Fated Target

For two days, I have followed my destiny without discovering much more than the name she goes by in this incarnation, Melody Duskin, and that she’s staying at Marsha Cunningham’s Tudor-style house on Milton Avenue. I do not know how long she will be here. Nor am I aware of why she is here. All I am sure of is that the Fates have delivered me another chance to prove myself in this reincarnation.

This new personification of my muse walks nowhere, and I’ve been forced to follow along on my Ninja 500 street bike– making it harder for me to be concealed. There were a couple of close calls where I thought she had seen and recognized me, but maybe I overreacted because she didn’t seem to have called the police. She’s only gone to two places in town, the diner and the Gas & Go convenience store. One place to pick up the anonymous greasy brown paper bag she always calls in an order for, and the other to pick up a pack of Laramie’s and sometimes Big Red Chewing Gum.

My eternal love’s luxurious mahogany brown hair is always trapped in a ponytail or a messy bun, she never lets it down to hang freely. Nary a drop of makeup has touched her face that I’ve seen, preferring to let her natural beauty shine or not wanting to take the time to apply it. Your guess is as good as mine. There’s a deep sadness about her, and the few smiles she has handed out have never reached her eyes while she has been here. The few times she has had to wait for her meal to be finished at the diner, she just stood and wistfully stared out of the window. I’ve not seen her shed any tears, even though her physical being emits a sense of woe and dejection. It’s as if she is yearning for our predestinated meeting as much as I am.

My soulmate wouldn’t have put the top up on her car if it hadn’t started raining on the second day. That worked out well for me, on the first night though, because I could quietly go through the glove box and the console and determine the car was a rental. I did find a picture of a well-muscled African American Army Sergeant in a desert setting hidden behind the visor. I would have thought it was left in the rental by a past occupant except for the inscription on the back, “To Melody, with lots of love. I sure do miss you, honey. When I get home on leave, I’m taking my time kissing you all over. Love Forever & Ever, Ramond” That was all I found in the car, she took everything inside Marsha Cunningham’s house.

My beautiful bliss always smells of gardenia when I am close to her and the few times I have heard her voice it is extremely soft-spoken. There is an air of desolation about her, and she seems to always be in a pensive mood. There does not appear to be a valid reason for her to be so gloomy, but she happens to be in this lifetime. Her depression has nothing to do with our preordained appointment.

I must find a way to separate my lovely nemesis from the rest of the townsfolk. I'm beginning to sense that our time is running short and that soon she will be leaving Thomasville for wherever she came from, so I start making plans. In this encounter, things were moving too fast between us. I will have to do something soon or lose my chance completely. Nothing must stop her and me from our predetermined rendezvous.