Short Story: 'The Soul of Renée'

 by Demi Armstrong

Floating in some peaceful existence, the familiar murmur of a heartbeat synced to my own. Before my time, pulled into the world, my acquainted stillness fills those around me with awe until screams fill the silence, misplacing esoterica for marvel in my mind. Marvel. People stand around, no one free from a job, all concerned with my newly formed life; all wearing blue, blue caps, and blue scrubs, except for one. The woman’s cap was a subtle orange, with small white flowers, each with eight petals encircling a dim yellow disc. Focused and precise in every movement she makes; I would like to become so distinct. I’m going to skip the vague association I have with being younger than ten. I’m trying to be a reliable narrator regardless of how poetically I wish to romanticise my life. I’m not entirely convinced that my memories don’t come from pictures or stories.

As a teenager, it felt as though everyone else was in this constant calm, balanced place between their good days and their bad. Retrospectively, I am aware that no one could ever comprehend how another person feels, how they think, how their mind works. Regardless, I felt as though, for no reason I could fathom, I was consistently just below that balanced line. My mind just missed calm to the point where I was completely fine, I had and continue to have a generally positive personality, until the moment I became aware that I have been stuck at this suffocating place; I forget how to breathe. This momentary inability to function as a human being would be a panic attack. Funnily, panic attacks feel frighteningly similar to death. In my idyllic dream of a future, I was a humanitarian lawyer. I would live in an apartment that was so high up that I could have broad windows that reached every exterior corner, and still, I would have privacy. No one would be able to see me, but I would have a view of everything. However, when A-levels were approaching increasingly quickly I realised that my ambitions had become simpler. “I wish to have a one-bedroom apartment, plants in every room and a nice kitchen. I want to love my job, I want to be happy and I want to make others happy.” 

After my A-levels, I took a gap year, and I got a job at a bar. I liked the insignificance of it. I'd stand behind the bar, pouring people drinks and they’d have intimate, alcohol-infused conversations as if there were some barrier that prohibited me from hearing them. In that year of working at night, reading and writing during the day, I felt like I reached my balance. My mind never entirely felt calm but I trusted my emotions and the control I had over them. Defining moments in my life would be: coming out to my mum as bisexual, learning how to braid my hair and making soft locs a key factor of my personality, choosing English literature at A-levels over physics and meeting Renée Moira. In Greek mythology, humans were created with two faces, two sets of arms and two sets of legs. In fear of their power, Zeus separated humans into two halves, condemning them to search for each other, for their soulmate. In Chinese mythology, the red thread of fate is an invisible string that connects two people who are destined to meet each other. The thread may stretch and tangle but it will never break. I don’t entirely believe in soulmates or destiny. I do believe that regardless of character or interests if a person’s soul can become harmonious with another.

The day I met Renée I was reading on a bench in the park. It was July, the wind was still and heat rippled through the air. The heat ceased to be bearable. I turned to walk home and the woman walking in front of me stopped. The pupils of her eyes darted around so fast that the livid iris of her eyes became a blur. Her lips were still and her nostrils were flaring. She had light nude painted nails that complemented her slightly tanned skin tone. She began picking at her cuticles. I asked her if she wanted to sit down. She was weary and disorientated but she sat, hesitantly. She told me that she felt like she was dying. “Could I ask you some questions?” She didn’t respond. “Can you tell me five things that you can see?”. After my first panic attack, my mum started following this anxiety page. A coping mechanism for panic or anxiety attacks is to think of five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Once Renée had calmed down we sat there for a while. My soul felt harmonious and my mind felt calm. Eventually, she turned to me and told me her name, I told her mine. 

We kept in touch, then spoke every day, suddenly she was the most important person in my life. 

Renée Moira was with me when my parents died, when I got pregnant and my boyfriend left, when I had my son and she became the second most important person in my life. I was with Renée when she came out to her parents, when her dad accepted her and her mum didn’t, when I had my son and I became the second most important person in her life. We were with each other when we realised that we loved each other. Sitting by the sea beside each other, our hair grey, matching one another’s, in silence in peace. I noticed wildflowers growing, small white flowers, each with eight petals encircling a dim yellow disc. She thanked me for talking to her that day as if it were some act of service. Approaching her and having her in my life was a kindness to myself.