The Tower at Midnight

                  

He knows me. I can see it in those blue eyes, the way they're quivering like they used to when he became frustrated. They were once crystal blue, now they're a bit darker. It was so long ago now. Changes are allowed when crossing over to new lives. I've been pale as a porcelain bathtub one lifetime and a lovely caramel color the next. This, however, has never happened before. I've never found someone from my old life; I've never found someone who has done what I have. I can feel the familiarity; the love that had to die is captured on this street. Oh we were so happy and in love all that time ago. I haven't seen him since Paris 1890, my second time on this earth. The Eiffel Tower was simply an idea and our love was simply dying.

Allow me to explain my situation. There are some people who cause a break in the afterlife. We never make it to that final door like we're supposed to, or some just need another chance to prove themselves. In total, I have been born and raised four times in numerous locations, with slight physical variations, and completely new people surrounding me. The time gets a little funny as well; we never know when we'll wake up again. The man spoken about above is, well was, Nicolas Beaumanoir. My name at the time had been Abella Caillat; I was in the beginning of my second life when I met Nicolas. It had been terrifying, having all of these memories from the woman of my first life, Alma Bastianel, but trying to create my life as Abella. I was afraid I'd be persecuted as some sort of evil being, that everyone must have known I was truly Alma Bastianel, but no one batted an eye. I was still Alma, but in Abella's body. It was maddening at first, trying to balance myself out, but I did. Then I met Nicolas, and I had to balance the both of us.

Nicolas grew up in France. He was poor and mistreated as a child, which led to his depression and hatred of his parents. All I ever tried to do was help him, and I did for a long time, but it's hard to keep the shape of splintered wood. He couldn't simply sand away his problems.  We never had any children together, but we were happy for a while. When we first met, I knew we would be more than friends. I could feel the love run up and down my body whenever he glanced at me. His eyes would trap me, study me, rank me, and show me how I looked to him. They found me beautiful on days when he would sketch the outline of my handmade dresses. They made me hold him on his broken days, when the eyes turned grey and cold. They helped me focus when the ideas slowed down, when my artwork became popular, but my vision dulled; he made my sunsets glow again. They pulled me up even when he was down; made me feel as though I was what kept his eyes gleaming, what kept him breathing. Then they shattered me.

After a while I couldn't fix their grey. They turned darker and colder. There was no longer Nicolas in them, simply a man who watched me paint. He'd smile, falsely of course, but he would. He'd do it to show me he was still trying. When I'd finish something, he would turn the flat line upwards and praise me. His words started to mean less and less. I became angry with him, and by the time I realized it wasn't his fault, his eyes were closed, and they were followed by his casket. He committed suicide, drowning when he leapt off the Pont Neuf coming back from an Uncle's house. In his doing so, I became weak. I didn't touch my easel for two years. By then, all my paintings had been sold, but one. I had a half done painting of the Eiffel Tower that had just been built during our time. When I did start painting again, I vowed that to be my last one. He would have loved to see the final product of the monument. I finished the painting just a year before my death. I made plans for a close friend to hide the painting.  We agreed to sneak it into the archives of the museum her family owned. She left behind her daughter and their bloodline to guard the painting and return it to me whenever I showed up next.

I woke up as Mariana Stamp in March of 1940. By the time I was nineteen, I was incredibly angry at the world. I live in the United States of America in the middle of the racist 1950's. My third set of parents were against my protests for equal rights. I ran away from home two hours after our worst fight. I stole money from the bank down the road and from my parent's bread box. In total, I had around seven hundred dollars, which was quite a lot in the fifties. I left my family and all I had known about my third life in Georgia. I got a connection with a cargo boat I saw heading to France. I figured Paris or Italy was my best option, and if I went to Paris, I could find the money I stashed away and my painting.