Paul Kohler - The Borrowed Souls, A Novel

“That’s it? No dangling pocket watch to follow with my eyes?” Raymond asked.

I chuckled. “No, not quite. This coin is… somewhat different than the traditional hypnosis techniques,” I said, hoping that my words were believable.

Raymond closed his eyes tightly as he brought forth the memory. He held his hand close to his chest, squeezing the coin as he did so. A moment later, he turned the coin over.

Raymond’s final class of the morning came to an end when the bell rang. Lunch hour was up next, and the activity in the hallways would be frantic, with everyone wanting to drop their books off at their lockers before heading to the cafeteria. That wasn’t on Raymond’s agenda, however. He was halfway through his third week of classes at the new school, and he’d only made a friend or two. Acquaintances, really, and both of them had basketball practice over their lunch hour. Raymond, however, had an irrational, potentially life-changing destination in mind.

Raymond heedlessly strolled through the cavernous hallways, waiting for the bustling crowds to funnel into the cafeteria.

As Raymond turned the corner that led to the school exit, he practically ran headfirst into another straggling student. A girl.

“I, uh… s-s-s-s-sorry,” Raymond said as he tried to step around her.

Raymond wasn’t surprised that the other students stayed away from him like they did. He knew it was because of his stuttering. Raymond had experienced random moments of stuttering all through school, but until just a month ago, the occurrences were few and far between. His parents attributed the reduction in his word stumbling to his comfort level with his peers. Now, with his dad taking a new job and moving the family across the river and into New Jersey, the stuttering had returned in full force.

“That’s quite all right, Raymond, is it?” the girl said.

“Y-y-yes, that’s right. My n-n-name is Raymond Whitaker,” he said, blushing at the chance meeting with arguably the prettiest girl that he had ever seen.

“You’re new here, right?” she asked, discreetly blocking Raymond’s path.

As butterflies and nerves battled it out in his gut, Raymond nodded, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Well, on behalf of everyone here at Madison High, I officially welcome you to the home of the Bobcats,” she said, thrusting her hand toward him. “Hi, I’m Abigail. Abigail Caldwell, but all my friends call me Abby.”

“I… I, uh, kn-know who y-you are,” Raymond said. “We’ve had a f-few classes together.”

“Oh, right. You have Mr. Daniels for biology?”

“Y-yes, and we have history together t-t-too,” Raymond said, speaking as slowly as possible to minimize his stuttering.

“Oh, please. Don’t remind me. I detest history. I completely forgot to do my homework last night, and—”

“I can h-help you out, if you’d like,” Raymond eagerly offered, changing his plans on the fly.

“Sincerely? You would do that? That would be so cool. Are you heading to lunch now?” Abigail asked.

“Y-yes, I, um, just after I… I drop my books off at my locker.”

“Great, how about we sit together and go over the history lesson?”

Raymond’s tongue felt as thick as a slug and twice as sticky. Did the most popular girl in school just agree to have lunch with him?

“That would be n-n-nice, but won’t your friends be expecting you at their lunch t-table?”

“Yeah, sure, but they’ll understand. Besides, it’s not every day that you make a new friend,” Abigail said. She slipped her arm through Raymond’s as she steered him to his locker.

As Raymond opened his locker, Abigail leaned against the wall next to him and waited patiently. After Raymond stuffed every one of his schoolbooks back inside, he slipped out his history textbook and the associated notes before closing the door.

“Wow, do you always carry all your books around with you?” Abigail asked. “Or are you trying to get a workout while in the school hallways?”

“I, uh, was um…” Raymond began, trying to come up with an excuse that wouldn’t let on to his plans for self-destruction.

Abigail giggled. “It’s okay, Raymond, really. I’m just teasing. Ready?”

“Sure,” Raymond said before turning and heading toward the cafeteria.

“So, what was your previous school like? Did you have a lot of friends?” Abigail asked.

Raymond focused on each word before speaking, hoping that he could speak clearly. “It was… v-very similar to Madison. The school was in upstate New York, and folks were p-pretty friendly there, too. As for friends, I had a few. Most of them I’d gone to school with since the f-first grade.”

“Oh, how unfortunate. I would be a complete mess if I had to start over in a new school with no friends. Why did your family move here to New Jersey?”

“It was because of my dad. H-h-he got a new job at RCA, and they’re based here, so they transferred the whole f-family.”

“But couldn’t you and your mother have stayed in New York and just have your dad travel for work?”

Raymond shrugged. “You would think, but he insisted the whole f-f-family come. It’s all right though. I got a b-bigger bedroom with the move.”

“See? That’s the spirit. I like people that look at the brighter side of things.”

Raymond could have sworn that he felt his heart increase in size at the kindness that Abigail was showing him. It was the first time since being in the new town that his confidence began to return. With his newfound internal strength, he decided to throw caution to the wind.

“Abigail?”

“Please, Raymond. You can call me Abby.”

“I’d like that, Abby. Are you planning on going to the dance this Friday?”

“You sly,” Abby said, tugging on Raymond’s arm gently. “Why yes, Raymond. I was planning to go with a bunch of my girlfriends. How about you?”

“I… I haven’t decided yet,” Raymond said.

“Well, I think you should. Maybe we’ll see each other there,” Abby said as they turned the corner into the cafeteria.

Raymond smiled all the way through the lunch line and until they sat at a table, history books scattered in front of them.

Raymond let the coin slip from his hand and drop to the floor, pulling us back to Abigail’s bedside. We couldn’t have been gone for more than a few minutes, but it seemed to me that Raymond had aged several years in that amount of time. His eyes had sunk in slightly, his flesh had faded to grey, and his posture drooped considerably. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought he was already deteriorating, even though he hadn’t passed on yet.

“Thank you, Raymond, for sharing that wonderful moment with me,” I said.

“It’s hard to imagine how one day can truly define a person,” Raymond said. “That was my one day. Abby saved my life with her pure kindness,” Raymond said.

“How so?” I asked.

“What you didn’t see in that memory was the depth of my despair. At that point of the day, I had decided that I had had enough of my youthful obscurity. I was sixteen, and the world didn’t even know I existed. My father was a workaholic, my mother an alcoholic. My sister… well, she just existed in her own little world, and to hell with everyone else. Having transferred midway through my junior year of high school left me friendless and completely isolated. Depression wasn’t really a thing back then, and there were very few people that knew how to deal with it. So that afternoon, I was going to take matters into my own hands.”

“Oh no, Raymond. Please tell me you weren’t going to—”

“I don’t know what I would’ve done, but I did know that I was going to go home for lunch that d-day and, and n-never come back. I w-was going t-to run away or… who knows, I may have ended up killing myself too. God knows the thought crossed my mind so many times.”