Two Ships Passing in the Night

Two Ships Passing in the Night

Chaz Pallas

I had reached an uneventful adulthood without ever experiencing anything approaching ‘greatness’ involving my actions or abilities. Through your eyes, I can know your thoughts, your soul. I see into your inner self, your sentience, your cognition, your ‘YOU.’ Quite frankly, I usually tried to ignore what other people were thinking about. I simply avoided eye contact.

This is not some comic book “X” factor enabling me to leap tall buildings in a single bound. (Although I will admit it never occurred to me to try to jump a skyscraper, or even a garden shed, for that matter.) This ‘power’ is unexplained, but it is always prevalent right now and before.

I’m calling it power, but I think it is much greater than a simple power (jumping buildings, for instance). It…what I can do…could be earth-shaking, if I used it. I seldom did. The fact is that most people’s inner thoughts are exceedingly boring or a hopeless jumble of contradictions and confusion.

Anyway, I digress. It’s my story, I’ll proceed as I wish. (Where was I?) Oh, digression.

I always could ‘see’ into someone’s soul. The portal was through the eyes.

Most people avoid direct eye-to-eye contact. They feel it’s an invasion of privacy…and they are correct, it is, especially if it is me looking at them. So be it, I didn’t have much need to see anybody’s soul anyway.

Until today, that is. I was riding the ‘A’ train to a class down in the Village. On this day, a pleasant-looking young woman wearing denim shorts, a flowery top, and sockless Reboks sat across from me, reading the Times. Periodically, I would look up from my class notes, thinking. She’d be reading.

Somewhere around Canal Street, she put down the paper and happened to look across into my eyes as I simultaneously looked up from my class notes and returned her gaze. That was it! There was a jolt, a mild electric shock, measured in joules. I shuddered slightly. She seemed to do the same, a slight jump with her shoulders on her hard plastic subway seat. She sat and stared, and I stared back. A slight smile crossed her lips. I might have done the same, I think I did. I was in a trance.

We both rose simultaneously as the train slowed at West 4th Street. As we stepped onto the platform, we still looked at each other, and I spoke. “Cup of coffee?”

She smiled, probably the most beautiful, honest smile I’ve ever seen. “Nice.”

As I said, I have learned to avoid other people’s faces so as not to engage with their thoughts. But I couldn’t resist looking at this now beautiful young lady. Her beauty, at least in my eyes, seemed to increase as the minutes went by. I noticed she was still looking deep into me. This apparent interest in me despite my dress of jeans, Yankees tee, and Merrell Hiking boots, wearing an FDNY ball cap.

***

Coffee was getting cold in the foam cups as we sat on the park bench, and she asked, “How long have you known?”

“My whole life, I think.”

“Me too.”

“Doesn’t it hurt being with that ‘gift?’ I asked.

“Oh yes, always, until today in the ‘A’ train at about Canal Street, and then I couldn’t stop. Sorry for the invasion.” She laughed. “Maybe we should write a Neil Simon type play, take off our shoes and call it ‘Barefoot in the Park.’ Oh, shucks, it’s been done.”

“Ditto for me, too. I don’t quite know what’s going on, but here I am drinking lousy lukewarm coffee. Looking into a mirror, it feels like.

‘First time?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so. I learned early on to avoid direct looks. So, I might have missed one or two.” I replied.

“No, you didn’t miss any, it’s like a magnet. When it happens, it happens.”

“So, then this is your first time?”

“No, not really. I thought it happened a few years ago. Led to a hasty marriage and an even hastier divorce. My mistake. There are those who have the power to mislead us into doing their desires. He was one of those,” she said, looking softly into me.

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“Don’t be, as I said, my fault. School of hard knocks.”

“What’s this all mean. Why us? I don’t intend to, but suppose I just walked away, what happens then?” I nervously asked.

‘It means a special companionship lost If you walk away, it means a special loneliness. Your choice.”

“I’ll stay, of course. I feel a welcome feeling, a warmth I’ve never felt before. I’ll stay and enjoy it. Next time I’ll buy you more than lousy, lukewarm coffee.”

‘’Next time?”

“I have a class to get to?”

“You missed it.”

I looked at my watch and said,” Oh.” sounding disappointed.

“Where were you going on that fateful A train?”

“To meet you!”

Later in the afternoon, we relaxed over salads in a Village bistro. Greek for me and Cobb for Bea. We had exchanged names, but looking into each other, we knew that already.

“So, now we both know everything there is to know about each other. Where do we go from here?” I asked hesitantly, a little wary of the answer.

“Just wait, the answer will come.”

“How do you know?”

“I just read it on your soul.”

“You mean I know inside, and now you know, but I don’t have a clue.”

“Yup.”

“I’ve got a year and a half left before my BA. Right now, I haven’t a clue as to my career path. I’ll find out where I’m going when I hit the job market and land a position.”

“I know where I’m going.” She offered.

“How come, MS Clairvoyant? Where are you going.” I politely challenged.

“With you.”

***

When Bea said she was going with me to a place I didn’t know, but she did, it was unsettling. I was smitten with her, but she was still an unknown entity.

She was still unknown after eight months together, doing what people do when they are together in the same home, the same bed, under the same roof.

One day she disappeared. No note, no text, no phone. Just gone.

***

I continued my last year of college and took the A train back and forth four days a week. Every time the train came to Canal Street, I looked at my fellow passengers, but nothing clicked. No electric jolts. Just bored riders looking back at me for no reason other than to pass the time.

As college moved toward graduation and I was ready for my apprenticeship at the publishing house, I saw her. She looked the same as I remembered from last year with, one difference: She was holding on her lap a toddler dressed in pink.

When I looked into her eyes, there was nothing. No recognition. No soul. No one looking back at me, opening herself to me. Nothing.

“May I help you?” She asked with an every so slight smile.

“No, sorry, I thought I used to know you.”

“No, I don’t think you really did.”

I scanned the subway car in a panic of loss, then landed on the tiny hand Bea held. A toddler in pink Reebok sneakers—just like her mother’s. My breath caught when I dared look into the child’s eyes.

An undercurrent of thoughts rushed out from that tiny face: lullabies folded into bedtime prayers, a first word bubbling with wonder, the nourishment of Bea’s breast, and a soft echo of Bea’s laughter. I staggered back, stunned.

Bea lightly squeezed the child’s hand and whispered, “She’ll carry it now. I gave her the gift.”

I sank onto the seat next to Bea, heart pounding. “You passed it on…to her?”

She nodded, voice trembling with relief. “When I first knew I was pregnant, about two months before I left. I also noticed my powers slipping away. I couldn’t stay with someone like you with the power and me without it. A relationship like that, so unbalanced, would never work. I had to leave to protect you, me, and the baby. I needed a new beginning. When we connected, you saw my soul. Now you’ll see hers.”

I stammered...” Yeah, but I...”

“Shhh, it wouldn’t work, we’d be too unbalanced.”

I reluctantly nodded, resigned. She was correct.

The toddler looked up and offered a gummy smile, as if she knew I was peering into her secret soul. I reached out, brushing a wispy curl from the girl’s forehead, and felt the first pulse of gentle magic. A legacy of souls, looping forward into the unknown.

The child grabbed my finger in her tiny hand, squeezed, looked at me, and spoke. "Da!”

THE END