They Found Love
When Goldar looked at the moon, it was larger than usual. Those who practiced the science religion would explain this as oddities in the atmosphere. Perhaps billions of minute particles attracting moisture so that it acted like an invisible mangifying glass.But he knew the real reason from his faith. It was a call to him, and no doubt others, that it was time for them to find love. Never for himself, of course. Only for others. He never met any other spirits who spread love, but merely presumed that they were somewhere performing the same task as he.
Love can be very selfish and sometimes forgets the joy is in the giving and not the receiving. So he and the others were assigned the task of finding love and giving it to people. There seemed no rules or reason, so he followed his whims and mood.
This should have made him feel sad. But his heart died along with the rest of his body. He hated thinking of the day he died. All he did was go to a bar to try and convince a fellow drunk that today was the first day of her sobriety. And then all the noise and panic that was followed by him seeing his own body from above. Two bullet holes in the back and one in the side of the head. Lights out.
He silently drifted through the city, lit more by moonlight than streetlight, until he reached an area of clubs and bars. Outside one, a couple were agruing. Well, she was arguing and he was emptying his stomach into the nearest gutter.
Nearby, an elderly couple were holding each other tightly as though trying to share body warmth in the winter. They seemed a bit worried that this argument would somehow infect the loving warmth their hearts shared all year. Goldar reached into their hearts and took a little of that love and gave it to the other couple. They resisted, but anger and hatred are no match for love.
Suddenly, the man started laughing and crying at the same moment. The woman was not sure whether to yell or run. The man got to his knees and crawled to her, putting his arms around her legs. "Do you remember the first time we tried to make love?", he asked.
The odd question made the woman's anger disappear. Neither of them had ever thought of sex until that night. They had no knowledge or experience, only love and desire. There were no rules or practices to be shared. It was merely two young lovers exploring a new universe of passion. To discover their similarities and especially their differences.
"Is there a way for us to find that again?", was his next question.
She looked down at her lover and wondered if they could ever recapture that feeling. There had been several years and many aguments since then. Some words that should never have been said. Life. But she was sure they would try. If it were ever possible to get that feeling again, it was worth any effort. They held each other and cried away the pain each had inflicted on the other. They found love.
The dark spirit floated toward more lights. He should have felt happy to rekindle that mystical feeling in two more people but he had no heart. He chuckled a bit at the idea of some heartless spirit floating around spreading love.
But his happiness quickly faded. He used to have a heart. Not just the kind that pumped blood but also the type of heart where you enjoy waking to birds or a child crying for breakfast and see the day as new and different. Then hoping to infect everyone with that joy. But it ended when he was doing nothing but trying to help.
He could see her face and smell the alcohol as she sat across the table from him. She was good at using makeup to hide the signs of her frequent binges. She hid the horror of the last two decades well, except for her eyes.
When they first met in college, they travelled in different circles. They shared a class but rarely had other contact. Her eyes now looked blank and empty but in the earlier days they beamed with happiness. They sparkled with a lust for life that distracted him during class. He wondered what would have happened had she simply accepted his hand across the table. Something finite and physical to hang onto while their words fought through the alcohol-induced numbness.
Neither of them had noticed the man at the bar with a gun pointed at the bartender. It was a robbery in progress with most of the customers unaware. But when she jumped away from his hand, she annoyed or frightened the thief who yelled something ending in "itch". Goldar jumped from the table to push her away but caught his foot on the table leg and made an excellent target. Lights out.
The exterior of the bar was empty except for the couple in the back seat of a car, groping and slobbering all over each other. He almost reached in but quickly noticed that this was love's cousin, lust. A combination of hormones and drugs and egotism.
Not a bad thing, he thought, but not on the menu.
So he entered the bar and looked for people to give love. There were many couples in various clutches and groups of the same gender or mixed combinations. There were two women in the corner, trying to hide their argument. Their words were subdued but facial expressions also speak loudly.
He thought it might be two lesbians arguing about some indiscretion with the cute girl down the hall and how it was just an accident that their bodies got intimate.
But it was two sisters. Oddly, the scenario was quite similar with some infidelity with the boyfriend of the other. Or something like that. A small joy he had in his work was what he called stereo. Using each hand into different hearts at the same time. Childish, to be sure, but when you're dead, I suppose you take your pleasure whenever you can. Goldar took these smalls things to heart.
Suddenly, the argument heated up and one of the sisters yelled, "You knocked out my tooth and then flushed it down the toilet". Most of the nearby tables went silent except for those few who thought the story funny. Whether it was the laughter or the love, the sisters also started laughing. Within a few minutes, they were sharing good and bad stories from their decades as sisters. They agree that should 'that bastard' call either of them, he would be told to go somewhere warm that rhymes with swell but Goldar didn't think the boyfriend could reach that place from their side of life.
But, as it was his task, he helped them find love.
As he was leaving the bar, he saw a middle-aged couple upset with each other and was disappointed that it was due to his difficulty performing his spousal duties due to his health. At least it was a chance for a second stereo. Would that have been a stereo stereo? After a few minutes, her eyes teared up and she leaned over and said, "You used to pleasure me with your tongue but stopped. I wonder why?". At first, he got angry and then his face went blank and he said, "The last four or five times, you pushed me away.". She thought for a minute and laughed. "I'm sorry. Do you remember that horrid goatee you grew? It scratched and burned." He started laughing and admitted having facial hair made him look like a serial killer or worse. Goldar knew they would be headed home soon. They found love.
The thought of a middle aged couple having oral sex was not a pleasant thought but it was better than thinking about the night he died. Why did he have to relive that every time the moon rose? Was his crime so horrific to merit that?
Thankfully, the bars were closing and sending people home. That meant the moon would soon set and he would go wherever he went when he was not self-aware. Goldar wondered if he slept and dreamt of love or simply ceased to exist for some time. Not that it mattered. He was dead to be sure. No pulse nor heartbeat, no need for ingesting or evacuating anything. Too many uncounted years of waking to the moon without anyone aware of his presence might be his own personal hell.
As he drifted around, looking for love, an argument attracted his attention. A young man and an older one were aguing loudly outside an apartment. It only took a couple of minutes for Goldar to figure out that the son was thinking of marrying outside his clan. In the black, white and grey world of death, races and ethnicities seem to disappear. Whatever. First he did the father and then the son. But he did not wait to see the outcome he already knew. They found love. Goldar knew they would accept that love does not understand concepts like colour, religion or even gender. He was surprised to feel impatient and nervous, suddenly annoyed with his task. He felt a stab in his heart as though someone had tried to rip it from his body and saw only her.
The night he died haunted him and he suddenly decided that if he went away from moon, he might compress time or somehow alter things. He mustered as much speed as he could and was grateful for hovering or whatever it was called. Perhaps he could escape the unhappy routine of delivering joy to others?
Yet the moon seemed to chase him, growing even larger and getting closer. Soon the light was so bright someone alive might think it day. And then brighter still, until there was nothing left but the light. Brilliant and blinding. And then there he was at the table with her sad eyes ripping at his heart. Not hovering above it, seeing his sorry existence get snuffed out, but at the table. The song was the same, the people familiar and the man at the register still as insane. Was this just the torture he faced when he wasn't dead? This time, he reached across the table with both hands and grabbed hers, not allowing her to pull away. He told her he missed the fire she had in her eyes when they were in college.
She froze as though someone had slapped her. She thought the words were the most horrible thing she had ever heard. And also the most loving. The mood was broken by the sound of the moron at the front firing a shot into the ceiling as he escaped with a few hundred dollars. But that didn't matter to Goldar. That didn't matter to her. They found love.