It’s 3 am in the morning.  I wake up from something tickling my arm.  Or is it just an itch?  Or maybe I’m not completely awake yet?  I focus.   No, something is definitely there, crawling around on my arm.  Instinctively and slightly alarmed, I sit up quickly and smash my hand on the arm where the bug must be and flick the light on.   And to my surprise, there’s Linda sitting up in bed too, with her hand smacked on her arm at exactly the same time as I did.  We look at each other in astonishment, remove our hands and sure enough, two flea-like little  creatures drop from our arms onto the white sheet.   

At that moment, a strange and outlandish thought occurs to me.  What if we’ve become one person?  Like some far-out science fiction movie.  No longer separated by bodies, minds and space but one entity, experiencing exactly the same thing at the same time.   What a wacky thought.   

As we try to calm down from the ‘bug attack’ after checking the entire bed for any further signs of more flea-like creatures, my mind races with this bizarre idea of two people suddenly becoming one.  How would that work?  We’d think of the same things at the same time, all the time.  What to have for breakfast, what to tackle tomorrow, where and when to go somewhere, how to respond to all aspects of living, even ‘secretly’ preparing birthday celebrations for each other, only to realize she’s already aware of my plans. Because our thoughts are now shared.  We are one person in this weird science fiction movie playing out in my mind.   Things would not only become hyper predictable “Sweetie, I’m thirsty” –  “Yeah I know”.  Sure, convenient maybe, but also so so boring.  There would be no surprises.  No more disagreements, no diverging perspectives, challenging counter arguments, no discussions, no stimulating brainstorms.  Hmm… 

I think about this as we navigate our way through this city.  Linda likes to check the maps to see if we’re heading in the right direction.  Sometimes we take an unexpected turn into an alley which I say is a dead-end, but Linda encourages us to explore, just in case it gifts us a short-cut.  Sometimes it does.  This time though, we eventually come to a full stop in front of someone’s house gates at the end of a long maze.  I secretly smile and think “I knew it!”  But I don’t say anything.  Because this is the part that I love so much.  I relish in the discovery of new alleys, different roads, unexplored corners of the world that I would never have come across by myself.  So many adventures that I wouldn’t have witnessed.  I adore this unique and wonderful interplay journey that Linda and I are on.  Not knowing for sure what’s next.  Each of us realizing that we colour each other’s lives with our unique thoughts, perspectives and diverging ideas. Sometimes challenging, shocking even, but always interesting.  Like smashing bugs at the same time, in a hotel room somewhere at 3 am in the morning.