THE SOUL HUNTER
THE SOUL HUNTER
BY JOHN TUFT
For Bridget Blossom who gave me this title
Preston Goldlocker is a soul hunter. Not of the Hoshin Engi variety in Chinese mythology but the lesser known and secretive, Blank Mirror Society. Contrary to popular belief the Blank Mirror Society is not about vampires or the underworld. It is about people who look in the mirror and no longer see anyone looking back. Preston’s first client today is Judi. Judi is wanting to find her soul again. She is 39, married, a mother of three children. She is convinced that she has disappeared in all the meeting of other people’s demands: her husband wants clean clothes, meals, individual attention at the end of the day, well behaved children; the children want mom to pay them attention all of the time until they reached their teens, when they emotionally abandoned her; her own parents needed her to help them cope with aging and increasing infirmity; her friends all tell Judi she’s an amazing example of being a strong woman. But when Judi looks in the mirror, she is not there. Preston takes out a small flask and catches a single tear.
Preston’s next client is Cianto. Cianto is an artist. He is 49, a gay man, who for a time was addicted to stimulants and downers as he chased the artistic bent in his soul. After a time, the drugs took over and although he felt like he was being his most creative, the chaos and conflict of his drug fueled passion led not to art but rather to a nightmare of darkness and disorder on the canvas. The frustration at this inability to transfer his vision into the palate caused Cianto to lose faith in himself. He became reckless in all matters and soon found himself broke and alone. His view of his art was more hopeless than challenging vision. Any time he looked into the mirror, no one looked back. Preston takes out the flask and ever so carefully collects a single tear.
Preston moved onto his next client as night began to fall. Through a narrow gate and down the wooded path to a small chapel in the clearing. Candles are lit in each window and as he enters he is met by the scent of fervent prayer. There is only one figure in the room and his cheeks are wet with tears. “All is lost,” he whispers to the ceiling. “My dreams are dashed, and my hope is a pile of ashes that I cannot choke down.” Preston watches as the man slowly stretches himself across the floor. “I am afraid to be alone with my own thoughts,” he gasps as he senses the presence of Preston, the soul hunter. “They are always the thoughts of someone else. I don’t have a prayer for I have no soul.” Preston kneels beside the prostrate man, flask in hand, and collects a single tear.
At the stroke of midnight, Preston goes into the forest seeking darkness. It is not a journey to be taken lightly, as no journey into darkness should be. It is well known in the Blank Mirror Society that light cannot see itself. It is as old of an adage as the child’s question, “If no one had eyes, would there be colors? And if everything was one color would there be light?” These are the words that Preston murmurs as he kneels beside a deep, still pool. Followed by the BMS motto, “If one does not mind their own soul is it already gone?” The three souls which he hunted this day rest in the flask at his side. Slowly he takes out his hunter’s knife and pricks the flesh of his thumb. Then he opens the flask and catches three drops of his blood in amongst the tears. For the blood of a soul hunter is made of pure light, pure fire, pure love. He shakes the mixture with a fierce dedication and then, without hesitation, he tips the flask to his lips and swallows it all.
Weary from the day, he lies down to rest. As he sleeps, he dreams. He dreams of all the pain he has ingested. And as he dreams, he weeps. The tears flow down his cheeks and into his beard. The sensation tickles his skin, and the soul hunter shakes his head as though ridding it of all the pain. As he shakes it the tears fly from his face and into the still, deep pool. And as the dawn brings a faint light of a new day to the horizon the soulful tears fly from the pool into the heavens to become morning stars. It is their light which awakens Preston, the soul hunter, to another day of seeking.
When he bends over the pool to refresh himself with its cool waters, the day’s work is there in the sunlight which reaches to the bottom of the pool. He sighs and the leaves of the entire forest rustle and dance from his breath passing by. There on the bottom are the new faces. More souls to be hunted. That of a musician who can no longer hear the music within. A mother in shock and despair from the death of her child in a school shooting. A politician who started out trying to make things better for as many as possible. It is the last which takes away the breath of Preston, the soul hunter. It is two faces, those of lovers who trusted their hearts to the other. The love has died, breaking two hearts. Two fractured souls lie entwined, waiting to be retrieved. Their reflections are there where the empty mirrors leave them.
Preston rinses out his silver flask and tucks it safely into his sash. The work goes on…and on…to all the blank mirrors.
Words are magic and writers are wizards.
