Next Lifetime

Chapter 2

"Mani! Stop playing with that damn cat and come eat!" Anubis and I shared a look before I willed myself to respond.

"Coming mama," I forced out, even though I was centuries older than this mother figure. As punishment for my slip of the tongue back on the Ancestral Plane, Bast and the rest of the Ancestors thought it would be comical for me to roam the earth for lifetimes on end looking for my soulmate.

"How am I supposed to find him, my goddess?" I found myself questioning the darkness on countless occasions. Her voice in my head always recited the same phrase.

"His heart shines of gold, just like yours." Great. That's a lot of fucking help, Bastet.

I slowly made my way through the cramped two-bedroom that I shared with my "mom", "brother" and "sister".

"Wassup Wallace?" I heard my brother speak as I rounded the corner to the kitchen. I'd heard his name and seen him in passing, but had never physically been in him presence. When his eyes met mine, I immediately felt the shift. Time stopped momentarily as his entire aura began to glow that signature golden hue that I was all too familiar with. I could no longer make out anything else in the room except him and that little peanut head.

"That's the one," Anubis purred as he made his way downstairs, making himself comfortable on the arm of the couch. It was his voice that brought me back to the present where I found that all eyes were on me.

"Huh?" I asked assuming someone had asked a question.

"I asked if you still had time to help Wallace with his math. He dropped out a few years back and sometimes things get a little difficult for him."

"How you a drug dealer but can't count?" I asked before I could catch myself.

"Look, if you gone be a bitch about it, then forget it. I can get somebody else to help me."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Of course I'll help you."

--

"Ayo Mani, can I ask you something?"

"Wassup?" I asked as I helped him tidy up the small apartment. To my surprise, semi-illiterate drug dealer was only one aspect of his complex personality. He had taken personal responsibility for a lot of the younger kids in our neighborhood, housing them in a squatter's apartment, packing their lunches, and making sure they got to school on time. When they returned, he and I both helped them with their homework.

"Why you always staring at me? It's like you looking through me or some shit."

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me," I deadpanned.

"Try me," he said as he put the last of the toys away. I sighed deeply before the truth spilled from my lips in a hurried whisper.

"Well, my name is Abhimani and I am a disciple of the Panther Goddess Bast. I'm 2,016 years old and I was sent here as punishment. I can't return to my home on the Ancestral Plane until I find my soulmate, well actually I have to help my soulmate find me." As to be expected, he looked at me as though I'd grown two extra heads.

"Riiight," he said pulling his fist to his mouth to mask the laugh that was stuck in the back of his throat.

"Well, apparently you're my soulmate," I finished. It was at this that he doubled over in laughter.
"You been smoking some of your brother's trees, huh? Soulmates? Panther Goddess Bast? Girl we 16 years old. Ain't nobody tryna find no soulmate. I'm tryna get this money so I can get my black ass out of Baltimore." I sighed in defeat as he continued to ridicule me and my logic. The icing on the cake was when he noticed a meek looking black cat in the doorway of the apartment.

"I'ma let you and your goddess talk things out. I'll be back around when you come to your senses." He grabbed his backpack and was gone without even the slightest look back. The cat stepped into the space, tilting its head slightly to the right as it stared into my soul. Suddenly the entire room was black except for the golden light that illuminated my goddess. I bowed before her before voicing my frustrations about what had just transpired.

"I'm sick of this shit already," I spat.

"Watch your tone, child. You really thought that would work?"

"How else was I supposed to do it?"

"Foolish child. Leave it to me I'll make sure he listens."

--

In the days that followed my confession, Wallace seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. I honestly couldn't blame him. After questioning some of the guys around the hood, I learned that after Brandon's body was found outside of his house, Wallace decided that he wanted to go back to school and leave the drug game alone. I was told that he'd been sent to live with his grandmother in Cambridge and though I was happy that he was trying to get his life together, he still didn't believe me about us being soulmates, therefore I was stuck to roam this stupid planet until I found him.

"Wallace." The usual hustle and bustle of the city at night had been replaced by an eerie silence. Wallace sat up slowly from his marijuana induced coma and almost shit his pants when he opened his eyes to take in the giant pather's head that now replaced his bedroom door.

"Yo what the fuck?" he yelled into darkness, still not convinced that he was fully awake.

"Lower your tone when you address me, boy!" she growled.

"W-Who are you?" he choked out, climbing backwards to the head of his bed.

"I have a feeling that you know exactly who I am," she spat. "Why are you running from your destiny, Wallace?"

"Yo I'm not ready to be anybody's soulmate. I'm barely taking care of myself. What's gonna happen to me when niggas find out I'm working with 5-0?"

"You'll be protected if you follow my instructions. Go back to Baltimore, to Abhimani. Share your destiny with her so that you both can be rid of this forsaken curse." Without another word the room was back to normal and Wallace was once again alone with his thoughts.

--

"You sure that nigga working with 5-0?" Poot questions Bodie as they wait for Wallace to open the door to his apartment.

"Positive, well at least Stringer thinks so. Why you think that nigga came back?"

"Because Cambridge is boring as shit, that's why," Poot deadpans. On the other side of the city, I felt a presence pull me out of my sleep.

"Go to him, Abhimani. He needs you. Wake up, now!" Before I knew it, I'd climbed out of our 4th floor window and was running full-speed to Wallace's apartment.

"You a weak ass nigga, man. You should've stayed in the country." Bodie taunts when they finally have him cornered.

"Come on man, we boys. You don't gotta do this," Wallace pleads.

"Faster Mani, he doesn't have much time left!"

"You claim to be a man, but you pissin' ya pants like a lil' boy! Stand up straight and be a man!" Bodie taunts again, pointing the gun directly at his chest. BANG! My feet temporarily stop.

"No, no, no! Please!" I begged as I willed my feet to carry me faster. Two more shots ring out and I see two figures run from the direction of Wallace's apartment.

"Wallace?" I managed to choke out. The space was eerily quiet and it made me sick. I traveled up the short flight of stairs and immediately fell to my knees at the sight before me. His golden aura was gone and there he lay, lifeless before me. For the first time since I'd left the Ancestral Plane, I let myself feel human emotion. I cried until my eyes no longer produced tears and my sobs had been replaced with ragged breaths.

"He didn't deserve this!" I screamed to no one in particular.

"Then next time, move faster."