Cosmic Connection

“You see, souls are universal.”

I considered what he was saying to me. Or, thinking to me, I guess. This was all so dizzying.

“I’ve been connected to you for years. Since as long as I could remember I’ve seen you.” he said.

“You can see me? How can you see me?” my mind immediately retreating to my most private memories, fearing that I was being watched in every fleeting moment of secrecy and inward retreat. That even my modesty was some sort of public profanity. Every intimacy revealed. There was nothing unseen. My cheeks rouged. He’d seen it all.

“How could you watch me for so long without saying anything? How dare you? Are you some sort of sick voyeur?” I was still speaking out loud, not used to the idea that speaking wasn’t necessary.

“No.” he replied. It was a soft, soothing thought. It touched me somewhere deep down. It was a comfort that I’d never felt from words spoken in person. “When I say I’ve seen you, I mean I perceived you with my minds eye. I look on things with my eyes, but to truly see something you have to see it completely. There is no mystery when I see you. No deceptions or veneers. I’m aware of you with my whole being.”

“But…” I was struggling. It was hard to process my thoughts while still directing an attentive thought his way. How could it be possible. “but you aren’t even from this — you aren’t even from here. We’re not the…”

He was more practiced at this idea. Communicating with his mind was not a new modality of expression, he was a skilled orator and I was merely a toddler growing frustrated at my inability to clearly express myself. But like a nurturing adult who patiently attends to the toddler, using all signals to understand the child’s intentions beyond their linguistic abilities, he would respond without finishing my thoughts. As if there was never a question of my meaning.

“A soul mate isn’t a choice, you see. It is an absolute. It doesn’t matter that we are not the same, or that we don’t exist in some arbitrary local space within the galaxy. You and I are counterparts, and the comfort we feel — that I feel, in this connection — is a forgone truth.” He paused to make sure I was still with him, and because he was in my mind he knew that I was, and so he finished. “That we are not together, indeed, may be a gift. The pain of being close to you without the ability to join physically would be a pain I could not endure.”

In that moment I felt the pain he was speaking of. It ripped at my heart, and the tears welled in my eyes. I was beginning to feel him without thinking. I’d never felt anything like that before.