Soul-less

Ten years was too long to float in a wave of pain and agony. Give Sofia a choice between life and death and she would choose death. At least death had an end, a finality rooted in reality. Living had never favored her. Her Master Papin had said her middle life would be better than the beginning and the end.

But he lied.

It might have been so if the Forever and Always of her mid-life were real. Finding out the unreality of those supposedly happiest times had sent her into a limbo. Sofia was ready to revisit her memories and return.

To death or to life? The memories of her reality held the answer.

Joy

The echoes of the Catholic bells, the gaiety of the invited guests and the blinding white smile of her newly married husband, Miguel’s smile will forever live in Sofia’s memory. At that moment between the kiss which sealed the vows and the applause of the crowd, she wished it would never end. As Sofia looked into Miguel’s dark, liquid eyes, she imagined a whole city made of golden walls, such was its luster, brimming with love for her. When her parents sold her to the Master of their local village, Papin at the tender age of six, Sofia never imagined happiness and love of this kind would be part of her reality.

In her dreams, she presided over prosperous cities with walls of gold where the people laughed in the streets and the little children grew fat from the milk of caring mothers under the strong arms of protective fathers. What she never had, she dreamt and imagined for her people.

But her Master Papin assured her that the middle of her life will surely transcend the beginning. And that was all Sofia ever wanted. To show up her parents and make them regret selling her off.

Then Miguel entered her life. At more than fifteen years her senior, Sofia never paid Miguel more than the usual attention until he reprimanded a group of young boys playing pranks on her in the village market. When she smiled and thanked him, Miguel said she was an enchanting child. She was twelve years to Miguel’s twenty-seven at the time.

To her surprise, Master Papin accepted Miguel’s proposal after two years. Miguel promised to wait two more years before bedding her. Perhaps, she should have begged her master to capture the moment and make it last forever. In her dreams, she would convert it to her favorite perfume, name it ‘Forever and Always’ and spray it whenever
and wherever she wished.

Sofia wished the same for their daughter, Isabel. She would give Isabel a bottle of ‘Forever and Always’ so she never experienced the sadness and pain of her beginning. Even though Isabel looked more like Miguel than Sofia every day, she didn’t mind because her husband kept all his promises to her. He waited for three years to bed her instead of the two he initially promised. During that time, she attended the local school and studied numbers. Sofia wanted to be the best wife to Miguel, manage his household efficiently and give him healthy children.

Now eight years later, as she studied the painting of still waters Master Papin had gifted her as a wedding gift, Sofia marveled at the past twelve years of happiness, good health and prosperity. The painting she’d hung in the hallway so every time she passed, she’d send a quick gratitude to god for sending Master Papin to her life.

It seemed too good to be true.

Sadness

Sofia held tight to her perfumed bottle of Forever and Always. She made a quick decision to go visit Master Papin later in the day. If he hadn’t treated her well after buying her from her worthless parents, agreed to the marriage with Miguel and given his blessings, she wouldn’t be here in her own home, holding a bottle of Forever and Always.

Sighing contentedly, Sofia made her way to Isabel’s room. With a jolt, she realized she was approaching twenty-six and Isabel, eight. Surely, it was time to give Miguel another child. She would have to convince him, Sofia thought, closing her hand over the doorknob. Isabel’s pregnancy had been a difficult one and Miguel wanted her strong
before they tried again.

Sofia pushed the door open and came to an abrupt halt.

Her senses whirled, her legs went boneless and her bottle of Forever and Always fell from her nerveless fingers to crash to a million bits to the ground, mirroring her dreams, her forever and her future. Unattainable. It disappeared like the mist after a sunny day.
Her eyes remained glued to the scene before her. Her Miguel wedged between Isabel’s incongruously slender thighs, thrusting his way to completion. Isabel's eyes closed in ecstasy urging her father to go harder.

Anger

As if from a distance, Sofia registered the radio playing Isabel’s favorite song. She realized they couldn’t hear her. Not above the song blasting from the radio, not above Isabel’s screams of joy and her husband’s grunts. Sofia closed her fingers around a shard of glass. She imagined spearing the harp end into Miguel’s heart. She needed to
get to her feet and kill him over and over again.

But her legs wouldn’t move and a wave of lightheadedness swept over her. Happiness so sharp it hurt crashed over her, ferrying her boneless form like the strong, protective arms of a father over a newborn. Strong fumes of Forever and Always tickled her nostrils adding to her euphoria.

Sofia struggled to pull away and tame down the power of Forever and Always because she had needed to murder Miguel first.

As she floated into nothingness, Sofia wished for two things-- life or death. If she lived, she could kill Miguel. In death, she would feel nothing, remember nothing and cease to exist. But here she was in limbo, suffering the pain of Miguel’s betrayal and the destruction of her happily ever after.

Her forever and always was gone. Forever.

As she floated in the sea of nothingness, the thousand pointy ends of the sword of betrayal pierced Sofia awake. She watched Miguel run to the house of his best friend, Jose.

“Jose,” Miguel said in between pants, “she found out, she’s going to kill me.”

“Christ, she found out about you and Isabel?” Jose helped his friend to a chair and squatted before his dejected figure. His handsome face wreathed in worry lines.

Miguel pressed both hands to his face and sobbed. “I don’t know what to do. I tried everything to stay away. Do you know I used to lock Isabel’s door and throw it off so I wouldn’t go to her room?”

His words were muffled by his hands but clear.

Jose sighed. “You told me she’d find you.”

“My barely eight-year-old daughter would always find me no matter where I was, even if I am with Sofia.”

“We need a solution to this problem,” Jose said. “No point rehashing old, painful memories.”

“How I hurt Sofia.” Miguel lowered his hands to reveal tears drenched features. “I only wanted to make her happy. You know she is my forever and always?”

“I know.”

“But she broke the bottle of her Forever and Always and she wouldn’t wake up. Jose, she is neither living nor dying.” His shoulders dropped. “I think it’s hopeless.”

“It’s been ten years,” Jose said faintly.

Miguel swallowed. “I…I think we should kill Isabel. I-I..think she is cursed.”

Jose leaped to his feet. “She’s your daughter!”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Miguel shouted the words stark in their pain. “Don’t you think I know what I am, the abomination of what I have done, especially to sweet Sofia who deserves nothing but happiness?”

Jose shook his head from side to side and stepped away from his friend.

“But Isabel had never been a child since she was born,” Miguel continued. “Everyone but Sofia saw it. The servants all made a sign of the cross when she was near. Even you said how strange she was and stopped coming to my house.”

Jose spread his hands in supplication. “I know what I said but she is still your daughter.”

Miguel shook his head. “Not like this. Not as a seductress who lusts after her own father.” Suddenly, Miguel lurched from the chair and walked to the door.

Jose followed. “At least talk to someone else. What of old Master Papin?”

Miguel stopped. “You are right.”

Fear

Locked in the prison of her memories and the agony of Miguel’s betrayal, Sofia followed Miguel to Master Papin’s home. She was surprised her old Master who had given her the lovely painting of still waters as a wedding gift hadn’t tried to help. Maybe he hadn’t known. If she ever got out of this limbo, she would be sure to thank Jose for reminding
Miguel to see Master Papin.

Master Papin lived in a one-roomed small house on the quietest side of the village. As Sofia followed Miguel to the house, old memories of life with Master Papin threatened to shake her resolve. Strangely, she had no memory of her life with Master Papin. For her, it began when Mater Papin bought her from her parents and the days spent with Miguel in
the local market where they’d met.

As Miguel knocked on the wooden door, an old, familiar ache pierced Sofia’s heart. She gasped. Somehow, she had a feeling once the door was opened, her life would change forever.

“Enter,” Master Papin called, his voice sending fresh waves of pain through Sofia’s body.

“Thank you for seeing me at short notice, Sir,” Miguel said, stopping just inside the door.

“Close the door and sit down.” Master Papin sat in a high-backed chair before a crackling fire. He was wizened, wrinkled and so old, his flesh hung from his bones. “How is your household?”

Miguel sat gingerly and leaned forward. “That’s why I came to see you. We…I..What--”

“I can help Sofia but I won’t.” Master Papin's lips twisted in a sneer. The atmosphere seemed to swell with undercurrents, the sudden tension palpable.

One other moment like this Sofia could recall was her wedding day. That moment between the kiss that sealed her marriage vows and the applause of their guests, so laden with happiness she later captured it in a perfume bottle, Forever and Always. Like her Forever and always, this moment was also pregnant with meaning, but unlike that
moment, this one enclosed a thousand snakes, poised to bite.

Miguel shook his head sharply. “Please--”

“I have never been married,” Master Papin said. “Then Sofia came here and spent eight years with me. I thought she was happy. I made sure she was happy. I gave her everything she would need but when you came, Sofia stopped seeing me.” His lips twisted. “She wanted to have your children and manage your household.” The last words
were delivered in scathing condemnation.

Miguel gaped.

“I could have given her everything, even children.” Master Papin raised his head and met Miguel’s shocked eyes. “Yes, she gave me her body but she held back what I really wanted, her heart. She gave her heart to you. That’s when I told her. “Your middle will be happiest, more than your beginning. You see, she never asked about her end. I have
kept my promise.”
The pain blazed white hot, stealing Sophia's weightless body of strength. When she thought of her years of gratitude and servitude to Master Papin, she wanted to howl in outrage but in this realm she remained voiceless, locked in a prison not of her own making.

Miguel leaped to his feet, fists clenched at his sides. He advanced on the older man. “You dirty, stinking old--”

Master Papin laughed. “Aren’t you doing the same with sweet Isabel?”

“Only because you bewitched her in some way. I will kill you for what you’ve done to my family,” Miguel fumed.

Master Papin laughed harder. “You better save your strength to satisfy Isabel. She’s been looking for her Daddy. And killing me will change nothing. For as long you have anything belonging to me in your house, your desire will be for your daughter and your daughter for you, her father.”

Miguel took a step back. “So you want me to give you--”

“Sofia.” His old eyes gleamed with amusement and something else. “Give me back my Sofia and I will give you your life back. Like Sofia, Isabel won’t remember anything that happened between you two.”

“Oh, God,” Miguel moaned, “I love my Sofia. I can’t just give her to you.”

“Then she will never wake and you’ll never tire of Isabel.”

With a violent twist of his body, Miguel turned away from the old man and ran all the way back to his house. As he ran down the hallway, Sofia’s eyes lighted on the painting.

“For as long you have anything belonging to me in your house, your desire will be for your daughter and your daughter for you, her father.”

Life

Could Miguel hear her, all the way from her endless stretch of nothingness and pain? She had to try. “Miguel? Miguel, it’s me.”

Miguel stopped. “Sofia,” he whispered. He ran down the hallway, past Isabel’s room to their room. He pushed his way in and fell over Sofia’s unmoving body. “Sofia? Wake up, please. Don’t make me do this.”

Sophia opened her mouth and let the words come to her. “Miguel, just listen to me and do as I say.”

Miguel frowned. “So…you can hear me and…see me?”

“Forget about that. Go to the hallway, find that Master Papin’s painting--”

“Your wedding gift?”

“Yes! Burn it.”

“Daddy?” Isabel called.

“Go now,” Sofia urged.

Miguel ran to the hallway. He grabbed the beautiful painting and took it to the kitchen. As the fire ate up the painting, the flame rose high to the ceiling and with a loud sound punctuated by Isabel’s screams, burned itself out.

In her room, Sofia forced her eyes open. The first person she saw was her daughter, Isabel.

“Mommy!”

Sofia gathered her daughter into her arms and burst into tears.