Summer Soap, Part 6: A different take on love: ‘It’s depressing’

Madam Ariana:

“Don’t you think?” I let go of the poor girl’s arm before she passed out, and swapped for cradling the Murphy’s. “It’s depressing for ninety percent of it, then you get to enjoy a tiny bit for all the effort.”

“Pardon?” Leah said to my right, from behind the bar.

“Hey! You’re still a baby, don’t judge,” I said, and shooed her away. Sweet girl, but much too nosy.

“I’ve worked here longer than you’ve been coming, Ariana,” Leah responded. “I’m not a child!”

I couldn’t keep my eyes from rolling. “Doesn’t make you my age, deary. You’ll get it one day, or die and get it in the next life.” I fluttered a hand in her direction. She shouldn’t have snooped.

Leah stood back, lips curling in surprise and anger. “I-I-” Her mouth opened, jaw whirled, then closed again. She decided better and stepped away, swapping with Adam, the other bartender.

“Continue,” the young woman interjected, drawing me back. She had straightened in her seat again, now that there was some distance between us. “Please.”

“Sure, sure. Sorry about her.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “She just can’t help it, too nosy. She’s too young, doesn’t get it. But! I heard that recently she-“

“On love, I mean,” Alexis interrupted. “Not on the bartender. I can ask her about her love life another time.” She forced a placid smile, and for a moment I thought of telling her off as I had Leah.

No fun. “Ah, okay. Well, I was just saying, it’s a whole sad affair. All about death if you ask me.”

While I spoke, Alexis fought to keep her face blank, hiding behind her beer when she couldn’t. But she couldn’t keep those eyebrows from shooting higher and higher.

“My da told me a story when I was young, and I’ve always held onto it. He said - No - he said, back in the olden days.” I paused for a moment to remember. “With the first humans, there was too much space, and not enough people. Way back when. So, to deal with it, everyone took a piece of themselves, right above the collarbone - I’m sure you can see how slender mine is from it - and they flung it out.” I made the motion, ginger scratching down my neck before flicking toward the ceiling. “Up into the stars.

“But it didn’t land in the sky, it fell down somewhere,” I continued. “And it rolled, and ate, and grew, until it became a person too. And then, there were twice as many people, and the earth was full! Wait, no - I could never remember how this part went - some fell. Others didn’t for a while. They got stuck in the sky or something. And that answers the whole population thing... anyways! It makes sense, don’t you think?”

Alexis’s eyebrows were still near her hairline, and she clutched the Murphy’s further back for fear I’d grab her forearm again. “I’m sorry?” she said slowly. “Don’t I think what?”

“Well, that’s love! That’s the whole, ‘he makes me feel whole’ swoony-thing you hear people talk about. They’re all just searching for that piece of themselves that grew into a new person.

“And when they find each other they’re whole again, and themselves. One becomes two and eventually two become one.”

“And what, exactly, do you find depressing about that?”

“Well, like I said, they threw that piece of themselves back in the olden days. Back at the beginning of the world. So since then, they’ve just been living and dying and living and dying, and reincarnating until they find the piece to make themselves whole. And then, they get to die for real. But in the meantime, everyone is all frantic and freaking out that they have to love someone because they know they’re missing something. But they don’t know what.

“So, people compromise. Get into relationships that aren’t good for them. Stay with people they shouldn’t. Give second, third, fourth chances.”

“I see,” Alexis said, but wouldn’t look me in the eyes, drifting instead to my left. Of course she didn’t get it. Another blinded child.

“I mean, come on, searching for love is just searching for someone to die with isn’t it?” I insisted. “We hear that said all the time, but it’s not just about the elderly. That’s the depressing bit.”

I heard a sigh to my left and turned in a flurry. Another eavesdropper. If it were Leah, I would have a word with Adam, I knew the owner and Eric stood a few steps away, head curved in a question, brows knitted. I froze.

“We’re just here to die together? That’s how you feel?” he managed.