Soul was asleep.
Heart reached up and tapped on Brain.
::Tap tap tap::
“You didn’t forget, did you?”
Brain looked down. “No. Of course I didn’t forget. What do you think I am? Stupid? I couldn’t forget if I tried.”
Heart listened while Brain elaborated.
“She keeps recalling it with a start during her waking hours.
The surge of adrenaline makes me tingle every time.”
Brain was talking about Soul; who was in charge.
Heart heaved a sigh of frustration. For all her common sense, Brain could be a little sensitive if she felt like someone was picking on her job performance.
“Well you forgot once. Remember?
You forgot for a long time.”
Brain was silent.
“I didn’t forget.”, She thought to herself.
“Soul just didn’t want to remember. It was more important for her to be angry.
I remember that too; her anger.”
Heart was silent as well, because Heart remembers things –all the time– that Brain seemed to let go.
Like the first time that Soul learned she was pregnant, and was afraid and confused.
She’d had a plan, and the baby meant it had to change.
Heart remembers the happy turning point in Soul’s perspective; and why not?
She was in charge of Soul’s feelings, after all.
She took her job just as seriously as Brain did; walking with Soul every step of the way.
Yes, she was known by all the others to have a tendency to leap to conclusions, and
Yes, she allowed emotion to flow powerfully, even impulsively at times.
But she did not care.
She would rather stop beating than to let Soul down by losing an emotion.
And she would not forget the day,
Could not forget the day,
The day that was coming up.
Looming closer with each passing hour.
The day that *He* was born.
Brain stores the images.
Everything the twins see are filed up there.
Like the images of
The location.
The location where Soul made her decision to give all.
Heart bore the weight of the consequences of that decision;
Of the inevitable ensuing emotions;
Betrayal. Love. Shame. Heartbreak.
Love again.
But Heart was created to carry things.
When Soul is sleeping, and the members share secrets, she tells everyone that Love is her favorite emotion to hold.
Because Love isn’t fickle or fleeting like the others.
And Love has some kind of miracle ability to rise to the surface, like it wears an invisible life-vest or something.
Even when it slices Heart’s hands to hold Love, it somehow produces more life than there was before.
Yes, Love was Heart’s favorite emotion.
She resumed the conversation.
“There was a day that I thought her love for him had died. Do you recall, Brain?”
“Many days.” Brain replied.
“Too many to count.”
“Well, you’ve always struggled with numbers.”, said Heart.
“Hey, Do I pick on you for feeling so intensely?”, asked Brain.
“No… Not really.”, answered Heart. “But how could you? I can’t help the way I was created. Good or bad, this is what I am.”
“My point, exactly.”, said Brain.
And Heart glared up at her.
Brain was always pulling logic out of nowhere to make some kind of point.
“The fact is, we were sure that Soul would never forgive, and then there he was.
The twins saw him first.
And it was over.
The dry season of sorrow was over.
Remember?”
Brain nodded silently.
“Love wrestled out from beneath those two bullies, Resentment and Pain, (for she knows no other way to behave, Brain, I’m telling you) and faithfully bobbed to the surface.
But it cut my hands to hold her.”
Brain remembered.
The images were recalled.
His dark flashing eyes.
His radiant smile.
And the woman on his arm.
Oh yes.
Brain remembered the images and Brain recalled the incessant conversation Soul had within herself, while she tried to convince Brain and Heart that it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter a whit, that someone else was tasting his kiss.
And feeling his embrace.
And touching his skin for prolonged periods of time, while resting in the soft enclosing darkness of his bedroom while limbs entwined and tongues did the same…
Someone else’s legs rested upon his during slumber, as hers once did.
Soul convinced herself of her success in believing that it just did not matter.
While Heart knew better.
Heart continued to hold Love which cannot die, while Brain logically concluded that Soul needed to believe she did not care anymore in order to maintain the level of functionality she had been experiencing.
So she allowed Soul to deceive herself, knowing it would only last a season.
And it did.
Last.
For a season.
Until Soul relaxed her guard and asked the twins to find him.
It didn’t take long.
Soul gasped when she saw him.
He was more beautiful than before.
“How is that possible?”, the twins asked Brain one day.
“She isn’t seeing him through your lenses”, Brain instructed.
“She is letting Heart do your job when she looks in his direction.”
The twins were prideful, therefore, mystified.
Offended.
They thought that they were the most important part of Soul’s body because they kept her out of danger.
And didn’t they show her the Rocky Mountains?
And the Smokies?
The Atlantic AND The Pacific oceans?
And if it weren’t for them, how would Soul have seen what each of her babies looked like on the day of their birth?
Brain and Heart tolerated them because they, unlike the twins, were wise and understood that eyes were necessary, even if they could be dismissive and make snap judgments.
Eyes were shallow.
It was just the way of things.
“He really was more beautiful than ever.”, said Heart.
“I know this.”, Brain conceded, reluctantly, with a touch of exasperation. “I hold the images that she keeps pulling up from the archives.”
“Have mercy on her.”, pleaded Heart.
The anniversary is days away, now.”
“I am quite aware.”, said Brain, adding, “She is dreaming about him tonight.
Right now.”
“She cannot help it.”, Heart pled into the darkness.
“It isn’t every day that someone is born who will change your life forever.”
Brain was mostly logic, but even this, she understood.
“Yes. Forever.”, she agreed.
And Heart felt the drops of blood fall from her hands as Love sliced into them, again.
ajp
7/4/2014
...Just Thoughts... 