"The Calling" Part II

After a long time rewriting the second part to my short story, here it is. If you can't remember part one, click on the link to take you back. Tell me what you think, I need some encouragement in order to continue on to part three. So, if you enjoy it and are curious as to the next installment, tell me.

The Calling Part I



Part II
...Continuation...
Seemingly only short moments later he awoke. The early morning sun shone brightly through the windshield, and he stretched clumsily in the confines of the seatbelt. He felt rejuvenated, and smiled at the awe of his first complete night’s sleep being in the driver’s seat of an 84' Jeep Wrangler. The night’s weird occurrences seemed vague and so long ago. Glancing at the time, he realized she would be gone. But he knew, by some means, exactly where she would be. Outside the library he spotted her sitting on a bench secluded by two willow trees and mounds of blooming flowers. She was writing in a notebook. He noticed a weary look to her motions and face, but she retained this innocently charming appearance. The cool breeze touched her flowing hair, and he imagined he smelt its clean intoxicating scent.

He contemplated the irony of the setting. The library: quiet, calm, a place of reflection; A world of knowledge at one’s fingertips, just as literally she knew you with one touch. Her eyes were fixed on something out of his view. He shifted slightly on his bench to get a better look, trying not to call attention to himself. She watched as a young man came out the side of the building. The young man fidgeted with his watch, unfixed and fixed his collar. Then nervously took out a cigarette. While inhaling deeply the man put one hand up to his head and feigned wrenching out a headache his brow held. Then the man’s stare blanked of all expression as an audible sigh of helplessness escaped his lips chased with smoke, the cigarette dropping to the ground, unnoticed. She stood up abruptly leaving behind her notebook and walked over, his spellbound state never breaking.

Her movements were that of a heavily burdened individual, almost like a march on death row. When she finally met her destination she stood directly in front of the young man, and looked so fragile in comparison to his size. Something was said that could not be distinguished, and the young man snapped back to reality, reaching into his pockets to pull out the cigarette box. The exact moment that their fingers met, the young man’s offering the box, hers receiving, was quite apparent. The man’s expression changed from that of plain introspection to clear shock. He could not be sure if he saw some sort of actual burst of light like a static electric charge being emitted, but the atmosphere around the two of them was almost tangible.

He considered the previous night, when the two of them had touched. She took away a lifetime of pain in microseconds, but judging by the fact that her reaction just now was only her bracing herself against the nearby bench as though light-headed, his pain must have been minimal. That is what happened right? He pondered. She supernaturally somehow drains all your pain by skin to skin contact? The notion was absurd, but as he thought back at all the memories that once caused his body actual physical hurting when he recalled them, seemed all but in the past now.

Now, with her sitting quietly on the bench slumped forward slightly with her eyes closed, the young man seemed to regain his composure. The man crinkled his forehead as though he couldn’t remember what just happened and slowly a smile swept over his face. The expression on the young man’s face was of confusion now, not aching, and he turned on his heel and walked off tossing his cigarette box up jovially a couple of times before the man was out of sight. His mind started racing at this. What type of CURSE is this? How could any one person bear the sorrow of the world? Is my mind playing tricks on me, or is she a genuine miracle-worker or superhero, or rescuer. While he was lost in reflection, she sat back up. Her eyes now open, but her cheeks wet from silent tears. She had made no noise, nor called any notice to herself. She resembled an angel the way the light was hitting her, and as he looked at her across the beautiful courtyard through the willows, she vanished like a quiet breeze. It came to his attention the exact word to describe her, ‘martyr.’