Chapter 2 : It's you!!

As Jack and Ava followed the red string, it seemed to glow brighter and brighter as they approached their final destination. Finally they found themselves in front of a rustic little cafe that seemed warm and cozy inside. If you closed your eyes you could image yourself standing in front of your home on a Christmas eve with the lovely smell of fresh baked bread, cupcakes,  cookies and  freshly brewed coffee wafting from the windows. "Ahh!! It's Cafe Deja Brew!! Mark wanted to visit this place once, but it's always so full and noisy that I tried to avoid coming here with him." And of course it would be so full given it's location which was right across their University. "Let's not go off-track now shall we?" , Ava interrupted, " We need to find out where that leads to." she said pointing to the now bright red string attached to Jack's pinkie which led inside the cafe. " Ohh! right. Lets head inside."

As they entered the Cafe, Jack's eyes fell on where the string ended. There she was, a beautiful girl, taking the order of the table just near one of the windows. For the world she might have been just another ordinary girl, but for him, she was the most beautiful girl in the world.  Her perfectly curly hair that managed to set loose from her hair elastic as they rested on her cheeks and the way she tucked them behind her ears, her warm eyes which seemed inviting yet a bit sad, her smile which could light up the entire room. As he first laid his eyes on her, what seemed like a wave of warmth rushed across his body suddenly bringing in a moment of clarity as though everything in this world now made perfect sense and he suddenly muttered under his breath, "It's you!!" At that moment it seemed like she heard him as she turned to face him, a look of astonishment and longing on a face as though she was searching for a long lost friend.

What he hadn't noticed was that the red string that connected them together, had suddenly lost its glow. Although he was lost in adoring the love of his life,  Ava had noticed the change in the  string of fate. She was quite intrigued by the changing  nature of the situation for the string was slowly loosing it's color,  along with Jack's life cord which had very slowly started to disappear. "Jack! Jack!" Ava shook him out of his daze. " I think I have figured it out! The reason you are still lingering around in this form. First tell me what had you thought of when you would finally meet the one for you?"  Startled as though someone had harshly awoken him from a beautiful dream, he pondered as his gaze went back to the mysterious girl when suddenly, someone called out to her from behind the counter "Hey Lily can you take this order to table number 4?John's gone out to deliver an order nearby." Jack thought to himself. "So, her name's Lily. A name as beautiful as the person whom it belongs to." Looking back at Ava who was now looking at him in anticipation of an answer. "What would I want for her you ask? I would want her to be the person that she wishes to be, to support her in her hard times and to rejoice with her in her accomplishments. I would want to be the one with whom she would share her worries and her fears, to wipe up her tears and comfort her and make her laugh.....What a cruel twist of fate to have finally found her now...."

Jack's chest felt heavy as the warmth he felt a few moments ago was now replaced with a feeling of being suffocated under a heavy blanket a he felt a lump form in his throat. "That is what you have to do then. Can you see your string of fate? It's slowly loosing it's color...It will soon loose all it's color weakening the link as you life cord detaches from your physical body. Based on the rate that it is disappearing, I think you have about 3 months left on this earth as Jack." As he tried to comprehend Ava's words, he came to a realization. He only had approximately 3 months left. He wanted to spend the time he had left with the girl that he now saw in front of him. There's so much that he wanted to do for her. What would happen to her after he was gone? That's when a sudden realization dawned upon him, he had to find someone who would be there for her, who would give her all the things that he would have. As she was the only one for him, the one he would do anything for... to keep her happy. Drawing a long and heavy sigh, Jack spoke softly "I have to find the one for her don't I?"

With a sympathetic contemplation Ava answered. "Yes. It seems so..... It's up to you, what you choose to do with time you have left here. Once your time's up, you will have to cross over to the afterlife and wait for her there so that you can finally meet her." Being the logical person he was, a question crossed Jack's mind "Just like the way I'm connected to her, won't others also have this soulmate connection to someone else? How am I supposed to find her a partner if they already have another soulmate?" "Well, you see, not every soulmate is born in the same time frame as their partner. Only a very small percentage of humans are that lucky and with the growing distractions that you people have in your lives, hardly a percent of those so called "lucky" people feel connected to themselves, let alone feeling a connection to their soulmate" As she turned towards Jack who was now deep in thought, processing the new information that he had just learnt. "Besides, you don't just have this one soulmate, with whom you spend your life with. There are various soulmates for a single person, some come to your life to teach you important life lessons while some come to your life as your companions in the form of friends, family. But, having said that, your bond seems quite peculiar. I have never seen a string glow so brightly before. She must be someone special."

Having gone through the crash course on spiritual bonds and trying to understand what he had just learnt, Jack could feel his mind slowly going blank and he suddenly felt helpless as he murmured "What now? Do I just follow her around? I don't even know her in person. How am I supposed to find her a partner?" Ava started again in her typical salesman pitch voice "You can hang around her for some time to get to know her better and as you are in your spirit form, you won't be visible to her. So basically you a like a ghost whose going to haunt the love of his life." "A what!!" Jack exclaimed in shock as she continued. "As you are in your spirit form you just need to think of her to get to the place she currently is at. If you are stuck anywhere just call out to me and I'll be there to guide you. All the best!! And goodbye!!" Still under the after effects of the earlier shock, he tried stopping Ava as she tried leaving "Wait!! Aren't you supposed to be guiding me or something? Where are you going?" He saw the signs of annoyance forming on her face for being stopped as her eyebrows began to furrow "You know, you aren't the only case I have currently. My task was to help you find your final wish so that you can move on towards your afterlife and now you know what it is. How you go about it is up to you and I'd suggest that you start working towards it as you don't have enough time left. I've got to go now. Bye!" She waved off as she disappeared as quickly as she had appeared in his life.

As he calmed down and turned to now face Lily who was now sitting behind the counter with her face buried into the texts of her mobile phone. With a new profound sense of determination and a hint of nervousness Jack thought to himself "Right. Let's get to it!"