The Destiny Seeker Ch. 03

Walking out of the bar helped to clear my head. The night air was cool and dry. There was western pop music drifting around us. It wasn't the alcohol that had made me feel light headed. Well, at least it wasn't just the alcohol. She was so damn strange and nothing about tonight had gone the way I had supposed the evening would go. And now I was walking down a cobblestone Hong Kong street with her hand in hand.

Her small hand was warm and dry. When we had slid off of our seats and turned to leave, she had grabbed my hand. I stopped, not knowing what to expect. I had thought that there might be an electric shock, or at least a tingling sensation. There was nothing but the feel of her soft skin. She looked up at me and smiled as if she had read my thoughts...again.

"Let's go for a walk." She had said. "There are a few more things that I would like to tell you, and then I think I would like for you to walk me back to the dock."

When we left the bar I automatically looked to make sure that I had not left anything. It's a reflexive action for me, as I tend to be forgetful and have left items ranging from backpacks to car keys. She noticed me looking and I felt certain that she thought I was looking for the duffel. I patted my jacket pocket and said "Oh, here it is." and removed my cell phone. A doubtful smile crossed her lips.

The reminder of the bag also reminded me of the strange looking character who had stared at Wendy in the bar. Had she met him somewhere lost in the crowd near the back of the bar? Why had she lied to me about going to the restroom?

"I want to tell you a little bit about me. I am afraid that it might create more questions than answers, but it's important that you understand who I am and what I can do for you. What we can do for each other." She didn't look at me while she talked. She stared straight ahead.

She continued talking as if she were making a presentation to an unseen audience. "Being a destiny seeker isn't something that anyone chooses. The path and the ability chooses us. My grandmother was a destiny seeker. My mother was not. At least as far as I know she wasn't, however she died when I was very young."

I felt her hand tighten slightly in mine as she said this. She continued. "My grandmother is still alive. She is 92 years old and still living in Glasgow by herself. She is a remarkeable woman. When I was a teenager she came into my room one night as I was doing my homework. My mother had been gone for about 5 years I think. She sat down on my bed and said "Child, tell me about the colors of your dreams."

"I looked up at her thinking that she was having me on. The funny thing was I had recently started having very strange dreams where I could remember vividly bright colors, like a Picasso painting. I sat there trying to remember when I might have told her about these dreams. I was quite sure that I had told no one."

Wendy looked up at me. "I know that none of this makes any sense to you right now, but I have to tell this story my way."

I nodded my head and she continued. "I described to my grandmother that night how I had been seeing vivid colors in my dreams, and that the colors made no sense. For example, just the night before I had a dream where I saw my mother talking to my piano teacher while they sat on a park bench. It was a normal dream except that my mother had shocking cobalt blue skin and flaming orange hair, and my piano teacher, who I had taken lessons from for going on 8 years, had appeared to be a very young man and he had green, scaly skin with yellow eyes. As they talked I could actually see the words leaving my mothers mouth, like what you would see on a cartoon graphic. She was talking about me. Talking about my future as though I had not even been born yet. Her words were golden flashes tinted in red. The words would drift across the distance between her mouth and my piano teacher and then disappear into his forehead."

Wendy looked up at me to see if I was paying attention. "It's difficult to describe. Even as I am sitting here 20 years later I can remember that dream as if it had taken place only a minute ago. That was when my grandmother began explaining to me that I had a very special ability. She told me that I could trace destinies, both forward and backwards. The language of this ability was dreams and colors."

We were getting close to the dock, and she walked down a few steps and sat down. She was sitting on the very step where I had been when I had spotted her only a few hours ago. I sat down next to her.

"I can't explain everything to you yet." She raised her hand in a stop sign motion when she saw me starting to say something.

'It's not that I don't want to, it's that I do not know enough yet. I started dreaming about you two weeks ago. At first you were far away and your colors were both cool and dull. With every dream you moved closer to me, and your colors became brighter and warmer. When you first spoke to me your words were emerald green."

"I spoke to you in your dream?" For some reason this was the only thing that surprised me about her story.

"Yes." She hesitated. "You did, but what you said would make no sense to you at all. You spoke in the voice of a small child describing how a rock would float in still water and that the moon had been very hungry that day. I knew from what my grandmother had taught me that you were telling me about a destiny, and that it would affect a great many people."

I again started to protest and again she raised her small hand. "I don't know what the destiny is yet. I don't even know if it is something that will happen to you or something that you will cause."

She closed her eyes and squeezed my hand. "Think of it like one of those tabletop puzzles with a thousand pieces. You start to put it together and an image starts to take shape. But at first it's only bits of scenery and color and images.

As you are able to fit in more and more pieces, the image becomes clearer and the pace of putting it together actually gets faster. In the beginning it is painfully slow. Right now I only have a few images and colors. I saw the dock today and I saw you waiting for me. Now that we have come together, it will go faster."

I actually amazed myself by my acceptance of the story that she was telling me. As crazy as it was, it seemed right. And besides, who would make up something this bizarre?

I stood up and brushed off my pants. I looked out over the bay to see if the ferry was coming. In the distance I spotted a red light speeding towards us. I found myself smiling as I wondered if the color of the light on the ship's bow had any special meaning. I shook my head slightly, again amazed at how accepting I was of her story. I wondered if I would feel the same way in the morning when I woke up in the familiar confines of my penthouse apartment.

As if reading my mind for the third time that evening, she stood up and said to me "I would very much like for you to come home with me tonight. Physical closeness helps me to see more pieces faster. And..." Her voice dropped lower. "I want to be with you very much. I realize that you have just met me, but I have been seeing you in my dreams for weeks. I know how you will touch me. I know just how you kiss and how you taste. I know how your hair will smell when you lay your head on my breasts. I know that you are very attracted to me."

I smiled at her. "Honey, you had me at "...come home with me." So are you telling me that all of this is destiny?" I laughed at my own joke.

I was surprised when she suddenly looked serious.

"No. I told you that I don't know yet if the destiny that I am seeking belongs to me or to you or someone else. I only know that it centers on you right now, and that I am a part of it."

Her smile came back slowly, although slightly off center. "I know that this all must sound crazy to you. I wish I could explain it better. I wish that you could see what I see."

She looked down at her feet. "I wish I could show you in colors how happy it makes me to know that you are going to fall in love with me."