If a clock could countdown to the minute you met your soulmate would you want to know?
A lunch table of five, five different stories, five different lives. Some were long, and romantic, others short and dull, and just few were downright tragic. These are their stories and this is their time.

One minute, 37 seconds
My legs are shaking, holy cow there is no way I can do this. None.
One minute, 29 seconds.
I glance around at the faces surrounding the room. Of course my meeting would take place in the gross, overcrowded cafeteria.
One minute, six seconds.
Somewhere within these four walls, someone has the exact same countdown on their wrist. They’re going through the exact same pressure as me.
54 seconds.
Mum said I should be excited not nervous. Yet I still find myself wiping my sweaty palms on my dress. I can’t believe she talked me into wearing a dress. I mean, shouldn’t my Soul Mate meet me as I normally am? All plain jeans, blah shirts and wild brown curls?
30 seconds.
Something deep within me tells me to stand up. I do, drawing the attention of my tablemates. They all know too. They smile encouragingly up at me, I chew my lip nervously.
25 seconds.
That same feeling pulls me towards the centre of the room. My stomach drops away from me as I take a step in that direction.
20 seconds.
I continue in that direction. With each step the tempo of my heart picks up.
19. Faster.
18. Quicker.
16. It’s racing.
This is it the moment my life changes forever.
My eyes search frantically around the cafeteria, searching for someone who looks as nervous as me. For someone who’s heading towards their future with no sense of direction, like me.
10 seconds.
The feeling directs me slightly to the left. I turn to accomodate.
5. My heart has given up entirely.
4. I stop walking
3. Just waiting left.
2. Everything is about to change.
1. Deep breath.

0000d 00h 00m 00s

Someone bumps my shoulder. I twirl around and my grey eyes meet blue, blue ones.
“Hello there, love. It appears as though we’re Soul Mates then eh?”
As my words fail me, the only thing I can think is, “I am so glad I shaved this morning”

xxxx

I’m sitting outside a cafe when it happens, sipping some cheap drink, pretending to enjoy the sunshine.
The counter runs to zero, and there is an audible click, the tab deactivates, falls off.
The clink of polyurethane to cobblestone floor is echoed a few feet in front of me.
I shake a proffered hand, look up at a disdainful face.

“This is all I get?”

xxxx

It’s just a couple more weeks, now. I’ve been watching closely as the numbers tick steadily down.
Just a couple more weeks, I keep telling myself.
Out of my group of friends, I’m on what they like to call the “fast track,” people whose numbers start much lower than others.
Two weeks, six days, fifteen hours. The clock keeps ticking. Two weeks, one day, four hours.
The days are getting so close now I’m pretty sure my uncontrollable excitement is seriously starting to annoy everyone around me.
My friends tease me incessantly about who they imagine my soul mate will be.
Tall, short, fat, dimples, nail bitter, foot tapper.

At one week, three days and seven hours, the clock stops.

Instead of a soulmate I get condolences, a therapist, and a broken clock.

xxxx

He had always tried to cover up his clock, it made him feel uneasy and he preferred not know.
He wanted the moment to be right because it felt right, not because the numbers on his wrist (however accurate they might be) said so.
Even so, he knew it was soon, the exact time slipped his mind, but he knew there were only a few hours left when he showered that morning.
He casually wondered what happened to the clock when it reached zero..
And so on this day, the most important day of his life, Sean made no unusual effort.
The red scarf around his wrist stopped the nerves, and the board under his feet distracted his mind.
Where was he going? Sean wasn’t sure, fate knew.
Grinding to a stop at a busy road, his eyes were drawn to a boy in a bright blue sweatshirt, carefully unwrapping a  bright red scarf from his right wrist.
He had his eyes closed, and appeared to be holding his breath.
Suddenly he opened his eyes, but before he looked at his wrist he glanced upwards.
Sean felt the thump of his heart stopping as their eyes met.
The boy in blue, began to run to Sean, his face full of happiness and uncertainty, forgetting to watch the traffic.
All Sean could do was shout.
Blue was becoming stained with red as Sean ran to the fallen boy. He lifted his right wrist to find the clock stopped at 0000d 0000h 0000m 0001s and with a haunting feeling he began to unwrap his own wrist.
He didn't know what to hope for.

Sean’s clock had stopped at 0000d 0000h 0000m 0001s.

xxxx
“You excited?” He asked.
“I can hardly stay still,” She replied.
She could hear him chuckling on the other end of the line. His voice was deep when he spoke and she wondered if thats what he sounded like in real life.
She looked back down at her timer. One minute, forty seconds.
She bounced in her place.
The honking of cars could be heard from the other side.
“Where are you?” She asked.
“Taking a walk,” he said. Then he gasped.
“What?” She asked worried. Even though they had never officially met and had never seen a picture of the other, she had began to care for this voice on the other end of the phone.
They had began e-mailing and soon they had become very attracted to each other.
“I see her,” he said, in hushed tones. “Oh christ, I see her.”
She knew who he was referring to. His clock counted down only a few seconds before hers .
She felt her hopes falter, though she should have known from the beginning that they could have never been together.
“Oh, good!” She said, feigning happiness.
She stepped off the curb and made to cross the road.
A loud honk made her head snap around to see a trick racing towards her at full speed.
A hand grabbed her frozen body and pulled her back.
She clutched the stranger tightly, shivering.
The timer on her wrist beeped as she looked up into green eyes.
They boy put his phone to his ear. “ Hello,” he said and his voice echoed from the speaker of her phone.

The system was flawed, imperfect. But so were people, and so was love.