Annular

01: Soul Mate

"Kyle? Do you understand what I've just told you?"

Kyle focused on a strange object on the doctor's desk. It looked like a globe, but instead of representing Earth, it seemed to be a map of space. Thin, gray lines grouped clusters of dim lights into separate areas, much like a globe divides countries and cities from each other. Numbers and acronyms that Kyle did not understand were written along the different segments.

"Kyle?"

Kyle looked away from the space globe and focused his attention on the man sitting across from him. The nameplate on the desk read Dr. Vincent Marcom, and even though everyone called him doctor, he was not a doctor in the traditional sense. Even his appearance was unorthodox, seeming to have more in common with new age gurus than medical doctors. As he stared at the man's large and bushy, yet meticulously groomed, beard, Kyle wondered if perhaps he was being too old-fashioned with his expectations. He smiled at the thought of this man in a white lab coat.

Lining the walls of Dr. Marcom's office were many framed credentials that contained words like Physics, Eastern Religions and Spirituality, Astronomy, and Biology. He seemed to be a man that couldn't make up his mind on whether or not God existed and thus decided to study everything in the hopes that one day it would all make sense.

"I'm sorry," Kyle said. "It just doesn't really make any sense."

Dr. Marcom smiled. He was used to having to dumb things down, but it didn't bother him. On the contrary, he enjoyed figuring out how to explain things in ways that people would understand. He grabbed the globe and placed it in front of him.

"Let's try to make it something we can visualize," Dr. Marcom said. "This is called a Marcom-Stanfield globe."

He glanced at Kyle and shrugged.

"It's something a colleague and I came up with. We just call it that until we can think of a better name," he continued.

Kyle thought he saw the man wink, as well, but he couldn't be sure.

"What about a space globe?" Kyle attempted to joke.

Dr. Marcom let out a deep, throaty laugh that emphasized each of the three ha syllables. Kyle was unsure if it was genuine or simply polite, or perhaps a mixture of both leaning towards the latter.

"This is not space," the doctor replied. His next words were slow and deliberate, as if he had practiced them several times in front of a mirror. "It is a representation of time. Many people think of time as a straight line going from the past to the future, but this is only the way that we as humans perceive and experience it. In reality, time is more like a cloud of gas, with different time periods being like the different atoms moving this way and that way, never staying still for even a single second."

He clicked on a button that illuminated the lights within each segment, each flying around randomly like fireflies in jars. He pointed at a spot on the globe and pressed his finger to it. The acronym underneath lit up and read PRX-21.

"Let's say that we are here. This is us and everyone we know and everything we know, everything in the universe at this specific moment on July 22 of the year 2055, all jumbled into this one spot on the globe. And over here," he put a finger from his other hand on a spot on the opposite side, "is everything and everyone from the year 5000 BC."

He started moving his hands along the globe, with two single lights following underneath each finger, so that they got closer and closer until they were almost touching.

"As you know," he continued, "time is never standing still. But not just that time is moving forward. In fact, different time periods are always moving around each other so that at some point our time period is close to one from over 7000 years ago. They never touch, mind you. It's more like when planets align in the sky. When a time period is this close, it is very easy for energy to go from one period to the other."

He smiled again and looked at Kyle, waiting for some kind of comprehension.

"Think of it like an annular solar eclipse. The moon and the sun are in the same spot in the sky at the same time." The doctor raised his hands above the globe, one higher than the other. "Everything is aligned and transferring energy to each other." He moved each of his fingers independently as if about to perform a magic trick.

"Like the moon at noon," Kyle softly whispered.

"I'm sorry?" the doctor said, still moving his fingers.

"So," Kyle cleared his throat, "you're saying that Elizabeth was transferred 7000 years into the past?"

"No, that was just an example, but you get the idea." He put his hands down on the desk. "When your wife passed on, her energy, what many refer to as a soul, passed from her body and went somewhere else. It didn't just disappear."

"I thought it returned to the planet," Kyle said. "You know, causing trees to grow and stars to shine and all that circle of life stuff."

"Have you ever heard of Samsara?" Dr. Marcom asked.

Kyle stole a glance at the framed credential on the wall with the words Eastern Religions and Spirituality on it.

"Wheel of rebirth. Hinduism, right?" Kyle said.

"Very good," Dr. Marcom said. "Hindus believe that when a person dies, they are reincarnated into a different caste based on their past life's karma. The caste is like a hierarchy of different statuses that—"

"Right, the brahmin and untouchables and all that," Kyle interrupted.

Dr. Marcom paused. He politely smiled while trying to hide a sigh. Continuing, he said, "Of course, the idea that any of your consciousness is reincarnated is completely absurd, but the energy..."

"The soul," Kyle said.

"Yes, the soul," the doctor sounded a bit irritated. "That stays intact." He shook his head and chuckled. "It's unbelievable that all of these religions knew about this eternal soul all along. They all got it wrong, mind you, but the fact remains that what powers us as human beings is an eternal energy that bounces back and forth across time and space. But what is even more unbelievable..."

Dr. Marcom stopped for dramatic effect. He cast a sideways glance towards Kyle.

"The part that's even more unbelievable," the doctor continued, "is that we noticed that sometimes there are two energy signatures that always seem to meet and complete one another. Do you know what this means?"

Kyle shook his head.

The doctor smirked. "It means that people really do have a soul mate."