4. The King

I have an event at work to go to, but I don’t want to get there early. I have a work friend, and tell him to meet me at my place. I want my friend to come with me because I think he could look good in a suit and I think he would have a good time. I tell him to meet me at my place. I haven’t had anyone over here for three years. No one I have wanted to invite inside. When my friend arrives, I show him everything I have like a child pulling out all their toys for show. My shoes. Glass cups. The bookshelves, the painting. I forget what a guest might like to eat. I put some crackers and chocolate and fruit onto a plate and tell him, “I don’t know what people like to eat. I hope this will do,” and he smiles. I realize I have to open the wine bottle he has brought but I don’t know how to do this properly and always imagine the cork taking my eye out so I don’t ever want to try. I do have the tool and I hand it to him. He knows what to do. For some reason, I don’t hear the loud pop. He’s pulled the cork out so gently and quietly. He sits in a chair. I tried not to get here so many times, with my feelings, but here they are. We talk. I notice the time and ask him if we should head over to where everyone at work is waiting, but after more talk we decide not to go and continue talking. He tells me a lot of things. I show him a picture of me and my brother at the zoo as little kids. I love this picture. I can tell my mom loves me and my brother because she doesn’t take a picture of the camels at the zoo. She takes just a picture of me and my brother. We could be anywhere, really. Between our heads, in the background, is a clump of shit. She doesn’t notice how that might not make a good picture. She only sees me and my brother smiling at her. My guest stares at this picture for a long time, holding the picture frame in his hand. I look at him now. This man. I have seen him at work events before, and we always find each other in a room. Even when I am not looking, I know he’s in the room. It feels like there is a little fist where my belly button is and when he is there it opens and reaches out to him. That feeling is here now. I don’t tell him he should go, that it’s late. After a moment, he tells me we should do this again. When he gets up to leave, he stops for a moment, and touches the lamp I have in my home. Gently. And the light goes out. I follow him to the door and close it behind him. I don’t really know what just happened. What it means. If it will become anything. If I will ever get to do all this again. If he will make good on that. I am just glad that I am alive to have these questions and to think about them. A few days later, there is a deep sadness I feel but it doesn’t match what just happened. I go and see an energy healer about this and she explains. She tells me I knew him in in my past life. He was a king and I was a peasant farmer who was forced to provide my harvest for him and his kingdom. He beheaded me, she said, because I then led a revolt. I refused to provide. She said that I had made a vow that in my next life, I would return but as king, and I will treat him like a peasant. This somehow makes sense to me. I prepare myself to meet my moment in this life. When he texts me, I gather myself, because, in this life, I want to honor the vow I made. I decide we will not be friends.