Soul Mate For Eternity

*Soul not required

The restaurant hummed, and the waitress had left after throwing me a wink and a thumbs up. Surrounded by people, I felt isolated and alone. Not alone, I had my date in front of me.

He was talking.

I’d never used Tinder before. Well, that’s a lie, but it’d been long enough to feel like my first time again. Looking at my date waxing lyrical about the lost charms of old Paris convinced me I was rusty. Good looking, elegant, but seriously, who wore a silk shirt with ruffles on a first date?

He asked the right questions, but something was off. Even rusty instincts can’t be wrong. Right? Oh, he’s speaking to me again.

“Go on, what happens when you close your eyes and type?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said — you close your eyes and just start typing.”

He mimed typing with his eyes closed, then stared at me with his little half-smile. Long enough for it to grow uncomfortable. He was so irresistibly confident.

“I dunno — I just let it come.”

“Where does it come from?”

I shrugged, I don’t know, it just does, “the first sentence forms and then the next and if I stay out of the way — bam — there’s a story in front of me.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” I said with a shrug, my eyes scanning the room for help, “sometimes there’s fiddling.”

“Fiddling?”

“Editing, shaping, sensemaking, it’s almost never perfect,” I said, moulding clay with my hands then brushing it aside like it didn’t matter anymore.

“Almost. That’s marvelous.”

His eyes looked predatory. I couldn’t quite decide if I wanted to run or be devoured. Where’s the damn meal? Keep talking.

“What happens when you close your eyes?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nada, zilch.”

I looked into his smiling eyes. They seemed bright, but if I stared, they were deep pools that opened into an abyss. An inky blackness that sent a shiver down my spine.

“I’m being silly,” I said out loud.

“Oh, no, you’re seeing clearly. You’re seeing that which I surrendered.”

“Hmm?”

“My soul,” he said with a table drum roll.

“You don’t have one?”

“No, regrettably not.”

“Alright smartass, what’d you sell it for?”

“The chance to find her again,” he said and then after a moment, “nevermind that hand me your phone and I’ll show you.”

I took out my phone and thumbed off the screen lock, and handed it over. My mind flashed to a dozen different things I’d prefer he didn’t see. Histories. Replies. Overly filtered images that leant toward desperate.

But he flipped on the camera and took a selfie with a bright white winning smile. Then slid my phone back to me.

I looked at the screen and saw the chair and the wall behind him. A thought rose from the depths of my literary nightmares, but it was ignored because the laws of physics disagreed.

So what?

“You angled it wrong,” I said, still looking at the screen.

“Ha, people of your age believe nothing. How about these?” he said.

I looked up as two very sharp fangs slid out.

Two days later, I woke in the dark, a close and suffocating absolute blackness — my own private pit of despair.

I lay there a moment, trying to wake up from what could only be a nightmare. Trying to force my mind awake to regain control of my wits from a dream gone very far off course.

My skin was clammy and icy panic trickled, then flooded through my mind as my feral instincts took hold, and I clawed at the inside. I ripped my nails against splintering wood. I beat at against the top.

Within this maelstrom of panic, a single traitorous thought insisted this was normal. This was my home.

A moment later, he opened the lid.

He looked inside at my scratches and tutted. Then gently, almost tenderly, he helped me out of a plush coffin-shaped box.

“That’s a coffin,” I said, stumbling backwards.

“How observant, you and I will have such enthralling conversations,” he said with an exaggerated eye roll, “never fear we’ll have plenty of time for practice.”

Silence stretched where my thumping heart once beat.

This is not the end.

Read the next part in this Serial

Zane Dickens writes stories that go bump in the night, ka-boom in space and roar with adventure in fabled lands. And if he can help it, there’s a streak of humour too.

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