My Job In Love

I don't get to decide when it happens, or where, or why. I just see them and I know. I've been this way for over a thousand years now. No human can see me, sometimes I wonder if the girl I see in the mirror is really me at all. I've watched it all happen again and again, over and over. People meet and then they let each other go, they see each other on the street and don't even realize that the one person they are supposed to be with is standing right in front of them. Humans baffle me, truly they do, and to know I once was one, well that's the most baffling thing there is. I've been all over the world, London, Paris, Rome, New York, I've seen them all. I don't choose where I go or when I come back, but I go, and I always come back. My job is simple really. I listen as I walk, the night dark around me, and when I hear that sound I know to shoot. It's like wind hitting the side of a house, or when a big pile of snow falls from a tree. Its a calling, a scream from the soul the moment it meets its partner. They say God created humans like this for a reason, but I myself have never actually met this God. If I ever do I'll ask him and get back to you. 

All I know is that there are only two on this earth that match, and those two are destined for each other. Humans, being the impatient, suborn things they are, don't like to wait for me to do my job, but that's their mistake not mine. They fall in love with the wrong people all the time, and its almost painful to watch it happen. Not only are they causing themselves immense amounts of pain, but also their other half. That's what I like to call the people I meet, halves of a whole. Once I do my job of putting the two pieces together, well then I'm on my way and its just to them to realize what I already know. Everyone has a soulmate. 

I was walking down the busy New York street as I do most nights, the nights I'm not pulled away from my home. The itch in my back was still strong, you'd think after 1,000 years I'd be used to the feeling of fresh wings. They come out every time my services are required, and that's when I know to go out. Sometimes I wake up naked in a strange place, nothing on my pale thin body but the set of white wings that grow on my back. I get very few nights off actually, but normally when I get a night off I like to go back to a place I've been. Shut my eyes and go, I look in the window of a house. I watch as parents put their baby in it's crib, and as they climb into bed. The women usually rests her head on the mans shoulder, and they fall asleep side by side. I like knowing that what I do makes people happy.

I looked to my left and across the street I saw a group of boys, I paused, nothing. I continued to walk, looking around at the buildings over head. Then without seeing it I heard something. I looked around and around and still I couldn't spot a soul. Then as if on cue I felt the ground rumbled around me, and a steady beet start. They were under ground. I shut my eyes and rolled my neck. Then opening them I was under ground standing in a crowd of people, some drunk, some high, some on God knows what, and others just dancing to the ear shattering thump of the music. 

I looked around my eyes landing instantly on the source of the sound, the loudest sound I'd heard in a long time. It was a man, no older than 25. He was a little shorter than average, his hair was dark and hung low around his ears, shagging into his bluish-grey eyes. He was wearing a grey hoodie and black jeans, his shoulders board, even under the thick fabric. I walked over to him. I can't touch humans, and they can't touch me, but I can see them. Not only what they look like, but I can see into their pasts. I am supposed to check every time, to make sure the two halves have an edge in common. I looked at the man, and for almost a second I thought he was looking back at me. Then as I always do I reached out my palm towards his heart and let my eyes close.  It flashes through me in no more than a second. His name is Conner. Born January 3, 1990 in Georgia, raised by his mother and father in the most normal of ways. At 17 his parents were in a plane crash, both killed instantly. He went to live with his grandma who died on his 18th birthday. He inherited millions from his Grandma but refuses to use them because he's still grieving. He has had 7 girl friends, but none in the past year. There was more to him, as there is to everyone, but that was all I needed to know. I snapped out of it, and looked around. This was my favorite part, the part where time stopped. I looked around me, everyone frozen. It was quite until I heard the beautiful sound of a matching half.

I walked to the other side of the room, and looked at the girl whom I would be matching. She was tiny, no taller than 5 foot. She had blond hair that waved down to her low back. She was sitting at the bar, alone, about three feet from the boy. I walked to her and reached out my hand. Her name was Kelly. She was born on September 6th of 1992 in California. Her mother and father had gotten divorced before she was six, and she barely remembered what her father looked like. Her mother raised her and her three older brothers. She had wild teenage years, and when she was 17 her oldest brother who was only 24 died of a drug over does. She almost killed herself when she turned 19, and was now sick of the party scene, as the boy had been, but was only there because her friends made her come. A rush of air passed over me and I was back in reality. Then as my job requires I pulled a golden arrow from my sling and jammed it into the girls stomach, and then picking up my bow shot one at the boy. It doesn't hurt when I do it, but I prefer to do it when time is stopped, that way I can watch as they see realize their in love. I shook my head and welcomed life back to life. Again kids danced around me. I watched as the couples gazes met, and locked. Job done. I moved to the door way, and watched as the crowed danced, and my new couple met at the bar. I could see it then, the light golden rope that came from both and met in the middle. It was done, and their fates were sealed.

Thinking if I were human, and not 1,000 years old, how I would be the same age as these people. How my blond hair would swing with the beat. How my blue eyes would meet with someone in the crowd. How I would dance with a boy, and feel his heat, and his hands. How my thin body would move through the crowd, and how at the end of the night I would go home with someone I didn't know, and I would kiss him, and touch him. How I just wanted to touch someone, anyone. I could talk to him, tell him everything I had to tell, and then maybe then, someone else, someone like me, could shoot me with a golden arrow, and my golden string could match with his, and my half would be made a whole.

I looked over the crowd one last time. My eyes settling on a boy. His blond hair waved around his face, and his green eyes looked up, almost as if they were looking into mine. His jaw was sharp, his body tall and muscular. It was as if he was looking right at me, and my heart fluttered before I remembered that he wasn't looking at me, no one was looking at me. So instead of shutting my eyes and being home I walked out the black door and into the dimly lit hallway. I walked up the stairs and out into the parking lot that lead to the entrance. I just walked then, in the cold of night. I let the breeze hit my skin and my hair blow behind me. I listened to my heals hit the pavement as I walked, and felt the warmth of my dark jeans squeeze my body. Then as they do every night when my job is done, my feathers started to fall. The ground white beneath me. As the last feather was about to fall I caught it. I lifted it too my face and looked at it. For the first time in my long life I wished then that I was a human, so that I could talk and touch and dance. So that I could be noticed.