by Dean Murray
“Romantic? I wouldn’t describe being a paramedic as romantic. It’s a whole lot closer to a character in a horror movie.”
“Not romantic like falling in love, but romantic like not being afraid of chasing your dreams, you know, believing in yourself.”
Max mulled over my answer, “I never thought of it that way. I don’t know if I’ll do it forever, but it feels right, for now.”
“So if you weren’t a paramedic, what do you think you’d be doing?”
He chuckled at this one, but I didn’t get the joke, “I guess, maybe a farmer?”
“A farmer!” Totally not what I expected. “Don’t you need a farm or something to do that?”
Still smiling at his own joke, “Yeah, I guess you do need a farm to be a farmer.”
“Was that just an answer to get me to drop the question?”
“No, not at all.” His tone took on a more serious note. “My father was a farmer, and being one seemed like an awful lot of work as a kid. But as I got older, I understood why he did it. He set his own hours, worked as long or as short a day as he wanted to. Most of the work only happens about six months out of the year, which leaves a lot of time for hobbies.”
“The way you describe it, maybe I would make a good farmer.”
“Maybe you would.”
“So did he retire or something?”
The smile that had been wide on his face since we began playing twenty questions faded a little. “Not exactly. My parents were in a car accident a few years ago and died.”
Unsure what to say, not wanting to sound disrespectful, I didn’t say anything for a minute.
“Lauren, it’s okay, it’s been a few years now, so I’m okay talking about it.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“No, it was just my parents and me.”
“What about your grandparents?”
The wide smile returned, “I can’t wait for you to meet my Grandpa Joe. He and I talk every few days, and he knows all about you. He’s been after me for the last month to bring you over. I guess the way I talk about you, he didn’t realize that I hadn’t actually seen you for a while.”
“You told your grandpa about me?” The shock must have been evident on my face.
“Well, sure. He always tells me I’m too picky, so he was excited when I told him about you.”
“He thinks you’re too picky. Wow, he’ll be disappointed with me then, huh?”
Max looked directly at me for several seconds, with no hint of humor in his face. “Lauren, you can’t possibly think that, right?”
Not sure what the correct response to the question was, I took the silent route.
“Lauren, I’d like to think that I am a pretty good judge of character. I wouldn’t be spending the day with you if I thought you weren’t someone I wanted to be with, so ease up on the false humility already.”
I didn’t have much of a response, and we had finished eating a while ago, so I asked, “What do you want to do next? Shooting was fun. We could kick-box next if this is one of those extreme dates.”
The absurdity of the idea elicited a laugh from Max. “If Gretchen found out we went kick-boxing without her, we would never live it down.” We left the restaurant in favor of some window shopping.
I’ve never been a power shopper, but it was fun to just walk around and talk. My leg started throbbing an hour or so after we left the restaurant. I didn’t want to complain, but I didn’t have my crutches along, and my muscles weren’t in shape for all the activity. Max must have noticed I was favoring my good leg because he found a side street with an empty bench and made a straight line for it.
In the twenty minutes we sat letting my leg recuperate, we had talked about places we would like to travel to, all time favorite movies, books that we liked, and favorite running shoes. I kept anticipating that our day would be full of awkward silences, but there were very few. I got the feeling that he really wanted to know as much about me as I wanted to know about him.
Just when I thought we were going to get up and go adventuring again, Max took my hand in his and the elation kind of made me trail in mid-sentence. Max raised my hand to his lips and held it there in a tender exchange; my heart started pounding.
Max stood up, looking at his watch, “How about we give your leg a break and go catch a carriage tour?” We got a private carriage, not one of those tourist ones with twenty people shoved in, but a beautiful two person carriage with a groomsman seated far up front. This ride felt magical, everything I’d hoped it would be. For someone who started our date on a shooting range, Max definitely knew how to be romantic when he wanted to be. He held me close to him the entire time, and had we not been touring the old town streets of Charleston in full public view, I know that the desire I felt for him would have spilled over.
When the ride was over, we made our way back to his truck. He opened my door for me and helped me into it, then without warning put his hand behind my head and pulled my lips to his. I wanted to be somewhere private, to do way more than kiss him. I didn’t care if this was our first date - fire burned in me for him. The rational part of my brain was drowned out by a million creative ideas flooding my thoughts.
For the first time all day, I was speechless. Max was quiet, too, and the awkwardness I had been worried about earlier finally arrived. I so very much wanted to be alone with Max, away from prying eyes, but I didn’t want to be so forward that I gave him the impression I was a skank.
As we were driving, he wasn’t talking, and I couldn’t think of anything to say. Five minutes went by and neither of us spoke. I had considered sliding across the bench seat to sit closer to him, but I didn’t get up the nerve to move. How could someone be so attracted to another person and not have the courage to do anything about it? I’m not sure how much time passed, but it was the third song I had heard on the radio, so I guessed close to ten minutes when I finally said, “So what are we doing next?”
Max asked, “What do you have in mind?”
“Maybe the arcade at the mall? If you’re not scared of getting creamed at ski ball.”
After ten dollars worth of ski ball, we traded in our tickets for useless trinkets, bouncy balls that light up when bounced and a couple plastic army men with parachutes. I wasn’t kidding. I really am a ski ball master. We played air hockey, and again, I beat him.
“You up for some foosball?”
Max laughed, “Only, if I’m on your team.” We found a couple twelve year olds who wanted to play, and we smoked them.
Max drove me back to my house, shut the truck off, but made no move to get out. Max looked a little uncomfortable. “I’d like to see you tomorrow.”
I could feel the blood rushing through me. I told him, “I’ve got plans in the morning with Rachael. Did you want to get together in the afternoon?”
“Sure, I’ve got to go into work tonight, drop off some papers and check my work schedule.” I looked at my watch. “I don’t know if I’ll have to work tomorrow or not - if I do, my shift starts at 7 p.m. Call whenever you’re done with Rachael.”
Max opened his door, “Hold on, let me help you down. Gretchen will slash my tires if you screw up your leg trying to climb down.”
As Max walked around, I glanced at Seth’s house and saw him watching out a window. Max opened my door and helped me down. We had a decent good night kiss, nothing earth shattering, but that same electric shock from earlier still coursed through me.
We said our good nights, and I glanced over to Seth’s house. He was no longer watching from inside the house: his front door was opening. How much had he seen? This had the potential to turn ugly.
Chapter Twelve
I walked up my sidewalk, deliberately ignoring the figure standing on Seth’s front porch. Although I didn’t actually see him, I knew he had made his way from his window to the outside in an effort to talk to me, but I made it through my front door before he had a chance to say a word.
I spent the next hour or so reliving
the whole day. I had not only met my destiny, I had spent an entire day getting to know him. The shooting range, brunch, shopping, the carriage ride, and finally playing games in an arcade, only one of these had been on my list for first date activities, but I couldn’t remember ever having a better day. I drifted off to sleep early for the first time in ages.
Rachael and I had decided to meet at the mall Sunday morning. I rode the city bus there. I was probably one of the few people who loved mass transit. The quiet allowed me to dissect every aspect of Saturday, and not be burdened with paying attention to traffic or other drivers. Rachael had pumped me for details, but I couldn’t possibly tell her everything on the phone.
As my head swirled with images of yesterday, I told myself everything was perfect. I reveled in the idea that yesterday was just the first of many such days to come. I didn’t know how it could get any better than yesterday. I had learned so much about him.
Max was twenty-three. When I asked him about his ex-girlfriends, I nearly fell off my chair when he shared he had never had a serious girlfriend before. When he met me, he knew Seth had been my only boyfriend. I didn’t wear my virginity on my sleeve like it was some big badge of honor or anything, I just had never been in a situation where I wanted to do anything about it. For all I knew, having no experience could be a bad thing: I could be awful in bed and a real disappointment.
“He won’t be disappointed with you,” a voice came from out of nowhere. My eyes went wide and every muscle in my body tensed - Oh my gosh, I am such an idiot. I didn’t know I was thinking out loud. Who all heard me? I looked from person to person all around me, but no one close was looking at me. Did I just imagine a voice? Who’d just said that?
“There are many ways to talk to people, only one of which requires speaking aloud. I thought it better that I talk to you with my mind rather than my voice.” This reply was as clear as any words I had ever heard - but I didn’t hear them. It was as if they were reverberating in my head.
I scanned the bus in all directions. There was an overweight man in a suit and tie sitting in the seat across from me. A woman reading the newspaper accompanied by her child was a few seats in front of me. Another woman was three seats back, watching me.
“Yes, hello, Lauren, you can hear me just fine, am I right?”
I turned around to the lady sitting several seats behind me who was watching me, and nodded that yes I could hear her. I overemphasized the nod more to see a reaction than for effect.
I could hear humor in her response, “You really aren’t any good at this, are you? I can hear your thoughts, Lauren, you do not need to look at me.” Her gaze left me, as if something outside her window had caught her attention.
I wasn’t frightened, but definitely taken aback that this woman was communicating telepathically with me. I thought as hard as I could, “Who - are - you?”
A booming response echoed in my head, “Not so loud! You’re going to drown out everything else around here, and I’ll miss my stop.”
Surprised by the notion that a loud thought was possible, I replied but not nearly as focused as my last question, “Would it be okay to sit next to you? I feel funny carrying on a conversation without talking.”
“If it suits you, come on back.” She glanced my way with a slight nod, then continued to focus her attention out the window. To anyone else on the bus, she appeared not to be paying any attention to me at all.
I quickly grabbed my bag and moved to the seat next to the woman, half expecting her to scream or scowl at me when I sat down. She didn’t. She just smiled and patted my hand. Still in my head and not aloud, “We are so proud of you, Lauren. The others thought it could not be done. I told them you could. I told them you didn’t need our help. Look at you. Courage really becomes you, and you found Max so quickly! Good for you.”
Scared stiff at this point because she obviously knew me, questions began flying through my head. Who are you? Who are the others? What did you tell them I could do? How do you know about Max? All these questions were swirling in my head when I finally regained my focus and thought clearly, “Who are...”
She interrupted my thought, “If you ask every question twice we aren’t going to get much of anything done. I already told you, you don’t need to speak out loud, I can hear your thoughts. Who am I? I am Rewsna (she pronounced it Roos-na). I have been watching you for some time, as have the others. I was in Tasty Burger when you achieved courage. I have seen some monumental things this millennia, but a twenty-one year old girl, without any training at all, attaining courage has never been done before. How did you know about the anarchist? How did you know what to do?”
“The anarchist? Do you mean the robber?” I wasn’t sure I had comprehended what Rewsna had asked.
“The robber, yes. How did you know what he was going to do?” It was a bit difficult to focus on her questions. My entire life I had learned to read faces, body language, gestures, but Rewsna was giving me no visual cues. Since I came back to sit next to her on the bus, she had not made eye contact with me. She just kept looking out the window as if it were the most normal thing in the world for two strangers to share a seat when there were at least thirty vacant seats on the bus.
“I don’t know exactly. When he walked into the restaurant, I saw him.” That wasn’t right, I corrected myself, “I mean, I guess I felt him enter the restaurant. I’m not sure why, but I felt like he was dangerous.”
“He was, Lauren. Absolutely amazing. No doubt about it, you are amazing.”
“What’s so amazing about recognizing a robber?” I didn’t understand why she was so excited. I thought my acrobatics over the counter were far more interesting than me noticing a dirt bag walk through the door. I still didn’t know who she was. My imagination had been out of control lately, and for all I knew, I may very well have imagined this conversation, too.
“Lauren, you recognized an anarchist from fifteen feet away, without speaking to him. You got everyone out of the way: the customers, the other employees, everyone. You gave him a dose of his own medicine: pure fear you shot into him! I never saw an anarchist leave so fast in all my years. I couldn’t have been more thrilled if you would have yelled, ‘Boo,’ at him.”
“Rewsna, what’re you talking about? What’s an anarchist?”
“Child, you mean to tell me that you found one, singled him out from a room full of people the second he walked in the door, got everyone away from him, and you didn’t have any idea what he was?” Rewsna still didn’t speak out loud, but for the first time since I moved to this seat, she looked at me. She had deep brown eyes, set narrow on her face. Looking at her, I could only guess that she was in her fifties. She wore dreadlocks and looked a little like Whoopi Goldberg. Her face was beautiful despite the bewildered expression she was wearing.
“I’ve read the newspapers and watched the news reports. I’ve heard him referred to as a robber, an assailant, a shooter, a homeless man, but never an anarchist. I’ll have to write that one down.”
“Did Max not prepare you at all? Don’t tell me that you had no idea what was going on?”
“Rewsa, can you not talk in circles, because you’re really making me dizzy. I just spent all day with Max yesterday getting to know him. What was he supposed to prepare me for?”
Her eyes narrowed as if she were ready to begin an interrogation. “Lauren, what do you know about Max?”
Not wanting to confide in this stranger about my incredible obsession, all I was comfortable saying was, “Max is the paramedic who kept my heart pumping after I was shot.”
“Lauren, you ought to know a good deal more than that.” For the first time she spoke aloud, and I could hear the contempt in her voice. Her voice sounded Romanian a little, not so much of an accent that she was difficult to understand, but enough of a European sound that it was obvious she wasn’t local. “Okay, from the top, did Max come to you in a dream?”
Rewsa convinced me that I was definitely not imagining this conversation.
The idea that we could communicate without a sound was amazing. I wondered who else was able to communicate this way? And if more than just this woman, why hadn’t this been all over the news? I wondered if I could communicate with others this same way?
Annoyance was inserted in her voice, “Focus, Lauren. Did he come to you in a dream or not?”
Snapped back to reality, at least my reality this minute, I responded quietly, “Yes.”
“What exactly did he tell you?”
“Exactly, he said that we were going to meet soon, but I had to be courageous. He said a lot of other things about challenges we would have to meet; I have to tell you that I really wasn’t paying that much attention at the time.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’ve been keeping an eye on you then. He didn’t explain to you who you were, or who would be working against you?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“All right, listen, my stop is coming up soon, and I can’t stay to chat. I’ll tell you what I can, but Max should have told you all this already. Every soul has a specific purpose predetermined before they take human form. Almost no one can remember their purpose after they turn two years old, but it is burned into them and resides in their unconscious until an event or a person is able to unlock it. The purposes are Protectors, Instigators, Anarchists, Tempters and Mates – there are more, but these are the basics. Some souls get more than one purpose relative to the other souls they are destined for.”
“So the robber was my anarchist, but he could be someone else’s protector?”
“Yes, exactly! Only the soul knows when it is time to assume a new role. You already know that Max is your mate.”
My wheels began to turn and I made a logical leap asking, “Does that mean that Seth is my protector?”
“That damn Seth, I need to grab him by his ears and shake him! Yes, he is supposed to be one of your protectors, and somehow he has convinced himself that it is his job to be a tempter. He isn’t imprinted for a temptation for you, so no matter how hard he tries or what he does, you will never feel the need to be anything more than his friend. His only role for you for this entire life is to be your protector.”