a place remembered

I watched him float across the room as if he had done this a million times. His hips moved with the beat of the music as the rest of his body followed as if it were just one fluid motion. The music was deafening, the bass rattled the floor. I held my drink as I watched him a few times I thought that he noticed me staring but even if he did he didn’t seem to mind. It was as if he wanted this attention as if this is why he did this, to be admired, to be adored by the bystanders. I long wondered what that would be like instead, my awkward stance and lanky body structure made it impossible to do anything without looking like I don’t belong.

“Excuse me!” Motioning to the bartender to close my tab from a distance. He nodded his head in receipt.

Making my way out onto the freshly rained street, it wasn’t too hot, or too cold. It was those nights that things just feel right, there wasn’t the humidity that I was used to. It felt like these were the nights that I dreamt of when I was younger. The nights that just made you feel alive.

“Hey!” I heard a voice and footsteps coming up behind me.

I turned around to see him, smiling and making his way over to where to me.

“You’re not leaving already are you?” He said.

“I don’t think this is my scene.”

“It doesn’t have to be your scene to be able to make a scene.” His smile was blinding, his teeth in perfect position behind his lips. He grabbed my hand.

“Come on. Give me one dance before running away.”

“I can’t dance,” I said turning my head back towards the street looking for any opportunity to walk away.

“No one cares- come on. Just one.”

“No, I really can’t do that in front of all those people.”

“Well then just trust me.” He held out his hand and I grabbed hold.

In a moment we were running behind the bar. The music was still clear as if we were standing in the middle of the dance floor. He began to dance around me. He was so smooth with matching his steps to the songs that played in the background. I began to follow his lead. One step after another. I looked into his eyes as he smiled back at me. His eyes felt familiar like I had met him a million lifetimes ago. I felt safe, not just staring into his eyes but in general. Even in this dark alleyway, I felt safe just being wherever this was. After a few minutes, I pulled back.

“I really have to get going.” I pushed away and turned to make my way back to the street.

“Can I at least get a number or a name?”

“Kyle Ridlen” I yelled as I rounded the corner.

I felt that I should’ve stayed longer. I sank into the bed under the covers, until the sound of the ringing in my ears disappeared and I was alone in my dreams. Except in my dreams there, he was again. There we were again dancing in the ally, just his eyes on mine, his smile pairing with mine.

The sun moved through the blinds as a knocking on my door woke me up. There was no alarm clock near the bed, and even suddenly woken up I never felt more refreshed from a night. I opened the door- he stood staring at me.

“Ready?” He said holding up keys.

“Ready for what?”

“Our date!”

“Our dat…”

“Come on, we have forever but I don’t want to wait that long.”

On an impulse, I ran out the door behind him. I was dressed in something new, something that I don’t remember picking out but something that made sense for that moment. I sat in the front seat of his car as the wind blew through the windows. The views out the window were like something that I don’t remember seeing before. There were snow-capped mountains, cliffs that dove into the greenish-blue water, the road seemed to go on forever and it was just us and the views surrounding us from every angle.

“You’re not used to it here are you?”

“I don’t even know where I am to be completely honest. Everything feels so new, so different. Everything feels so right like I know all of this, but I don’t remember knowing any of it.”

“You will, it will come back to you. It always comes back to us.”

“What do you mean, it always comes back to us?”

“You knew this place before you knew any other place, sometimes it just takes a little bit to adjust back.”

I didn’t know what that meant, I don’t remember living here, I don’t remember living anywhere close to here. This was a million miles or more away from Texas. I hadn’t lived anywhere else unless I lived here when I was born. But how did I get here? I wondered if I was dreaming but it all felt too real to be a dream. The road kept moving through the side of the cliffs, the sun not getting higher or lower in the sky, it was just consistently early morning. He pulled the car to the side in a spot where the road seemed to be nowhere anymore. Just a cliff with a beautiful view out into the water, a picnic blanket laid out in front of us.

“This place is everything you need it to be, at any moment you need it to be.”

“What does that even mean? None of this makes any sense? Am I dead? Is this Heaven?” I said frustrated.

“You’re not dead, you are just about to live again.”

“What? What the fuck, this isn’t helping me understand. WHERE ARE WE?”

“Where ever you want to be.” He held out his hand and moved it down, the days and nights spun around and around as if it was a rotating light and the Earth was just a soccer ball being kicked across a field. When he stopped the sun was back in its place or early morning.

“What did you just do?” I said.

“There are no rules here, just dreams. I was your dream once, now I am a reality.”

“So all dreams are a reality?”

“All dreams that you wanted to be a reality are now a possibility, you just need to make them real.”

“I once dreamed of a five-foot milkshake.”

“Do you want that to be a reality?” He looked at me and smiled.

“Yeah, sure. I want that to be a reality.”

“Okay. So, make it one.”

I closed my eyes and thought for a second. A five food strawberry milkshake with whipped cream and a massive cherry on top. When I opened my eyes, it stood in front of me with him next to it. Exactly what I thought of when I pictured it. I sat down confused, amazed, and curious.

“This place is everywhere and nowhere, it is you, and me, and everyone in different ways. Some of us see this place the same, but some see it in different places.” He walked closer to me, “you dreamt of me before, I dreamt of you before. You can not believe this place- but it’s not worth not believing.”

“So am I dead?”

“You aren’t anything. You are this, you are what you want to be but the life you lived before this is dead.”

“So this is Heaven?”

“There is no Heaven, but if you need something, this is the afterlife, but it’s not what most people think.”

“So my first night in the afterlife I went to a dive bar?”

“Your soul went to where I was- your most treasured dream, your most valued person. We meet in life and in an afterlife, over and over again. I have been your partners, your best friend, and you have been mine.”

“So you’re my soulmate?”

He smiled and nodded. It all started to come back to me now. I all of a sudden remembered him in lives I had forgotten I lived, I saw myself in different worlds, I saw us in different homes, living different lives at times, I saw us back here in the afterlife. Each time we separated it was hard but living was like falling asleep at night. Sometimes it’s so hard to fall asleep but once you do eight hours feels like a blink. That is what this felt like, nothing more than a blink. All these memories felt like they happened yesterday but I remembered everything for thousands of years. I saw us further back than I knew there was history. I saw him everywhere in so many different ways. Everything came back as if I had never left as if I had never forgotten. I looked at him and he looked at me. I ran over to his arms and pulled him close