Mutually Assured Destruction

Beyond time, reason, and reality, there exists a place, InBetween. Where death is life, and life death re-imagined. Two young souls are talking there, talking about where existence may take them next.

"I hope I'm an ant," said the first soul.

"Oh! What a great thing to be an ant!" said the second soul.

"But I've also thought about being dirt, the earth which all beings are grounded in, which all life comes from and eventually returns in death, as flesh and bone where life will wiggle through me to find, consume, to live inside, a body's final gift back to the world, and I would be its beautiful wrapping... Can you imagine what it would be like life moving through you? Coursing through you like blood through veins, and continuously growing?"

"Hmm," the second soul thought, "That does sound nice but I've always wondered about being a part of the sun, a part of that light which shines so brightly across the galaxy, pulsing, radiating in unison with the other souls as we perpetually sink into the life on Earth, Venus, and Mars, until one day I have no more left to give, and another soul comes to take my place as I return back to space."

At that moment, an older, wiser soul appeared, listening intently to the young ones' aspirations.

"Why not be a hundred suns? A thousand stars? Why not the whole damn universe, and be everything, all at once?" interrupted the old soul.

"Well, that would be amazing! Is it possible to be a part of something so large?" asked the first soul.

The old soul laughed, turned about and left the two young ones to their thoughts. Eventually, they both left InBetween, seeking life on Earth as a Seed, and as a Worker Bee. When they returned to InBetween, they spoke of their adventures to one another, and the exciting walks of life which came their way. They both rejoiced with one another when they each mentioned the sky, the clouds, the sun, thunder, rain, grass, the dew in the morning which made everything glitter like a thousand stars, just as what they hoped life would be, and how it was so much more beautiful when it was real.

Eager to learn more, they both parted from InBetween once more and arrived on Earth as a Sea Turtle and a Lionfish. And again, when they returned, they dreamily recounted their memories of the ocean, the swirl of blue which engulfed them and the current in which they drew breath, guiding them through life beneath land, the coral which glowed, and the coral which died, the way the world above them looked like a glassy globe, and shimmered in the light of Day. Life, it seemed, was more complicated than just existing.

Again, they left for Earth. This time, as People. One, a baby girl born to a family of five in New York City, 1981. The other, a boy born in Tehran to a family of three in the year 1975.

The New York child grew to be an artist. She started by drawing animals on the corners of her textbooks, until she learned all about space. She started to paint detailed galaxies within the afros of her characters, sewing plastic stars into her box braids, and made a name for herself as The Woman Who Sparkles, and eventually made commission as a muralist for local businesses. She loved to dance, usually when she painted so that her art looked more like a composition, or a performance. She never married, but lived making art until her last day on earth at 67 years old.

Before the New York child, there was the boy born in Tehran who grew to be an amazing story teller. He would tell his family stories he would make up in his head that day, entertaining them after dinner as everyone ate Saffron ice cream. His parents loved his stories, and would even write them down for him since he couldn't. All of his school friends went to the Mosque, but his family only worshiped the man who was pinned above Baba's seat at the dinner table. He grew to be compassionate, loving, and was always the light in the room. He also liked to dance while he thought up stories in his bedroom, until he was too tired to stand and dreamt of them instead. One day at church, he started to have a very bad headache, his head hurt and his heart was racing. Truth be told, that was his first bad day, the last one he had on Earth at 6 years old.

When the souls returned, they once more spoke of their time away. The second soul told the first soul the stories they would create, and the family which they knew as home. The first soul listened deeply, and tried their best to emulate what it felt like to paint, to draw, to make things beautiful.

"It's as though my brush was an extension of me, of my mind. Sometimes I needn't even look at my canvas, just paint what I felt, and what I imagined."

"And what is it that you imagined?" Asked the second soul.

"I imagined... I imagined that I was under water, swimming, floating with intention and purpose. I imagined that I was beneath the ground, growing into the Earth, rooting myself as I sprang up to see the sky, that beautiful azure sky that seemed so vast, again like the current, my mind the current my brush the driftwood which traced across the sea of my art, I imagined that I was here."

"You imagined you were here?"

"I imagined I was here and I was with you, sharing our lives until once more we become resurrected back to the world. I imagined you were there, with me on Earth, and we shared our lives not in recollection but together, in the present. Can you imagine that?" Asked the first soul.

"I can," replied the second soul. "And I like you imagined when I told my stories that I was in flight, in a colony of love and life and that I would look, like you, at that big bright sky and imagined bursting through the clouds, up into space, I imagined it would have looked like the stars from under the waves, like the galaxy that you tell me about from your paintings. I wish I could have seen your paintings, your hair, your body, you tell me so much yet I know so little. I imagined that I saw you, not here but there in the world next to me, by my side."

And this time, when both souls returned to Earth they did so in a pact. A promise to one another that they would search for each other until their final day beckoning them to InBetween.

When they arrived, it felt like a miracle had happened. Two mothers, each giving birth alone in the Providence St Joseph's maternity ward were in rooms adjacent to one another. The first soul was born to the Richardson mother, the second soul born to the Hernandez mother. The two mothers marveled at their children as they entered the world with a smile, not a single tear shed. It wasn't until the mothers left the hospital when their babies began to weep, crying into the dead of night unable to be soothed, or cared for. The mothers took their children to the hospital once more, seeking doctors for the answers, and left even more disappointed. This continued for some time, until one day both of the children inexplicably passed back to InBetween.

"I missed you too much, it was too much, you weren't there where were you?" cried the first soul.

The second soul embraced the other since they too had no answers, but in that moment, the old soul reappeared. "Let's all calm down, and I can explain to you what another soul had once told me". The two souls looked at each other, and nodded in agreement to listen.

"I found myself in pain, agony, when I realized I might never get to spend life on Earth with my Bonded from here in InBetween. It made my time on Earth dull, pointless even, driving me to always return here at the expense of a broken heart. You see me as I am, whole. I was once split, not because of my beginnings, no, but because I started to discard myself. The longer that you continue to seek each other, the more and more you will cease to be whole. When we believe we must need another, we begin to carve a space for them to fill out of our own flesh."

"Well then how are we supposed to live without one another? What is the point in life if not with them and them with I?" said the first soul.

"Well that's it, isn't it? What is the meaning to it all if not with one another?" Questioned the old soul, like he was dancing with the answer dangling it above their heads. "Souls cast shadows, leaving behind footprints on Earth from their past lives. The more you truly live, the stronger and further out your shadow may cast. You will find each other, if not always in the way you might expect. By the time you reach my age, you may very well have been found countless times, and you will always find eachother here, at the InBetween."

With that, the old soul departed, leaving the pair of them once again to their own thoughts. But the two souls, even after hearing what the old soul had to say, were too scared to leave. Petrified by the fear of never experiencing life with one another, they both agreed to stay. To sacrifice living in order to be in the presence of each other forever. It may have been days, seconds, or a millenia, but in time the martyrs both perished, carving out their own existence in order to make enough room for the other, until they were nothing more than wisps, in which there grew two new souls, like seedlings born anew from the ashes of love lit, which had once burned everything to the ground. The two new souls looked deeply into one another, and began to talk to one another, dreaming of where existence may take them next.