Inspired by OLWG#416 Prompt: – No medicine for that
Photographer Unknown
Mariana Young had two goals in her life.
She wanted to be a poet and she wanted to find her Soulmate.
She wrote poetry and sometimes it was good, but for the most part her works- which languished in expensive blank journals which reeked of cigarette smoke- sat on their own shelf in her living room unread and untouched by anyone except herself. She had a gotten into her head that when she found her soulmate he would discover her volumes on their shelf and as he read them would realize that she had been writing about him before they even actually met
Mariana believed in destiny. She also believed that if destiny didn’t just fall into your lap, there was nothing wrong with going out and dropping a noose over it’s head and dragging it back to your living room- kicking and screaming each and every step along the way.
One day, just before Valentines Day Mariana found her soulmate. The problem was his wife- Abbie- didn’t know that Cal was her soulmate and Mariana had her talents and strong points like all of us do- but embracing patience and reality were not among them.
She pursued her true love with her poems in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
She presented poems and he did indeed take them as a sign that they were meant to be- that they were destined to share a life.
At least that’s what he told her. He even set one of her poems to music and sang it to her.
As we know, life is full of wrinkles and bumps in the road and we don’t always seem them until we’ve hit one and spiral out of control.
The poem that Cal set to music and played on his guitar by candlelight ( of course ) he actually played it on the guitar his wife had given him for his 50th birthday. She not only taught him to play, she kept his guitar tuned and changed the strings for him. His wife had been a guitar teacher and her patience with him was infinite, so a year after giving him the guitar, he was a capable musician – though he struggled a little with the re-stringing it.
He didn’t tell Mariana that the reason he cried when he performed their ‘ballad’ was that midway through the song Cal saw as clear as day that he had hit one of those bumps and that he was spinning out of control and two days later, he told Mariana he couldn’t see her anymore.
Photographer Unknown
That’s how Mariana ended up sitting across from me in my shop on Pioneer Street- some people call it a book store, some people call it a curiosity shop, smart people never cross my threshold- but even the smartest people loose IQ points when they get desperate.
What can I say? When that happens, I can afford to keep the lights on.
The table serve where I serve my customers tea is in in the front of my shop, in the front window next to the door. For some reason people spill their darkest secrets at that table. Personally I think they believe that they can run from their words because they’re seated right by the door- but as you know, once we say something those words are free to fly.
What she wanted sounded simple enough- she wanted to own her Soulmate’s heart.
I got up and went into my office at the back of the store. I brought back my little book and set it on the table between us.
” Are you sure you want that? I mean, once you win it, it’s yours forever. You can never get rid of it.”
She leaned forward. She put her hand on my book. I want it for my own. For Always.”
I opened the book. She gave me her hand and I flipped it open to a blank page. Then I took one of her fingers and pressed it on faded paper. I lifted her hand and I snapped her wrist like a dry chicken bone.
She never made a sound.
” Your true love’s heart is yours now.”
Weeks later I checked to make sure I was able to deliver my promise the way I always do.
I went to my phone and checked my news feed for KSIN tv news and there it was:
Disaperance of Local Woman Ends in Tragedy
The body of Abbie Cross was found in an abandoned building on Meeker Street in the warehouse district yesterday.
Mrs. Cross was reported missing by her husband after she failed to return home from her sister’s babyshower a week ago.
More details to follow
Update:
An arrest has been made in the abuction and murder of Abbie Cross- a woman reported missing 2 weeks ago. We had been informed that Mrs. Cross’ body had been mutilated, but no further details were given to the press by the police.
Mariana Young was arrested after a visitor to Ms Young’s home found a human heart, now known to be that of Abbie Cross under her pillow.
” It was covered with flies. ” was all he told the press.
Well. What can I say. Mariana wanted Cal’s heart and I got it for her.