When Mark brought the hammer down on the last fragment of an old love, it shattered, its crystalline structure collapsing, and set into motion several phenomena. Miles away, a woman sleeping next to her husband awoke startled to find that she was crying, wondering why she had be dreaming about an old lover. Sensitives in the area shuddered, feeling as if an icy finger has traced its way, slowly and deliberately up their spine. To any who were gifted with the empathy, an Aurora Borealis hung above a small peak in the North Georgia mountains, easily seen for a few hundred miles in either direction.
Mark collapsed, feeling an adrenaline rush as the years of lost energy swirled around, then through him. He felt himself grow hard down the leg of the old denim jeans he wore. He felt the energy pulling and tugging at the black silk shirt, causing the tails to whip in a maelstrom that only existed on a facet of reality. He saw his tears falling away from his face, wetting the ground and the knees of his jeans.
He couldn’t stop smiling.
He heard the snap of a branch breaking and looked back at Victoria, who had emerged, from the edge of the woods, running towards him. He watched her: the way her legs crisscrossed as she pushed up the hill; the way her breasts swayed under the T-shirt she wore; the way her aura flickered across a spectrum of colors, revealing her confusion.
He stood, wiping at his eyes and at the locks of hair that, when they fell into his face, stuck to his cheeks from the tears. She reached him, throwing herself against him, and wrapping her arms tight in a hug.
“Easy. Easy,” he said. “I’m alright.”
She held on to him for a moment longer, and then let go, backing away to look at him. The first thing she noticed was that his eyes had gone from gray to silver, making the long blonde hair almost alabaster in the moonlight. The more remarkable thing, however, was the smile he was wearing. Damn, she thought to herself, you’d almost think he’d just gotten laid. Vicky smiled inwardly at that thought, and blushed a little — she had felt him along her leg when she hugged him.
They stood there for a moment, then Mark reached into his shirt pocket, and fished out a pack of Marlboros. Taking two from the pack, he lit them both with a Bic stored in the pack, before handing her one. They smoked for a minute, in silence, before Vicky spoke up.
“So, you want to tell me what that was all about?” She asked, looking up at him.
Mark took another drag on his cigarette, exhaled with a sigh. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Out of all the times we’ve talked, when have I ever thought you were crazy.”
“Well, there was that one waitress from Applebee’s.”
Vicky reached out and playfully slapped him on the shoulder.
“Out with it. Now.”
“Okay. Okay. No more hitting me,” he said.
He sat on the ground, motioning for her to join him. One last drag on the cigarette, and he field-stripped it, before sending the filter into the woods with a flick of his finger. Taking a breath, he began:
“When I was a kid, I could always tell when I was in trouble with my parents. They always said it was because I had a guilty conscience, but that really wasn’t it. I could walk down the stairs, and enter the den with their backs turned to me, and I could feel that I was in trouble. It was just in the air. Every time I got that feeling, sure enough, I had done something wrong, and they were just waiting to confront me about it.
“Things got even weirder as I got older. I had a continual series of nightmares for six months, that I couldn’t remember. My parents would wake me, and ask what I had been dreaming. Apparently, I’d start talking, but as soon as I really woke up, I couldn’t remember anything. When I was thirteen, I saw my first aura.”
“I’m sorry. Aura?” Vicky asked.
“Yeah, it’s hard to explain, but it’s a color around a person. Like a field that reflects a general idea of their emotional state.”
“So you can tell when someone’s in love, for instance?”
“No. Nothing that precise, but I can see happiness, worry, sorrow, and occasionally, when someone is about to die.”
“Die?” Vicky pulled back a little.
“Yeah. I told you this was going to be weird. Listen, just bear with me. It all makes sense in the end.”
She nodded.
“I was walking home from High School, taking a shortcut behind the A&P, when I saw this homeless woman. She was just lying against the side of the building, a stroller filled with bags next to her, watching me as I walked past. I wasn’t even going to give her two thoughts, but then I caught sight of her aura, a mottled black and gray. It seethed and pulsed around her — most people’s are fairly solid. Scared the hell out of me, so I took off. Next day, it was in the paper. She had died overnight.”
“That’s horrible!” Vicky said, bringing her hands up to her mouth. “Do you always see it?”
Mark shook his head. “No. I don’t even see auras all the time. Mostly with people that I’m close to, but every now and then, I catch one off a stranger.
“Well, eventually, I met a girl, and fell in love for the first time.”
Vicky smiled. “Well, now that is weird,” she said, grinning at him. “Can I get another smoke from you?”
Mark fished the pack out again, and lit their cigarettes.
“It wasn’t long after we were dating,” he continued, “when I found a crystal sitting on my dresser — an amethyst crystal as a matter of fact. Kinda threw me for a loop, you know? since I didn’t remember ever owning one? I figured my girlfriend had left it for me.
“Over the next few months though, as we got closer, it started to grow. It didn’t get gigantic or anything, but it was definitely getting larger. It really freaked me out.”
“I bet.”
Mark took a drag and exhaled blue smoke into the night sky.
“That wasn’t the oddest part though. The oddest part was that every time I touched it, or picked it up, I could feel the two of us together. I’d pick it up, and every feeling, every memory; every moment would flow through me. It was amazing. Weird, but amazing.
“I had to find out what was up, so I headed down to Little Five Points, and looked around. In one of the bookstores there, I found a few references to magicians who hid their hearts in golden eggs. You know, so they could be immortal.”
“Well, of course.”
Mark looked at her sideways. “You promised you’d listen.”
“I’m sorry. This is getting a little far-fetched though, even for me. I’m listening.”
“I was just trying to get some idea of what was going on. I mean, for all I knew, it was just my overactive imagination.
“Things got weirder when we broke up. It was horrible, but then again, aren’t all the first times people get their hearts broken? I would cry myself to sleep at night, holding onto the crystal, letting myself get lost in the memories and feelings. It helped. Eventually, I told myself I’d gotten over her, and soon I met someone else.”
“We’d been dating for about a month when the second one appeared.”
“Huh? Second one?” Vicky asked. She shifted, sliding her feet underneath her.
“Yeah, a second one. Now I really wanted to know what was going on. When I picked up the second one, I could feel all the memories, feelings, everything about my second relationship, just the same way I could use the other crystal to remember the first. Except, it wasn’t as clear. I don’t really know how to describe it — it was cloudy.”
“Like there was interference?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s a good word. Well, that relationship lasted about two years, and it fell apart. I went through break-up number two, but it was easier than the first, and every now and then, I would hold the quartz that had arrived, and remember her as well.”
It was then that Mark reached into his other pocket and produced a piece of quartz in his hand. It lay there, reflecting the moonlight, and glowed softly.
“This is the quartz.”
For the first time, Vicky looked over at the spot where he’d been kneeling, and saw a light purplish powder covering the surface of a flat boulder. She looked back at the quartz, and shuddered.
“It started to dawn on me right about that time what was going on.” Mark said, putting the quartz back in his pocket. “I don’t know how or why it happens, but these form when I fall in love. They’re pieces of me.”
Vicky started shaking her head. “Look Mark, we’ve been friends a long time. You know I’ve never regretted helping you get over Michelle, but this is a little crazy.”
Mark smiled. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I didn’t think you’d believe me just from a story. Let me show you.”
Mark produced an aquamarine and, taking Vicky’s hand placed it into the open palm.
There was a flash, and Vicky felt the memories begin to flow through her. Flashes of a bowling alley, at two o’clock in the morning – the lanes aglow in neon as black lights played over the balls and pins; a stolen kiss in the cave of a miniature golf course, hearts pounding with the thrill of possibly getting caught; tears blinding as they ran down his face, she had just told him goodbye for the last time.
She threw the stone back at Mark, who caught it easily.
“That… that’s just not right.” She said, pointing at the stone. Mark put it back in his shirt pocket.
“I don’t know if it’s ‘right’ or not, but it’s real.” He said. “The feelings will go away in a few minutes. It’s only stays with you if you’ve been holding them for a long time.”
“So that’s why we’re out here? You’re destroying old memories?” Vicky asked, still a bit shaken.
Mark shook his head. “It goes a bit deeper than that. You see, I had a theory, a pretty solid one, but I didn’t know if it was true or not until just a few minutes ago.
“There’s part of me in these stones.”
“Part of you?”
“I mean part of me. I don’t know how or why, any more than I know why the auras come, but it happens. These are pieces of me, in those relationships, made real. What’s worse is that, as each piece of me gets trapped in these stones, that’s less of me that I have to give to the person in my life.
“I’m not stupid, or naive. I know that one of the reasons it didn’t work out with Michelle was because of the past. She tolerated me talking about it, only because she loved me, but no one wants to be in a relationship where they have to compete with the ghosts from someone’s past.”
Vicky nodded slowly. She remembered helping Mark get over Michelle. That had been an ugly break-up, with lots of anger and tears. Vicky remembered thinking it was doomed from the start. She had Mark pegged as the type who came with a lot of baggage, but this — this she hadn’t counted on. Yet, it made sense, and she wanted to believe.
“I wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” he said. “I didn’t know if I’d get that piece of myself back, or if it would get worse, but I knew I couldn’t keep going the way things were. I had to do something. I’ve thought about this for a long time, but I was always afraid of the consequences. I got tired of being afraid.”
Mark stood and walked back over to the boulder, bending to pick up the silver hammer.
“One down, two to go.” He said. “And I’ll have myself again for the first time in a long time.”
“Can you feel her anymore?” Vicky asked.
“No, no I can’t.” Mark said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the quartz. “I can remember, but I don’t re-live it. It’s more like looking at someone else’s life than my own, but that’s normal. All the people we meet in our lives, the constant flow of people as they drift through moments of our time, they leave their impressions on us. But the memories fade, until, one day, you’re looking through the photo album of someone else’s life.”
“How does it feel?” she asked, remembering his erection and blushing again.
“Better than you can imagine,” he replied.
“Oh, I bet I can.” She said, smiling, as he put the quartz on the boulder, and raised the hammer, readying another strike.
“Mark?”
“Hmmm?”
“What was the opal I saw sitting on your dresser the other day?”
The hammer came down in a flash of silver. Above them, the Aurora Borealis pulsed once, and then glowed even brighter in the sky.
