Wednesday, July 11, 2001

• Old Soul

  When I was twenty-four I met this woman. She was thirty-nine. I turned twenty-five a few days before she reached forty. We only knew each other a few months. She had the fairest skin and bluest eyes but her hair was dark, dark brown falling just short of being black. She was tall and thin. A little too thin... boney. She was frail looking. It was terribly apparent she hadn't been eating. I could tell this about her when I first saw her and it was confirmed sometime later when asked. She was still quite lovely, though. I was incredibly attracted to her but it wasn't her skin that drew me in.
  
  For a while we spoke casually the way you speak to an acquaintance. We spoke of those things we did to pay the rent. She managed a mail room. We spoke of those things we did for ourselves when we had time. She was a poet and a good one. She was an amateur artist. We skirted the issue of our mutual attraction completely but it was plainly obvious. I asked her one day if she would let me read her poetry. She was unquestionably thrilled by the idea. She agreed to bring some of her poems the next day with a gleam in her eye and didn't stop smiling for the rest of the conversation.
  
  She brought a book and a looseleaf notebook with her. The notebook was her soul on paper. The book was an anthology of works by many poets and three inside belonged to her. She was quite proud of them. And rightly so. She sat with her chin propped up and watched me read. I could feel her eyes on me and it was not at all uncomfortable. I felt a need to be honest with her, to tell her what I thought or felt or didn't understand and what I liked or didn't like. She answered my questions happily. She took my criticisms with a smile and agreed with most. She explained that which I didn't see right away with a grin. She was delighted to be talking about these things that were so dear to her. As she left that night, she turned back, smiled and said something to me that I've never forgotten.
  
  "You have an old soul."
  
  I had never heard five more comforting words. It was just how I felt at the time but didn't know how to express. The next day she asked who had hurt me. I hadn't mentioned anyone or anything but she knew. I told her the tale of being betrayed by someone I thought never could. I asked who had hurt her. She hadn't mentioned anyone or anything but I knew. She told me an almost identical tale of being betrayed by someone she thought never would.
  
  She told me she was moving in a month. I saw her a little less often then but not much. She told me things about me that I never spoke of. She saw into me in a way no one ever had. It were as though I were made of glass. It was this ability of her's that made me frightened of her. She knew that, too. I knew she was frightened of me also. She admitted it more than once but wouldn't tell what it was about me that scared her. I never knew. We danced around the idea of one and other. We flirted with it but nothing more.
  
  She moved and I didn't see or hear from her for a month or so. She was in a store. So was I. I smiled when I saw her. She noticed me just before I got to her and scowled. I was taken aback by that. I said hello. She replied in kind... coldly. My heart pounded.
  
  "I missed you," I said tentatively.
  
  "If you missed me you would have come to visit me," she said through clenched teeth. She turned and walked off. I didn't realize I had hurt her and never meant to. But she saw through me like glass... and knew how that would hurt me.
  
  I never saw her again.

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