“Well, enjoy the rest of your day, Cassia,” he says, his voice cheerful, but something about his jaw looks tense. Ellis looms between us.
“Bye, Daniel. Nice seeing you again.” I try not to watch him as he goes—and I can feel a silent willpower coming from his side as well—and he keeps walking with his gaze straight ahead.
15
“You havegotto be kidding.”
The group that I am having a sound bath with is—none other than Watson and Associates Landscape Architecture Firm.
“Nooo,” Ellis says with a groan. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
I can’t even be surprised at this point. “Joshua Tree is apparently the tiniest desert in the entire world.”
Everyone’s taking off their shoes in the giant dome we’re sitting in. When Marcella told me to book a sound bath, I almost dumped her as my best friend. Born and raised in L.A., with magical powers to matchmake people, I hate all this woo-woo stuff. But she said it was like taking the most relaxing nap of your life.With strangers?I had asked.
What if itisn’tstrangers, though? Is it relaxing then?IS IT?
There are mats placed at the perimeter of the dome with various-sized quartz bowls placed in the center. They’ll be “played” by people holding drumsticks with padded ends. Think of running your finger along the rim of a glass and the sound that it creates—sound bathskind of feel like this concept at heart. We’re directed to pick a mat and then lie down.
The only mats available for me and Ellis are next to Daniel. Oh my god.
And, of course, I end up sandwiched between them.
Daniel shoots me an inscrutable look before he plops onto his back. Ellis winks at me before he lies down.
I stare up at the ceiling wondering what the hell my matchmaking gods are thinking. Soon, the sound bath begins. This entails all of us being encouraged to close our eyes and just let the sounds and vibrations of the bowls wash over us.
For the first few minutes, you can hear and feel everyone’s shifting bodies. Some giggling here and there. I am so aware of the two men beside me that I’m surprised I’m not spontaneously combusting from the pressure of it.
But then something clicks—I feel a lull take over me. There’s this feeling I love, that I’ve had since I was a little kid. Lying so still, in such a comfortable position, that you no longer have any awareness of where your limbs are. It’s like you become a bit of a ghost.
I feel my surroundings disappear. The din of the drums fills my ears, the vibrations are in my bones. And in this state, I can imagine my blood is slowing down, that I am becoming a ghost.
It’s not dissimilar to when I see someone’s past life. I’m here but I’m not, and I’m not somewhere else, either.
But then I sense the two men next to me. On my left, the warmth coming from Ellis, the pureness of it. It electrifies me. On my right, the heat coming from Daniel. The mystery of it, the allure. It makes me curious.
I exist between these two states of being for a second and forever.
And then, suddenly—I feel a familiar tug. I open my eyes and I’m in a quiet, candlelit room. I peer around and it looks like an oldKorean house, with wood-framed paper doors and wood furniture low to the ground.What the hell, am I in a past life? Whose?
Then one of the doors opens, and a man steps in.
The air is sucked out of my lungs. It’s Daniel. His warm brown eyes look into mine and he says, in Korean, “There you are, wife.”
And I feel it then—the history, the love between us. The easy intimacy. The protection and safety I feel near this man.
He brings in a tray of tea, the porcelain clinking gently as he lays the lacquer wood tray down between us. The scent of barley wafts up and its familiarity makes my eyes sting. Halmoni has made this tea for me countless times in my childhood, bringing it up to my room with cut fruit while I did homework.
An easy silence settles between us as he pours the tea into our cups, elegantly and with practiced precision. The soft clinking and liquid sounds are hypnotic. Am I here, can he see me? This isn’t like any past life I’ve been in before and I can’t tell if I’m dreaming. Just as Daniel lifts my cup to me, I can hear a baby cry out, and when Daniel’s eyes dart to the door, I am thrown out of the vision. I snap my eyes open. Everyone is stirring around me.
“Best napever,” someone says with a yawn. Scattered laughter.
Holy shit. Did I just see my own past life? My heart is thumping, and I am trying to act normal when I turn my head to the left and see Ellis watching me with a softness in his eyes. “You look cute when you sleep,” he says in a whisper.
“I wasn’t asleep,” I say, trying to sound normal even though I kind of want to scream and run out of here. He looks a little concerned by the tone of my voice, so I say, “But, hey, why were you watching me? You were supposed to be in the sound-bath zone.”
“Honestly, that was just intensely weird,” he says, still lying down. “I had to open my eyes before I astral projected or something.”
