Souls & Stuff

There is a little girl on the bench beside me and she is asking me about souls and what they look like. I tell her they’re kind of like balloons without strings, they’re light and white and they sort of just hang there over our heads talking to other souls about things only souls can understand. 

She pauses, squinting slightly to see if she can see my soul suspended, dancing in the wind, and for a minute I am convinced she does. She’s moved on to the topic of soul mates, and I am waiting for her father to tug at one of her pigtails and tell her not to talk to strangers, but he seems too interested in his eReader to notice.

I tell her soul mates are two souls that get a long really well and don’t burst even after they’ve told each other all the secrets in the world. She seems mildly satisfied by this answer, which makes me fear that I have undone whatever half-hearted religious training her parents put her through. 

She is now asking about old souls and I have to explain that they are souls that have found new bodies to hang around with after their previous body dies. Her eyes have just about doubled in size, and I am crossing my fingers that they don’t fill with tears. If she’s going to cry, I hope she at least waits until the bus comes, so I can run to a seat near the back and hide behind the book she won't let me read.

She doesn’t cry, instead her small forehead wrinkles and a look of utter bewilderment takes over her entire face. I explain that souls are kind of like clothing, they can be new or they can be hand-me-downs.

Still bewildered.

I tell her that old souls have lived previous lives and had previous adventures that maybe their bodies haven’t shared.

A little less bewildered.

I ramble on about how every once in a while a body will get a feeling that they have been somewhere or done something before that they haven’t and it is because their soul has been to these places and done these things for them. I think I have gotten old souls confused with déjà vu and I’m in too deep and way too tired to dig myself out of this one.

Beyond bewildered. 

I can tell by the look on her face that she’s getting ready to lay another tough one on me, but the bus has arrived and all of her attention has turned to getting her oversized backpack onto both shoulders.

Her father shoves his eReader into his own bag and turns to me for the first time since he sat down. He asks me to have dinner with him tomorrow night and I agree, because something about him feels familiar and there's no way I have met him before. I write my number on the back of someone else’s business card and take the next bus.