CHAPTER 1

To Start

This story starts in the middle. It will go back to thebeginning but will have no end. It is a tale about life,about the joys of living in the now, along with thechallenges of dealing with the past. Above all it is a story ofa life fully lived and the definition of success. It is about love,all the forms and all the stages of love. Falling in love, beingin love, staying in love, and inevitably failing in love. It isabout fears, insecurities, and the future. It will cover the rainthat falls into every life and how to deal with disappointmentand failure. It will deal with relationships—their joys anddisappointments—and how, in the final analysis, life is asolitary journey. Above all it is a tale about the joys andtribulations of living a complicated life.

Marcus is a writer on a journey. He doesn't know where heis going or even with whom, if anyone, he is going. Where hehas come from is clear. Well, the facts are clear. The reasonsand his emotional journey are not so clear. He is a victim, avictim on two counts. The more he knows and experiences,the more he realizes what he does not know and consequentlyfails to understand. This leads to his primary victim status aspossibly the ultimate victim of the paradox of choice. He hasso much yet has nothing. He can obtain many things exceptthe one thing that he believes he really wants, maybe evenneeds: true love.

He had been a successful businessman, creating thefinancial independence that supports his traveling lifeof adventure and searching. A doomed love affair, withTina, was the catalyst for him to move from the clinical andrelative safety of business to this emotionally charged worldof fantasy and delusion. He fully recognizes that his lifestyleis delusional, a touch self-obsessed, and definitely crazy, buthe enjoys it, so case closed. In his discovery of what it is liketo be a Renaissance man, he has tried many things. Spiritualreaders told him about his destiny and where he came frommany thousands of years ago. He wrote a few books as a meansof passing the time, some serious and some just for fun. In theprocess he met Anastasia, and they agreed to travel togetheras playmates.

He went on a magnificent journey of joy with the fantasticAnastasia. It took them to several romantic places. To Paris, towatch the ballet Swan Lake; to Ireland to experience the wildcoast of the Dingle Peninsula, to London to enjoy the cockneyexperience and to see The Phantom of the Opera. They went toMarrakech to feel connected with those ancient Arabic times,and finally to Malaysia for some ancient Chinese wisdom awayfrom the day-to-day excitement of modern life. The journeywas a great travel experience heightened by superb food anddrink, almost to the point of overconsumption. Above all thetrip developed into a close and loving experience; they madelove and fell in love, a little. They became superb playmatesand instinctive bedfellows, metaphorically and literally.

But! Why is there nearly always a but? Their journey raisedissues of a deep and spiritual nature in Marcus's mind andsoul. Visits to spiritual readers, fortunetellers, and a voodoopriestess revealed something about a previous life that wasdeeply troubling. Exciting, but deeply troubling. He was a lostsoul from a previous life searching for his soul mate.

This is why we have to go back to the beginning. Thebeginning was several hundred years ago.

Malin was born into a tribe of warriors. The day he wasborn he was passed to the warrior elder within minutes ofhis birth, as were all newborn boys. The elder evaluated themale babies and decided if they should live and be trained asBabies who did not meet his immediate and brutalcriteria were left on waste grounds at the edge of the villagewith no attention, which usually resulted in death that firstnight. If in the morning the boy was still alive, he was savedand considered blessed and to have inner strength. They werecalled the Chosen Ones. Malin was a Chosen One.

What followed for the boys was a childhood totally devotedto being a warrior, like his father, like his grandfather, like allthe males in his family. The time in which he was born formedhis life, his attitude toward death, and the need to becomefearless. Not by choice; it was a matter of survival.

Every day he was either training to fight, planning tofight, or fighting. Fighting was what everyone did. Not for anyhigh moral reasons. Fighting was fighting and winning waseverything. No second place, just death.

Life was hard, cheap, usually short, and brutal. It wasvery simple: kill or be killed. Who you fought did not matter.Anyone would do, and that included friends and family.Occasionally a common enemy galvanized the village intocollective action, but that was rare.

Once in a while a warrior prince would pass throughMalin's village to harvest fighters for some faraway war. Somevillagers welcomed the chance to go and fight; others hadworked out that this was a one-way trip and hid. Survival ofthe fittest sometimes meant hiding quickly.

The women were intended for procreation, to servicethe warriors, and most importantly, to produce more warriorboys. By any standards it was a hard and soulless life withoutmuch respite. Emotions were unwanted and an alien conceptto most of the villagers. Sentiment was a sign of weakness.

Malin was tough but different. He enjoyed talking to thewomen and enjoyed their company, which he masked wellwith indifferent behavior toward them. Liking women wasonly partially true. He really liked only one woman.

Alesia was different, one of the youngest in the village,with striking black hair that hung well below her shoulders.Even the way she moved was different. He felt strange urgesof passion when he was with her. Her hips swayed in way thatMalin found attractive, almost intoxicating. In any other worldMalin and Alesia would be lovers, totally devoted to eachother and inseparable. But this was not any other world; andlovers not only did not exist, they were not even understood.Women were to be impregnated so they could give birth tochildren, warrior children.

This coldness shaped Malin into a brutal, callous fightingmachine. Yet somehow, despite all this matter-of-fact brutality,a bond developed between Malin and Alesia. He hoped thatone day he would be strong and powerful enough to claimone of the women as his own. When that day came, it wouldbe Alesia.

The day that Malin was taken away to fight was a completesurprise. He had just completed the morning ritual of strikingthe largest trees with his sword to strengthen his muscles andwas on the way back to the village for food. Suddenly he wassurrounded by at least twenty heavily armed warriors, none ofwhom he recognized. Their leader was grotesquely scarred,and the coldness in his eyes scared even Malin.

"We need warriors to come with us," he said. "We areleaving now."

That was it. Malin was gone. No argument, no opportunityfor discussion, and certainly no good-byes. It would be sometime before Alesia realized Malin was no longer there. Shewas told he had been killed and shortly thereafter one of theother warriors chose her as an exclusive partner. Malin hadnot been killed, and when he returned to find Alesia spokenfor, they were both distraught at this unfortunate twist of fate.Marlin turned to drink and eventually killed himself.

Since those early days, Malin and Alesia have beentraveling the world in their subsequent lives, trying to findeach...