It’s fall in Seattle, and it rained all day today. I went for a swim this morning with a friend, made some food, took a nap to the persistent pattering of raindrops. I devoted my writing time yesterday to the book, so all morning today I wracked my brain for what to include in this post. With nothing immediately arising, I considered for a half-second the need to think harder, erudite and responsible, compelling my mind to create something that felt both true and profound today. But then I thought to myself, in a stern yet loving tone, “Lillian. This Substack is about self-love, self-compassion, and self-trust. Wouldn’t it be antithetical to the very core of this publication to force something out that doesn’t want to be written?”
“You’re right, Self,” I thought. “I won’t write something worth reading if it’s forced, anyway.”
So, I indulged sleepily in my afternoon nap. When I awoke, I combed through my journal and a detritus of half-born poems, searching for inspiration. There was an old poem with promise, but it didn’t feel right for today. Then I found the first couple of lines of something I almost never write - fiction.
I am not a confident fiction-writer, as it feels out of my wheelhouse (even though I majored in English and took a fiction-writing course in college). Yet I thought, why the heck not? This story felt perfect for Halloween-week, so I cozied up with a blanket on the couch and decided I’d see where it took me. Read below, and listen above, to part one of my story, The Soul-Bearer. And let me know in the comments if you’d like to read part two!
“Yes, one soul,” the gentleman repeated calmly at the butcher’s clarifying question.
He was tall, and looked to be the sort of man who might work at a bank, his light khaki coat worn neatly over a navy suit, inoffensive and pedestrian. He wore gloves and tugged unconsciously at the fingertips as though they were slightly too small. The gloves themselves weren’t unusual - it was January, and the wind was howling with its usual wintertime histrionics. Though only five-thirty, the sky was a liquid charcoal, any stars that might’ve shone snuffed out in the artificial glow of the city beneath. Inside the local grocery, however, the light was fluorescent. The store was clean yet drab, and the manufactured intensity of the humming overheads served only to highlight the old tile floor and the glass of the meat case, gone misty with age.
Despite its unnecessary wattage, the light did nothing to brighten the countenance of the frowning young woman behind the meat counter. Her apron appeared to be older than she, and perhaps part of her poor mood could be attributed to the single crutch she was balanced on, right leg in a bulky gray boot. Already apparently displeased that someone dare ask for her service, she had narrowed her eyes at the gentleman’s request and asked brusquely that he repeat his question. Seeming to decide that she had heard him right after all, she allowed herself another moment of mute glaring before pivoting awkwardly on her crutch and painstakingly making her way behind the swinging doors.
Unbothered, the gentleman waited, absently tugging at his gloves, checking the time twice from the phone in his coat pocket. He shifted his weight between the balls of his feet and his heels, but his spine remained straight, and his face, blandly inscrutable. He appeared to be used to waiting.
Finally, with an intentional-sounding thumping of her clattering plastic crutch, the butcher reappeared from behind the door, clutching a clear plastic bag, inside of which lay a pork loin-shaped package, wrapped neatly in white butcher paper. With some trouble, after resting her left hip against the glass, she lowered the package onto the scale atop the case. The metal scale shuddered, as if compressed under the weight of something enormous, but spit out a printed sticker, which the butcher affixed carelessly to the side of the bag.
“Anything else?” she asked acerbically, looking past him as if anticipating the moment he would be gone.
“No, thank you,” said the gentleman politely. He didn’t appear to notice the look of brief curiosity from the check-out clerk who scanned his item, and if he was miffed by the cost of souls these days (fifty-six dollars!), he didn’t show it. He accepted a paper bag and receipt from the clerk, though as he stepped out into the heavy mist, he shielded the bag under a wing of his coat.
Car headlights illuminated the length of his frame, but it was too dark for shadows, and as he left the parking lot, he was engulfed in the anonymity of the encroaching darkness.
…
He walked swiftly, mist beading and slipping off his coat, gathering in what little hair remained on his head, though he didn’t bend against the precipitation. Once or twice, he raised a gloved hand to wipe some of the droplets from his forehead before they dripped into his eyes. He waited at crosswalks until the walk signs illuminated, making his way quickly and carefully down the cold city streets, the only unusual thing about him the strange package that he carried.
After about twenty-five minutes of this, he turned down a side street, pausing in front of a brick apartment building. He typed in a code he must’ve had memorized; the ring from the keypad echoed in the hollow of the entryway. He was still getting pelted with mist, which was starting to blow in sideways. After a moment… “Hello?” a weak and distracted voice answered. The gentleman leaned forward. “It’s Caroll,” he said. “I have your order.”
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