Slow Life

II - I DREAMT OF EDWARD

II - I DREAMT OF EDWARD

The dream I had was the dream I have had many times before. It was always the same. Green eyes staring at me full of love, his bronze hair ruffling in the wind as he gazed down at me. The last time I saw them was in 1918 when they closed forever. I waited for him to be reborn, but he wasn't. I never understood what happened on that fateful day. We were always together – Edward and I. His soul was the other half of my soul – we were soul mates. Sure his was about 2000 years younger than mine, but it was still the half of my soul that I've waited to find for so long. It was mine and mine alone.

And now it was gone. I've waited for a hundred years to find him again and I was slowly, but surely losing hope of ever finding him again.

What went wrong this time?

I can't remember how often I've asked myself this question.

He always remembered me when he was reborn. It didn't matter if he was reborn as a male, a female or an animal. We always found each other. It didn't matter if we were a married couple, or if we were siblings, or even each other's children. I was his and he was mine.

The circle kept repeating itself throughout the centuries without breaking. So, what was it that broke it now? It couldn't be that his soul was at the end of the reincarnation cycle. I mean, if I was around since the beginning of time and haven't stopped reincarnating yet, why did he?

That was the biggest mystery and the biggest pain in my heart. I missed him. I missed his crooked smiles and sparkling green eyes. I missed his bronze hair. He always had bronze hair and green eyes, no matter in what shape he was reborn. It was cute, and I always teased him about it.

But the dream that I had wasn't about all the facts up there, it was about the last time I saw him.

He was lying in the hospital bed, soaking wet with fever. I was sitting next to him, holding tightly to his hand and whispering to him. I don't know what I whispered, perhaps it was just nonsense. He was listening to me and occasionally, when he had his lucid moments, he would smile weakly at me and say my name (Leonora). His mother was in another room, also sick with the illness that had spread. His father was already dead by then.

There were many people that died this day, but the most painful death was Edward's. It was midnight when he stopped breathing and it was midnight when my heart broke.

Damn that Spanish Influenza, I cursed in my head as I watched his family's funeral. The three caskets were buried under the moist ground and the mourners were sobbing miserably. Edward and his family were well known and well liked in the city. His mother was the kindest person I have ever met, aside from Edward, and she loved me like I was her own daughter. My father was still alive, but my mother had died during childbirth.

Edward and I were childhood friends in this life and we were always together. We rode our first horses together, we built our own tree house together, and we danced our first dance together. We had just decided to get engaged the next week and he was planning on giving me his current mother's engagement ring.

Why did Fate have to take him away from me? Why wasn't he reborn, like always?

Where was Edward Anthony Masen the second?