The Simpatico Series Box Set (3 books in 1)

by Dermot Davis

  “Yes, I know what you mean,” Dowling said with a nod of his head. “It’s like he was speaking to a different part of you, the part that’s in here,” he said, touching his heart, “and not up here,” he said, touching his head.

  “Yes!” Fiona said, spilling her tea in excitement. “That’s exactly what he did too; touching his heart and then his head, like that!” she said like it was maybe it was an omen or something.

  “He talked about the soul?” Dowling asked like to him it was pretty obvious.

  “Yes! His whole talk was about the soul and the two worlds of, this world and the world of beyond.”

  “The world of matter that we live in and the world of the spirit that we aspire to,” Dowling added.

  “You know all about that stuff?”

  “It’s not new and original,” Dowling said with a chuckle. “Although I guess it is if you are just hearing about it for the first time, I shouldn’t jest.”

  “Well, it kind of blew me away,” Fiona said, her excitement abating. “It’s been all I’ve been thinking about since. Of course I didn’t say anything to Andrew; he sat there the whole time with a scowl on his face like he couldn’t wait to get up and leave.”

  “It’s not unusual for two people to have a different set of timing. One person may see something or think something important before the other. They usually catch up or they balance each other out somehow.”

  “I don’t know,” Fiona said despondently. “Sometimes I look at Andrew and think…” she said and stopped as if she didn’t want to jinx anything by saying what she thought out loud. “He can seem so stuck sometimes,” she then said, thinking with effort. “Like, stuck in his ways or in his thinking. Like he has a lack of imagination or maybe flexibility in his thinking, more like. He pisses me off sometimes, I guess,” she then said with a grin.

  “Even as twins, my brother and I seldom thought alike. Why expect that of two very different individuals with very different upbringings?”

  “I guess,” Fiona reluctantly concurred. “Like he thinks he has to join this secret society as if he had no other choice. He can’t imagine not joining them, like his very life depended on it.”

  “You can see a different choice for him?” Dowling asked in a supportive way.

  “Well, that’s just it, I can’t,” she said, like that was the point she was making. “But I do believe in the choice that I can’t see. Like, when I thought that there was only one way, it never really meant that there was only one way, there was many other ways but I just wasn’t seeing them at the time, do you know what I mean?” she asked, like she needed some help.

  “Yes, I think so,” Dowling agreed but by his silence he encouraged her to go on.

  “Always another way would show up and that would be the right way. I’d be surprised at first but then I was really happy that I didn’t decide on what I thought was the only way because that was a shitty choice and would have really messed me up or something, you know? But because I believed that the right way would come along, I said no to the shitty way and waited for the right choice to come along. And it always did,” she said, sounding emotionally spent. “How do you explain that to someone that has a hard time believing in a benevolent, mystical universe in the first place?” she asked sadly.

  “I think what you’re talking about has a lot to do about trust,” Dowling said as if he fully agreed with her. “Trusting that the path you are meant to take will make itself known, in time. Not necessarily in the time that you want or desire but will enfold in its own natural unfolding.”

  “Yes,” Fiona said, like she felt understood. “Trust and a belief in the… unknown. In a path. Destiny?” she asked.

  “Destiny, fate,” Dowling said with a smile. “Don’t be too hard on Andrew,” he then said softly. “I know what it’s like not to be understood or have someone you care about seem like they are so separate most, or some, of the time. I think everyone on this planet has problems with trusting and believing but I also know that everyone has their own timing and we can write someone off too early before they had the necessary time to grow and learn what it is that we already may know.”

  “I guess.”

  “The other side of that coin is that they may know something we don’t and they’re waiting for us to catch up with them. It’s tricky, don’t you think?”

  “I want to go on a vision guest but I’m afraid to tell Andrew,” Fiona said like she wanted to get something off her chest.

  “A vision quest?” Dowling asked, like he was thinking about its appropriateness for her.

  “Have you ever done one?”

  “No, but I have had students tell me of their experiences. They were generally positive, I would say.”

  “I looked it up on the web and I want to do it. I want to contact my soul and get a vision of what I should be doing with my life; to find the right path that my soul wants me to take. I’ve been feeling so aimless, you know?” she said with such a vulnerability that tears welled up in her eyes. “I have all of these opinions about things but I have no clue if I’m really right. If I’m really in touch with my intuition. Like with my dad?” she said as she remembered all her recent argumentative conversations with Andrew. “It’s like I can feel things about him, bad things, but I don’t have any proof, you know? He says things that everyone else believes but I know that he’s lying. I don’t know how I know, I just know.”

  “Your intuition is very strong, Fiona,” Dowling commented with a nod of his head. “You should always trust what it says.”

  “I want to live with purpose, with the right purpose and not be at the mercy of random reality, following the whims of those around me, like I don’t have my own path or purpose… before things get out of hand and everything goes to shit, you know?”

  “Yes,” Dowling said, holding her shoulders as her tears began to flow. “I know exactly what you want.”

  “Andrew is about to make the worst decision of his life and I don’t know what to do about it,” she said, her body now sobbing. “Do I stay and support him or do I leave him and…” Unable to finish her question, Fiona surrendered to the supportive arms of the professor.

  “There, there,” he said gently. “Everything’s going to work out just fine, you’ll see,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster, which wasn’t very much.

  Chapter 11

  Andrew worked a normal day but he could barely concentrate on anything he was supposed to be doing. All he could think about was the secret society initiation he was supposed to attend that evening. Fiona had been far from supportive and the way that she was acting was further adding to his bad mood. She had finally answered his calls and suggested that they meet for lunch to “discuss things,” which sounded ominous.

  They met at a family-style restaurant not far from his office. Greeting each other like they were estranged already, in a way that seemed physically and emotionally distant to Andrew, they were led to a booth by the window. “Your waiter will be right with you,” the friendly, yet disinterested hostess told them before she sauntered away.

  “What are you in the mood for?” Andrew asked as he surveyed the plastic menu.

  “I’m not really hungry,” Fiona said, her menu lying abandoned on the table before her. “Maybe just some coffee.”

  “So...,” Andrew said but didn’t really know what to say. “How have you been?”

  “Okay,” Fiona answered. “Had a nice time with Professor Dowling the other day. He measured my precognition ability, I think.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah. You? How have you been?” she asked but was interrupted by the waiter who came and took their order: a tuna salad sandwich for him and a cup of coffee for her.

  “You know I have the initiation thing tonight,” he said, like maybe she had forgotten.

  “You’re going through with that?” she asked.

  Andrew looked at her with a puzzled expression. “I thought we agreed that I have no choice?” he ask
ed, feeling scared and unsupported. “What’s up with you?”

  “We didn’t agree, Andrew,” Fiona said as the waiter served her cup of coffee. “You decided and agreed and you assumed that I agreed also, which I didn’t, I don’t.”

  Looking like he had just been winded from a punch in the stomach, Andrew placed his elbows on the table and cupped his hands before his mouth. “You don’t agree,” he said it like a statement.

  “No.”

  “I thought we were in this together,” he then said, his stomach contracting from nervousness. “I thought we were stronger together.”

  “We are. Totally,” Fiona agreed.

  “Well, then.”

  “Andrew, your idea of together is getting whatever you want and expecting me to go along with you. I did for a while but…”

  “But, what?” he asked when she didn’t finish.

  “But I’m not being me,” she said, looking like she was struggling to hold her argument together. “Who am I if I only do what you want?” she then asked. “What kind of togetherness is this if it’s all about you and you don’t even take me seriously half of the time?”

  Looking like he might explode, Andrew gripped the sides of his hair with his hands. For the first time, he understood how another person could make you want to pull your hair out. “Where is this coming from?” he asked like he really wanted to shout the question but barely managed to control himself. “What’s with you all of a sudden? What ideas has Dowling been filling your mind with?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing got to do with Dowling,” she said, thinking fondly of the man. “I want us to go on a vision quest. Both of us.”

  “What?” Andrew asked as if she had just told him that he had two heads. “You’re serious,” he then said, seeing the defiance in her eyes. “You want us to go on a vision quest in the desert with Mr. Above-it-all Butch Cassidy and his merry band of fake guru groupies?” he asked snidely.

  “Yes,” Fiona answered, ignoring his scornful attitude. “Instead of us making decisions from a place of fear, I want us to align with our souls and act in a way that is consistent with our highest good,” she said and gave a tiny smile, as she was secretly pleased that she had remembered her prepared argument and delivered it with conviction.

  “Listen to yourself,” Andrew said in a shocked tone like he didn’t know her anymore. “Where are you getting these ideas from? You’ve got so much time on your hands, because you don’t work or do anything else, that you spend it surfing the web and thinking up crazy, pseudo, New Age, gobbledygook solutions? This is my life we’re talking about here. I’m living in the real world, Fiona, come join me here for crying out loud!”

  Looking exasperated and annoyed that he wasn’t taking her seriously, Fiona looked to the side. “See, there you go again,” she said to the cup of coffee. “I’m telling you something deathly serious about what I’m thinking and feeling and not only do you not take me seriously, you sneer and you joke and you more or less treat me like I’m some kind of mentally deficient person or something. You think because I’m like three years younger than you that you’re the mature one? You’re the intelligent one with all the answers and I’m just, what? A young, senseless girl that doesn’t understand the world or how hard it is for people to work and have a job and pay bills and…” Overcome by her emotions, Fiona’s speech was interrupted by a serious waterfall of tears. Andrew immediately felt both overwhelmed and terrible.

  Shifting his body in the booth to sit beside her, Andrew embraced her with sympathy and concern. “It’s okay, Fi,” he said, looking around to see what attention they might be generating and quickly felt content that no one was looking their way. “I’m not, I mean, uh, I don’t think you’re being immature,” he said, trying to deny that he was freaking out on the inside. “I don’t think that you’re retarded,” he said with a smile, hoping to cheer her but failing. “I’m scared, Fiona,” he then said, coming clean. “I joke and I don’t take you seriously because I’m scared and I don’t understand your ideas about solutions.”

  Raising her head to look at him, she wiped her mascara-colored tears with the palms of her hands. “I don’t listen to what you have to say because I’m afraid that you might be right,” he then said, coming to the realization for the first time as he processed his actual thoughts out loud, surprising them both. “You talk about the soul and the other world, the unseen world… and I don’t see what you see. I don’t know what you know and to be quite honest, it scares me, so I belittle it, I guess.”

  Shifting her body to sit more erect and face him and encourage him to talk more, Fiona gave him every ounce of her attention.

  “I only know what I know, Fi,” he said, as if thinking it through out loud. “I get these images, I get feelings and sometimes I hear things,” he said, looking around to make sure that they weren’t being heard. “I don’t know how to control them or even where they come from, they just, it’s like I’m not thinking about anything, I’m like driving or something…”

  “I know what you mean,” Fiona said, like she really did know.

  “I’ve been using it to my advantage, at work and stuff, I can sometimes tell them when the stock price is going up or if they ask me something, about a person or a situation or whatever, then I’ll see an image. I think it’s the future. I don’t know, but I’m usually right, a lot.”

  “Come with me,” she said softly. “Come with me to the desert. We’ll go on a vision quest together; we’ll find out where all this stuff comes from and maybe we can use it better, the images, the knowledge, the information. Maybe we can do some good in the world and fulfill our souls and not waste it on those people who only want to make more money or get more power.”

  Andrew looked down, his face a study in sadness and confusion.

  “Come with me,” she said again, almost a whisper.

  Tears gathered in Andrew’s eyes and again he took a glance around before straightening his body. As if the weight of the world was being placed on his weak shoulders, he took Fiona’s hands into his. He rubbed them. “I can’t,” he then said, like it was the most difficult two words that had ever passed his lips. “I can’t,” he said again, his head shaking at the same time that he felt his heart was breaking in two. “I’m not brave enough,” he admitted, his head falling so low that it appeared to be dangling from his neck. “I don’t have the courage,” he said, like his life was shattering into the tiniest of little pieces. “I know that I don’t. I wish I did… but I don’t. I have to trust, Fi, that I’m in the right place at the right time and that all of this is happening for a reason… even if I don’t understand it.”

  Fiona sat as still as a statue and appeared to be in shock. Words failed her. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing from Andrew and she wanted to reply but she still didn’t know what to say or even how to respond. He had spoken. How could you change a person’s mind if that mind had already reached the very end of its understanding? How could you ask someone to dive to the bottom of the well when they believed that they were there already, sitting on the bottom and now sat before you looking hopelessly lost? How could you deny that a person just told you that they knew their own limitations and weren’t interested in superseding them?

  As if they were stuck in time, with their hands joined together, they sat together in the deepest silence. To an outside observer they looked like star-struck lovers who were so entranced with each other, they could hardly move or even speak.

  The truth of the matter was far more devastating than they themselves perhaps even suspected. Although their bodies were merged, their hands interlocked and their heads resting upon each of the other’s; their hearts were so far apart, they had almost ceased to exist to one another.

  If they had been sensing all along that they were slowly drifting apart, or wondered at the possibility, they now knew with certainty. Sitting together and still unable to break away or to part from each other, they could not deny the reality of their true departu
re. It was as if at some core level, some molecular level of connection, perhaps, their atoms were separating from each other. Suspended in a despairing hopelessness, they remained seated and listless. If they saw or heard the waiter when he whisked by and asked how they were doing, they didn’t care nor choose to respond.

  “I guess I should be getting back,” he then finally said, as if awakening from a trance, as he remembered that he must return to work.

  Remaining silent, Fiona let go of his hands.

  “Will you be okay?” he asked, although he wasn’t sure himself what he was asking.

  “You mean on the drive?”

  “What drive?” he asked, his mind finding it hard to come back to the here and now.

  “To the desert,” she answered, wondering to herself, what other drive he might be asking about.

  “You’re going to the desert? I mean, you’re going to go through with that?”

  “It’s my destiny,” Andrew. “I knew it as soon as the words came out of the man’s mouth. I know you understand what I mean. I have to follow my destiny, right?”

  “Yes, of course,” he answered, nodding his head with certainty. “Be careful,” he said, unable to stop a tear from falling from his left eye.

  “You, too,” Fiona said, looking like she was still in shock. She felt drugged, the way she had felt as a young girl in the hospital, having her tonsils removed, when she’d been given anesthesia. She shook her head and tried to come out of her daze.

  “I should get back,” he repeated, looking away from her to hide his teary eyes. “Call me when you get there. Let me know how you are doing, okay?”