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Sharon Lam

Paula and eric aren’t Soulmates

(an excerpt from Lonely Asian Woman)

There are two types of people in this world. That will always be true if you have only two discrete, mutually exclusive categories to put people into, which is always the case when the case that’s being made is that there are two types of people in this world.

For example, there are two types of people in this world: those who believe in soulmates and those who do not. Paula and Eric both fall into the latter. They are the same type of person. But while there are two types of people in this world, there are an infinite number of types of two types of people in this world. Soulmate Belief/ Soulmate Disbelief is just Type #298,423.

Here are some other types of types that confirm that Paula and Eric are the same type of person:

And here are some types that would define Paula and Eric as different types of people:

Paula was right in having no belief in Eric as her soulmate. Eric was not Paula’s soulmate. But she was wrong in thinking soulmates didn’t exist at all. Paula’s soulmate was a half-Portuguese, half-Taiwanese banker whose pencil sketches had been published across a handful of small but well-reputed design magazines. He ate grapefruit for breakfast not because it seemed trendy but because his poh poh had always eaten grapefruit for breakfast. He also knew what all the laundry symbols on clothes tags meant. They had once come very close to meeting. Several years ago they had both been at the Causeway Bay MTR station in Hong Kong, him on the escalator going down to the subway, her going up to the exit, their eyes meeting for one of those seconds that felt more like seven. The escalator handrails, parallel and moving in opposite directions, worked to move the soulmates together the moment they got on at either end – their hands just ten centimetres apart at their closest. But this was too much. Like magnets of the same polarity, they could never be. Having gotten as close as they could ever get, they moved apart again. One down, one up, both apart. Given the odds of time, space, and population, it was a miracle they even met at all. Eric’s soulmate, for example, was born decades before him, halfway across the world, and was murdered by the Bolsheviks for being a Romanov.

*

Paula didn’t go to the airport with Eric. His flight was too early. She woke up alone, and her first thought was that she had eaten Eric in her sleep. Her second thought was a whimper. She reached for her phone, then changed her mind. No. Reaching for her phone first thing meant that she was putting others before herself. Did it? Maybe it would be good to read the news. See what that awful politician who shared her first name had said now. Read something devastating to jolt herself into perspective and out of bed. No. That never actually worked.

Eric’s absence was paralysing. He had been staying with Paula for the past two weeks, in the gap between his room being sublet and his departure. Without another constant presence, she reverted back to feeling like the proverbial tree in the forest. If no one was around to see her do something, had she really done anything? Not that she ever did do anything. There wasn’t much she could point to as evidence that she had committed to this life. She needed something like a car, but she couldn’t drive. Maybe a bike. But she was horribly unfit on land. Even her choice of pet – neon tetras – floated above ground. If only she could get a job that gave their employees lanyards. Those people always seemed the most grounded to her, walking around with their ID photos around their neck. This is me, and again, this is me! In lieu of all these things, Eric was the closest thing she had.

She reached for her phone again. She scrolled through various feeds until she saw a video of two shiba inu puppies hugging each other. She sent it to Odie, her by-definition best friend, with the message this u n me. Then she sent the exact same video and message to Eric. She rolled around for a bit longer and then got up to go to the bathroom, sliding the door closed behind her.

Sharon Lam is currently based in Hong Kong, working in architecture. Her fiction and non-fiction writing has appeared in various places, most recently in VICE and the 2018 Digital Writer’s Festival. ‘Paula and Eric Aren’t Soulmates’ is an excerpt from Sharon’s debut novel Lonely Asian Woman, which will be published in March 2019 by Lawrence & Gibson.

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