Chapter One

A Chapter by emacmorgan

This chapter sets up the scene of Gideon's normal lifestyle, his general mentality, and more about how the society works. He meets a girl and his greatest fears come true.

The sun was setting in glorious shades of purple and pink, casting a blushing hue onto the clouds. They moved quickly across the horizon, as if they were running from something sinister. Gideon, walking slowly through the muddy streets, missed the beautiful sight as he was staring at his feet. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen his fill of gorgeous sunsets, and he planned to see plenty more.

He mostly looked at his feet these days. It didn’t really matter where he was going anyways. He preferred the sights of the mud, old receipts floating in the wind, dropped food wrappers, and dried up worms to making eye contact with someone. Especially a potentially dangerous someone.

He began to carelessly drag his boots across the concrete. The grating sound steadied him, brought him back to Earth. The sidewalk seemed to drag on forever. Gideon knew a lot about forever.

Maybe in another time it would have been unusual or even suspicious to see a man walking alone at sundown, but even now with the sun still peeking it’s eyes over the end of the landscape, scraping at the land as if resenting the fact that it had to leave for the night, the streets were beginning to fill with people. That’s another thing Gideon had to get used to: seeing life change and evolve before his very eyes.

The sound of loud music and cackling laughter drew Gideon out of his harrowing thoughts, and he began to speed up his steps. These were the times he avoided, the times where every set of eyes might as well have been a set of daggers hungering to pierce his flesh. One thing he prided himself on was being careful. It wasn’t really an attribute he could boast about, seeing as it was his only purpose. His only means of survival. His saving grace.

As the sky finally gave in to the darkening abyss of night, the street lights only grew brighter and the neon signs shouted their defiance in hues of red and purple. Gideon started jogging. He had taken too long, doing what exactly he didn’t even know himself. But he did know that he should have been at his apartment 30 minutes ago. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” He chanted in his head to the rhythm of his footsteps on the pavement. So much for being careful.

As he rounded the final corner, it happened. He ran head on into something, someone, and collapsed into a trashcan perched demurely on the side of the road. The smell of old pizza, mildewed tissues, stale bread and warm alcohol flooded his senses, and his head began pounding.

As Gideon lifted his head, he froze. What should he do? He knew it was a slim chance that there was any risk in looking up. He would simply have to stand up, apologize, give a short laugh and a wave, and jog the last block home. But risks were something he knew he couldn’t take. What else was he supposed to do?

Overwhelmed with his dilemma and not seeing another way out, Gideon slowly sunk down again into the sickly sweet scented garbage. He closed his eyes and held his breath. “Go away, go away, go away, go away,” his thoughts pleaded. He seemed to be chanting a lot of futile and repetitive phrases these days.

He felt something warm approach him, and all of a sudden something was licking his face. He flinched and shot up, making sure to keep his eyes on his lap as he did so. The small visitor barked and began scratching as Gideon’s arm. Gideon gave a small, reluctant smile, which might have been confused for a smirk in different circumstances. It quickly faded, however, with just a series of words.

“Hi, oh my gosh, I’m so so so sorry! I didn’t even see you, I - Bear, get out of that trash! Bad dog! - anyways, I wasn’t even paying attention, this is all my fault. Can I help you up?” The words spilled out of the woman’s mouth, tumbling over one another in a breathless attempt to portray utmost regret and apology, as if the consequences of not doing so in a timely manner were dire. A cold feeling clutched Gideon’s heart, and it seemed as if the whole world slowed down and mocked him. “It will be fine. It will be fine. It will be fine.” This time the chants were simply naive. When he looked up, he knew. She was a small woman, perhaps a few years younger than he was, with short, brown hair and big brown eyes. She had a pale, pink birthmark that traced from her chin to the middle of her jawline.

He crouched down again and began sifting through the trash until he found what he was looking for: a newspaper. He checked the date.

It had been 30 years. The time was right. He pulled up his sleeve, glanced at his wrist, and sighed. Sure enough, a seventh gray dot joined the rest of it’s brothers. The dot looked up at him in smug satisfaction. Gideon sighed.

People think that you only have one soul mate in life. That’s simply not true. I would know: I’ve had six so far. Well, seven now. But I try not to remember.

I know that’s hard to explain in a society that revolves around finding your person. A society like ______.

Here, finding your other half isn’t just all romance. It’s about compatibility, effectiveness, and max contribution to society.

And it’s not like you can control it. As soon as you glance at that person, you’re trapped. A small, subtle gray dot appears on your wrist and your life changes forever.

Some people don’t find their person for decades. It’s quite sad actually. Most people normally age until roughly 25 or 26, and then you’re destined to wait until they show up. All soul mates age together. Nobody questions it. It’s just the way of life.

Can you see my predicament?

Gideon straightened again and met her eyes, eyes full of cinnamon and confusion, warm cocoa and disbelief. She glanced first at her wrist and then back to Gideon’s face, and her incredulous smile grew.

She began shaking her head, as if attempting to snap out of a daydream. Gideon almost felt sad, but it was more of a damp feeling, an emotion removed from emotion. He gave her a small smile and reached out his hand.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Gideon”

“I’m Zanie. It’s short for Suzanna.” Her hand was soft and warm. “I am so sorry for running into you like that! I guess I just kinda.. zoned out.”

“Don’t even worry about it. It seems as if it was for the best, right?” He glanced at her wrist and she blushed.

“Yes, it seems so.”

“Are you busy tonight?” Gideon had been through this routine so many times. Every word, every flirtatious glance, every shy smile came as naturally as if the entire display was a practiced performance.

She looked at him in amazement, still shaking her head, her mouth slightly open. The image reminded Gideon of a fish out of water, waiting to be gutted. A fish with big brown eyes.

“No, no, I’m not busy at all.” Her words were still stumbling over one another, pushing each other. And Gideon felt a cold pang in his chest.

“Well then.” He smiled at her. “How about I pick you up at your place in an hour?” The dog began impatiently tugging on it’s leash, growling at something only he could see. He was tiny, and his dirtied white fur didn’t make him any more menacing, despite the name Bear.

“Of course, yeah, that works,” Zanie hurriedly replied. By this point she was positively beaming, and Gideon couldn’t help but notice her radiant smile, or the way her messy hair kept falling into her face so that she brushed at it impatiently.

Impatient. That seemed a good word to describe the aura surrounding this girl. No, adorably eager suited her better. Impatient in the best way. Gideon snapped out of it when Bear decided Gideon’s show was his next great enemy.

“Bear! Stop it! I’m so so sorry.” She scooped up the little menace and cradled him in her arms.

Zanie quickly gave him her address, stuttered a quick goodbye, and quickly went on her way. Gideon didn’t turn around. He took his time walking to the end of the block, then up the three flights of stairs, (the elevator had been out of service since before anyone in the building could remember) and finally to apartment 304. His home.

Well, maybe home was a stretch. It had been a long time since Gideon had experienced home.

He was nauseous with the thought of what he was about to do, but not to the point of rethinking it. To Gideon, it wasn’t a choice anymore.

He looked at the address Zanie had typed into his phone. Surprisingly, it was only three blocks away.

Three blocks away. The very thing he had been fearing, and only three blocks away. How had he avoided the inevitable for three years?

Well, more precisely, three years and seven months. Three years, seven months, two weeks, and five days. Not that he was keeping track. Gideon had better things to do. Like avoiding his fears, and forgetting.

Almost four years was a stretch anyways. The longest he had ever stayed somewhere was seven years, but that was in a more rural area. Here in the heart of the city, Gideon had already stretched his limits. He had been too bold. “And look where that got me,” he thought bitterly.

He had one hour to prepare. One hour to get a quick shower, comb his hair (though making himself look nice seemed redundant), and pack all of his things. One hour to convince himself that this was the right thing to do. One hour to prepare to forget.

It was going to be a long night.

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© 2020 emacmorgan

Author's Note

I am having trouble on coming up with a unique name for this society!
Please provide any feedback: what can be better, if you enjoyed this, if you think it has potential or not. I like to hear your thoughts!

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Featured Review

barleygirl

You've done a great job of offering up a first chapter that makes us want to dig into this story. Your characters are interesting & intriguing, altho it might be nice to know a little more about Zanie, since this feels a little lopsided in favor of getting to know Gideon. At times your writing is mundane (P1: "beautiful sights" & "gorgeous sunsets" -- everything is beautiful & gorgeous, so these words hold no meaning , ho hum!) and also your descriptions pop off the page (Later: "eyes full of cinnamon and confusion, warm cocoa and disbelief").

I hate the overused threadbare "soulmate" but your story feels a little like it might be spoofing the stale concept, so that might be fun. But still, isn't there another way to say "soulmate"? I was playing around with naming your society: "Contact High" . . . "Correlating in Context" . . . "Off The Hook" . . .

You use a fair number of empty meaningless transition words (well, very, so, even, seemed) that could be pruned for more brisk streamlined storytelling flow. When a new writer plops down a book at the cafe & nothing else, many times readers will avoid it, not inclined to plow thru a book (most beginning books are pretty hard to plow thru) when they do not have anything else shorter to read, to check out this new writer & decide if it's worth trying to dive into his/her book. But your writing is so solid, it's an easy book to read & I would probably try to review a few chapters at least (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie