Lost and Found- Opening

                    Lost and Found

PROLOGUE:
         I often ask myself- why is it that you people try to know absolutely everything? There are a few things that humans can know for certain sometimes; what the country you are currently in is called, the colour of the clothes you’re wearing (though even that’s debatable, what with colour being an illusion created by our perception and whatnot), facts and figures.

         One particular thing that you must accept for certain is that the human mind is a tiny little thing, you cannot know everything. The existence of God for example, is something which many people’s precious time has been wasted trying to explain. Did anyone ever think that perhaps...the one watching over everybody was just little old me? I used to be a builder, you know- back on earth. It’s a fun pastime, I learn a lot up here. We temps aren’t allowed to intervene much of course, the powers that be have decided on free will. I agree with that- it’s much more fun to watch you lot fuck things up by yourselves anyway. I don’t have to do very much either, just inform my superiors if anything terrible is about to happen, maybe give a little helping hand to lessen the effect of most major disasters. It’s an important job (should have seen the look on the poor guy’s face who fell asleep and let World War One slip through his fingers...once something like that spirals out of control nothing but major intervention can save the situation. Did they send him to hell? Nope. Scotland.) but I rarely need to do anything, and it can be a little boring.

         I apologise for my very patronising tone, it’s wrong of me to talk to you like this. It’s commonplace up here, where everyone’s all-powerful, so it’s just become a habit of mine to use derogatory collective terms like “you lot”. Anyway, I was going to tell you a story about a man by the name of Adam. On the surface not the most exciting man in the world, but who knows? We all have our pitfalls and shortcomings- it’s what makes everybody interesting. So here it begins.


         A small, quiet street on the outskirts of town. One picturesque building, shining white with reflected sunlight, the sun burning angrily with fires of passion and rage.

         On days like these, where the untainted blue sky embraced and calmed the angry sun, Adam enjoyed lying in the grass in shirt and jeans outside his parents’ house; basking in the pleasant afternoon glow and allowing his mind to roam free; free of the realms of linear thought, exploring the inexplicable but intertwined with day-to-day thought in ways that cannot be described with mere words.


         Suddenly, he was shocked out of his reverie. “Boo!” Adam’s eyes snapped open and he rolled over aggressively to find the perpetrator of this crime, the breacher of his inner sanctum.

         However, once he saw who it was, his anger turned into pleasure, and the smile on his face reciprocated the warm, cheerful grin on the angelic face above him. The girl gracefully crossed her legs and sat beside him.
“Helloooo Ad! You jump so easily! Sorry, I’ll be less scary next time.”
“It’s fine” He smiled “I’m glad to see you.”
“You’re always in your own world aren’t you?”
“Sure am. Isn’t it amazing how the mind can just jump from one place to another in a split second? Like from what I had for dinner, to the meaning of love? “
“You must have really liked that dinner!” Tanya and Adam laughed together, sharing their laughter as they shared each other’s body heat, lying side by side in the grass.

         “I wish I was as clever as you Ad. I can never talk about those kind of things. At uni you’ll find loads of clever people.
“Now you’re being silly. I’ll always think of you, and none of those people will ever come close to replacing you. And you’re as clever as anybody, you just don’t spend all your time absorbed in studying like me. You’re the kindest, sweetest, friendliest, prettiest girl in the whole world and you want to help people. You will accomplish much greater things than me.”
“Aww you’re gonna make me cry! Do you know this is the last time we see each other? And thank you.” Tanya said, blushing bright red, not used to this kind of praise.
“It won’t. I promise we will stay in touch.”
“You’d better.”
“I-errm...I-” He looked down at the floor, embarrassed.
“I will miss you too” Tanya said, making things easier for Adam. A look of mutual understanding and empathy passed between them, one that can only be attained with such intensity through years of close friendship, and Adam’s heart clenched.
“You wouldn’t want to lose touch with me, because we both know...”
Adam rolled his eyes “Finders keepers, losers...”
“ice skate with scissors” Tanya finished, both smiling at the often-used phrase, one of many (terrible) inside jokes.

         The two of them talked endlessly about everything under the hot, jealous sun. About things Adam would do at his top university, what Tanya was going to do with her life. Going through their past, present and future in milliseconds it was not surprising they lost track of time.


         Tanya’s phone ringing broke the barrier around them, and untied the invisible bonds connecting the two together. “Dinnertime I guess” Tanya said regretfully.

         Adam stood, and helped Tanya up. They looked into each other’s eyes for a second, and then Tanya took a step towards Adam and hugged him as hard as she could. Their last embrace, the denouement of their happy teenage memories they had together as friends.
“Goodbye Tanya.”

“Call me!” She shouted over her shoulder as walked away. Both were astonished to find tears in the corners of their eyes.
         A cloud obliterated the setting sun as the sky surrendered to isolated blackness. Losers ice skate with scissors. And Adam had lost her.
“I love you” Adam muttered under his breath, furious at himself for not saying it to her face.


Hah. Love. Another one of those things humans claim to know everything about. Hell, even the guys up here are stumped. An illusion? No. I believe I felt love once, nothing would lead me to think it was merely a figment of my imagination. A physiological reaction to extreme affection or attraction? The instant knowledge that you’ve found your soulmate- the one person in the world who you’re meant to be with for the rest of your life?
Maybe it’s sometimes a mere physical attraction derived upon first sighting, which coincidentally manifests itself into a deeper affection, possibly conceived by the victim’s sub-consciousness as a result of their misguided pre-conception of true love. Or perhaps it’s almost no different from the love of a family member, a pet...or a best friend. Much like when one uses the word “love” in an offhand manner. When somebody tells you that they love apple crumble, they don’t mean that apple crumble is the one food for them, and for the rest of their life they will only ever eat apple crumble- there is no implication of sexual attraction towards said apple crumble. They mean they just like it more than most other foods. So possibly, when you say you love somebody, it just means you like them more than most other people. That idea doesn’t appeal to me. I like to think love is something a bit more special than that, something we can’t explain.

People like heaven of course- it’s not a bad place at all. A few of us miss Earth and request our souls be sent back as a new person, with no idea of what we were before of course. In essence, a different person altogether. Now here’s a little theory I cooked up. Every once in a blue moon a man meets a woman (or another man- we’re not all homophobes in heaven) who he’s been in a loving relationship with in a previous life, and something in his soul will stir from “love” towards that person, as if they were meant to be with that person again. Who knows, maybe i’m talking crap. Love may not even exist. On with the story before I bore you to death.