Once ,long time back,I spent six hours of an overnight Greyhound ride sitting across the aisle from a couple who had just met when they sat next to each other that night.And apparently, discovered that they were two halves of a sundered whole. Or something like that.Or that was all that I could figure out within their murmurs and deep breaths. When we hit El Paso, they were going to part ways, she for Tucson, and he for Atlanta. Off to lead their real lives, I suppose.. I never really caught the exact story that they spun overnight and perhaps even woven a web.
They spent their time alternating between discussing the deep and abiding parallels between the courses of their respective lives ..views of the world.. and well..making out under a blanket!At the time, the whole thing made a deep impression on me.
Assuming that what they thought they had, was honest (which I suppose nobody can know but them), just think of the existential conflict that might be involved in such a case. Assume that you have one perfect soulmate: would it be better to live your life in ignorance of this fact, making do on your own and the one you already have, or meet that person exactly once sometime..ever, just for a few hours (maybe around midnight on a cramped bus full of poor students and tired tourists?!)
It's been more than a couple of years or so since then, and I wonder if they still think about it :)Probably they've just laughed it off. It's the sort of thing you would really like to diminish(or 'minimise' in your desktop!) or in your head, to be able to keep on going...is my consideration!
I've now got an image in my head, of a scenario. One of them, thirty years from now, old and broken by the world. Drifting through the crowds in some great city, and seeing the face of the other in the crowds, and then blinking.
Gone...
Full Stop!