Saul and Sophie

Saul Waterman, like an advertisement for patience, pictured his life in chapters.
He was forever moving toward the next one.
But for a moment, for just a breath;
he stepped out of his story.
Saul Waterman, at long last, did something for himself.

It started at a party.  That's when it started to happen.
They met, and that was that.
Her eyes, he thought, are sparks from a fire.
And she did look at him that way.
Sophie looked at him the way smoke lingers over fire.
Sophie was a road Saul wanted to travel. 

Saul, always on the edge of the ledge but never jumping;
never jumping to feel the embrace of the wind around his waist
or the spray of the unknown crashing against his shore.
Saul's left and right;
his two halves,
didn't make a whole.
At this party, both Saul's halves stepped out as one when he first spoke to Sophie.

"My name is Saul Waterman and I want to lose myself in your wake",
he said to her through a longing that smelled like sandpaper on lace.
Sophie bowed like a Geisha and backed away.
"My name is Sophie" she promised, "Watch me disappear."

Many parties later, Saul,
a living advertisement for patience,
climbed the high-dive ladder that was his life.
He jumped and when he landed,
he landed next to Sophie.
Sophie didn't realize, until Saul landed,
that she'd been waiting.
Waiting for Saul to land exactly where he did.
It was a perfect jump.

Sophie was visible and Saul was awake.
They were both alive.
Music, replacing their blood, skated through their bodies like an alarm clock.