by Anushka Chakrabarti
Hummingbird. Quite fast, and you can never seem to catch one off guard. There was a reason she was named that, and it was clear in the way she worked her missions. They never took long, only went on till she had her fun and became bored. And the next was supposed to be the same. Case 143.
She had been running field missions for decades now, and it had become routine to her. Now she only took the interesting ones, and going by the briefing she had received, she planned to keep this one for a while. Reapplying one last coat of lipstick, she made her way out of the restroom into the club, scanning the faces of the people around her. Bingo.
There he was, her target. He wasn't hard on the eyes, and she had to admit, she would probably miss this one more than the others. But it was no issue, she was born to be this way. Walking over to the man, she slipped a hand into her pocket to grab the powder bag she had there. But upon making eye contact, the bag slipped from her hand back to the depths of the pocket. She froze for a moment, unaware why.
The man asked if there was anything she needed, seeing as she had not broken the eye contact yet. It seemed to shake her out of her stupor and she put a dashing smile on her face. She took a seat beside him and called over the bartender to order drinks. And then she introduced herself.
It was late into the night when she realized that she had made a mistake. He should have been dead hours ago. Instead, she was being escorted into a taxi as he held her gently. Before he closed the door, there were a soft pair of lips on her cheek, and a paper clasped between her fingers. He turned around with a smile, looking to the sky as he walked away, and she looked down to find his number within her clutches.
She knew the dangers this man posed against her company if he were allowed to stay alive. But for some unexplainable reason, she had left him untouched and even more bizarre, had safely kept the number in her pocket, throwing out the powder she had intended to slip into his drink much earlier.
Many months later, she was the happiest she had been. She had no explanation for why, seeing as she’d had to drop everything she’d known for the past 28 years and move halfway around the world, but she theorized that it may have to do with the man who was currently asleep next to her.
Feeling giddy, she snuck out of bed towards the kitchen, hoping to grab a bite before returning to the comfortable abode. On the table was a stack of letters, and as she shuffled through them mindlessly, her heart stopped. The insignia on the back was clear as day. They had found her.
She had finally found happiness and they had found her. Torn over what to do, she quickly stuffed the letter into a drawer and went back to bed, her heart racing.
She knew what she had to do, but she could not find it in her heart to do so. It was the same inexplicable feeling she had felt since she met him that changed what she had known all throughout her life. She had thought she was incapable of loving someone. Was that what she felt? Slowly she let it eat away at herself until she was a shell of what she had been.
***
Bang. His blood seeped through the sleeve of her blouse.
And so maybe she never really loved him. Maybe he was just more interesting than the others. The day she picked up her gun and aimed it at his head was a clear indicator that she had just been fooling herself. And when he looked at her with nothing but love, grabbing the gun with one hand and whispering words to her, she cried. She closed her eyes as she pulled the trigger, tears seeping down her face. She realized immediately that part of her had died that day.
Their love wasn't strong enough.
But, he knew that their love was stronger than either of them could imagine. He knew it in the loving hand that ran through his curls to massage the nape of his neck when he was tired. He knew it in the loving gaze she had whenever they sat and ate one of his new culinary creations. He knew it when she would reach out to him through the highs and lows of their journey together. And he knew he loved her when he abandoned all his work, all the illegal work, just to be with her.
He had realized early on that there was something detached about her. And his suspicions were only confirmed when he found the envelope she had hid, full of information about a mission regarding him. while trying to hide the ring box. He knew that this would be something that would break her, widening the empty hollow in her chest he had tried to fill. There was no escape, he had once been a part of the same world and was still chasing off the ghosts that followed him. He had made his decision then. He didn't want her to tear herself apart. He couldn't. He loved her too much.
Ironic, wasn't it. He thought. He was Case 143. The numbers matched the number of letters. I Love You.
So when she had the gun pressed to his forehead, he had simply reached up to the gun and switched the safety off. And then he looked into her eyes and whispered his last words.
It's okay. I know.
And when he heard the shot go off, he embraced it. He knew they would meet again, in circumstances where they could be together.
There's a theory that humans have multiple lives. Each one occurs at a different time, in completely different places. But the soul travels with all of them. And some people, are lucky enough to have the same person in each of their lives, who they will inevitably meet. They may not always have a happy ending, but their souls thrive in the presence of one another. Some call them soulmates.
So in his next lifetime, when he was knocked down by a large dog in the park, he looked up and saw her, frantically chasing after the mutt in his lap. And when they made eye contact, they knew. They both didn't know what they knew, but they knew it. He left her number in his pocket.
Their love was stronger than they thought. It carried them to each other across lives. And maybe this time, their souls got their happy ending.
- Fin