Astral Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
When Donny learned that he was a soul-dualist it seemed like a
very exciting proposition. He imagined it was going to be somewhat like having
multiple personalities that were actually all on the same page and part of the
same team. He could see himself having conversations with himself and having
the wisdom and experience of several different outlooks and opinions. He thought
it was going to make him a stronger and more capable human being.
What Donny learned was most of his souls were underdeveloped and
unpronounced. There were no easy answers of fixes for this. His spiritual guide
assured Donny and Donny’s father that this was a common phenomenon. Not all souls
were supposed to be fully pronounced. Most of them did their job and did it
well, but were quiet about it. Some of them might develop further. Some of them
might fade away. Whatever happened, it was what was supposed to happen. Donny would
benefit from it. He just wouldn’t always be aware of it.
Donny saw this as a major rip-off. What was the point of special
powers if you didn’t know what your special powers were doing? Donny had
visions of being a superhero team all wrapped up inside one person. It was much
less interesting just being himself.
Donny did have one extra-pronounced soul – his free-soul. His
free-soul was a traveler, able to leave Donny’s body and exist in multiple
locations at once. Donny and his free-soul shared the ability of astral projection.
Donny was very excited by this at first. He loved the idea of being able to
travel at will. He loved the idea of getting to do two things at once. He loved
the idea of getting to see things he would never be able to see otherwise. But
he very quickly learned the drawback – he was always stuck at home while his
free-soul got to have all the fun.
It was the worst type of astral projection imaginable – the type
where Donny’s souls were two distinctly different entities. Donny and his
free-spirit got along, but they weren’t the same. They had separate thoughts, separate
goals, separate lives. They talked on occasion, but they didn’t have to listen
to each other. Donny wanted a friend, a partner, someone to experience things
with. His free-soul just wanted to get out of the body and go exploring. Donny
got left behind. He didn’t like getting left behind.
Donny was jealous. He liked the ability, but he wished he was the
one that got to use it. He knew that in a way it was him doing the traveling,
but in a way it wasn’t. He got to see where the free-soul went, and sometimes
it even seemed like he was right there with it. But really, it was more like
watching films of someone else’s vacation. The locations could be nice, the
experiences could be desirable, but still, no matter how good the video was, it
was voyeurism instead of the real thing.
Donny always felt a little left out even when he shared the
visions completely. Most of the time Donny didn’t share the visions completely.
Most of the time he got bits and pieces sent back to him while it was happening
and then a little bit more came as an unclear and fuzzy memory once it was all
over. His brain processed it poorly as a half-memory, which was infuriating.
Donny knew it wasn’t his memory. He hated having it stuck in his mind as if it
was his. It even felt like it was his, even though it wasn’t. Sometimes it was
like the partial memories from a night of heavy drinking. Sometimes it was less
real. Sometimes it was like looking at a photograph – a still picture – where you
knew it really happened, but you no longer had the specific memories. It was
like getting a postcard from yourself while on vacation, but not getting to
remember having done what you did.
Donny simply wished that he could trade places with his free-soul
at least once. He thought about that a lot.
His inability to travel or control his free-soul was slowly
driving Donny to a dark and bitter place. He hated his life more and more each
day and grew more envious all the time. It was consuming him. He knew that he
had to be free of this anger and resentment or it might very well do him in.
Donny met with a dark shaman and a spell was cast to divide the
two. The free-soul was given true freedom from Donny’s body and the two were
unbound. Donny became normal. He would never have to see where the free-soul
went of experience the pain and anger and resentment again.
Donny was relieved. He was free to live his life again. He was
free to do whatever he wanted to do without having to worry about what his
other self was getting into.
Donny found that he was very empty and lonely inside. He hadn’t
expected to feel that a part of him was gone. When he had a free-soul he never
felt it was a part of him then, so now he was surprised by just how much he
missed it. He wasn’t whole. He felt wrong. Everyday. And he knew he was the
cause of it. That made the pain worse. None of his underdeveloped souls were
developed enough to care or to console him.
A different man might have made his own plans to travel to all the
places he had ever wanted to go. But Donny wasn’t that man. When his free-soul left, it took the only
motivated, adventurous part of Donny with it. Donny realized just how boring he
truly was.
Everyday Donny woke up hoping there would be some message or sign
or something from his long gone free-soul. Just something. A random thought. An
image. He would have killed to get a postcard, real or imagined. It was
torture, knowing the free-soul was out there, but never getting to know where
or when or what it was doing. Donny was incredibly lonely. Lonely like he had
never been before. Lonely like he never knew he could be. Donny had chased away
the only thing that had ever made him special, and he would have to live with
that, always dreaming, always hoping, always wishing for something more. It was
a terrible inconvenience and Donny let it defeat him.
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