” I said while flapping my arms and laughing gaily.

I turned back to him, wondering why he hadn’t answered and his gaze was on me with the most brilliant smile I’d ever seen.

“You’re amazing,” he said and my breath caught.

Just then, the world of stars began to crumble; each distant bright light started to shift out of focus.

“Here we go again,” I said.

Michael said nothing; instead he tried to close the distance between us despite our intangibility. A white luminescence shone from all corners of this world, making me close my eyes and stretch my hands toward Michael, wanting nothing but to hold him again.

A new world formed, and as I opened my eyes, I saw it: a world of pure white light. But I couldn’t find Michael.

“Michael!” I shouted.

My voice didn’t even echo. It vanished almost as soon as my words left my mouth.

I panicked. I didn’t know how much his presence had kept me from insanity until now.

“Michael!” I shouted again.

But silence greeted my panic.

I immediately felt the severity of the situation I was in. There was no distraction, no safe haven in a man I realized I couldn’t call a stranger anymore. It felt like decades since we woke up. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew it. It really had been such a long time since we met.

My heart thumped out of rhythm and I felt an ache, but not because I was potentially not alive, but because I’d lost my Michael.

“Seyi!” a voice called out just then, in that moment just before my mind was about to break free of the tiny ounce of sanity I had left.

I turned around and felt immediate ecstasy surge through me when I saw him. He smiled as soon as he saw me too. We ran to each other, yearning to be close again. Once again, Michael reached out to embrace me, and this time, I fell right into his arms. Our tangibility had returned and I could feel his warmth again. I immediately felt relief as tears pricked my eyes.

I hesitantly pulled away and looked at him. I instinctively wanted to kiss him, so hard was I staring at his lips. He noticed my gaze and his smile got even brighter. He moved his mouth closer to mine, hovering a few inches apart and then stopped. He was leaving me with the decision to close the space between us.

But there was no real choice. I needed to kiss him. I moved to close the distance between our lips and in that moment, the bright world around us grew hazy.

Oh God, not again!

“Find me again,” I said, the worry at being separated again evident in my voice.

“I promise,” he said as we pressed our foreheads against each other.

In the next moment, my body felt an astonishing amount of pain. I felt a pull; a force dragging me from this world.

And for a moment, there was only darkness.

***

I jolted awake and immediately tried to move my body upright.

“You’re okay. Just try not to move,” a female voice rang out, a little too loud against my ears.

“What happened?” I managed the words in a groan.

“You’re in a hospital. You were in an accident.”

My mind was in a whirl. An accident?

“Doctor, he’s awake,” I heard her say.

“The other one is awake too,” a male voice said.

I wanted to open my eyes but my eyelids felt too heavy. I felt a tug at my wakefulness, and I gave in, feeling myself drop back into slumber.

***

 THREE MONTHS LATER

I stood up and stretched out my hand to shake the proffered hand of the good looking man in front of me. He was an inch or two shorter than my 6ft height and had the most bewitching light-brown eyes I’d ever seen.

“Thank you for finally agreeing to lunch,” he said.

“It was my pleasure. You’ve been great company,” I said.

He scrunched his eyebrows, as though he was thinking about something.

“I don’t know the right words to say but I am truly sorry about the accident,” he finally said.

“It’s okay.” I was smiling softly at him. “We‘re both alive. It’s been months ago. Let it go now.”

He scrunched up his brows again before saying, “I just feel this sense of familiarity with you. I don’t know why.”

I nodded, feeling the same. I glanced at his face before saying something involuntarily.

“You do that a lot.”

“I do what?” he asked.

“You squeeze your forehead when you’re thinking.”

He laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I do. Bad habit.”

I shook my head. “No. I think it’s cute.”

He smiled at my reply.

A woman came over and half-hugged Michael, kissing his cheek before smiling at me.

“It was great to meet you, Seyi,” she said. “My husband and I just had to take you out to lunch.”

“I’m glad you insisted.” I said, smiling at her. “I have to go now.”

I looked at Michael and gave an awkward wave.

“Bye,” I said.

He looked intensely at me for a moment, then finally said, “Bye.”

I walked away from the couple, and as my feet moved toward the entrance of the restaurant, I paused to clutch at my chest as I felt a small pain. My heart quivered. I had no idea why or what I was truly walking away from and perhaps, I’d never ever know.

Written by Abrams