Characters | Elizabeth Meeks

Izzy

Inside Izzy's mind

I believe that there are two things that you should know. The first is that time repeats. It isn't always the same, outcomes can change, especially if you learn as you live. You can bring what you have learned with you, your life can get better each time. I know what you are thinking, but those deja vu moments, those are real, you will just have to believe me on this.

The second thing you should know, is that I understand who people really are. I can't read minds, but I can feel their emotions. Emotions have color, I can see those colors. The colors that people feel betray what they are thinking instantly. Most people are a mix of colors but some hues are stronger than others so it can be obvious where on the spectrum that person stands.

Keith is different than most people, his colors of lights and darks are equal. His colors flicker and change, sometimes he is yellow, bright and happy but then his colors dim, they grow darker. The yellow turns purple and gets so thick and dark that there isn't room for any other color. He reminds me of a lightning bug, unsure of his colors so he keeps changing from light to dark.

Jack, his older brother is just an aging hippy. He teaches guitar, acting and martial arts. He produces his own movies! Jack is elegant, I've not been able to find a better word to describe him. He is elegant from his feet to his finger tips, even the way he thinks is elegant, its as if his entire life is a well choreographed dance.

Jack has lived this life many times and he remembers from his past lives. His goal each time is to help his brother but each time he fails. He Knows that Keith has lighter colors inside of him and he wants to find a way to help Keith lean into them. That's where I come in. Jack is convinced that I've been introduced into the equation so I can help lead his brother out of the dark colors in his head.

Keith is too old for me, he is eleven years my senior, but the attraction is undeniable. When I look at him, I can feel his emotions more than I've been able to feel emotions from anyone else. Sometimes, his colors melt into my own colors, I don't know how else to describe it, but it feels natural, like it is supposed to be that way. When it happens, I know that Keith isn't the man that he is supposed to be. There is something inside that is preventing him from becoming the man that the universe intended. Jack thinks that I am the catalyst his brother needs, that I will be his savior.

I love Keith, I really do. I will bring that love with me the next time, the time after that and the time after that. I will bring it with me however many times that there are. I don't know if Jack is correct but I know that love is the most important lesson to learn and that love can change so many things. It occurred to me that maybe we are all like fireflies in the night. We flash our colors off and on, life after life. Maybe, once we understand who we are supposed to be, our colors will be constant and remain light so we can't get lost in the darkness.

Keith

I've always been a disappointment, never good enough for my father. I tried to follow in his footsteps and be an actor but dad was so critical. I could have played the part differently, I shouldn't have settled for a supporting role, I shouldn't be subservient, I should offer better ideas to the director, I should be more like my brother Jack.

My brother is amazing, he is the strongest man that I have ever known. After dad died and I was struggling, he took me in. Jack is one of those guys that is soft spoken but everyone is afraid of. He knows what he wants and he gets it, nothing holds him back or gets in his way. He can look inside of himself and understand his strengths but he also can turn his own weakness into strength. Jack is stubborn and strong willed and argumentative, he takes those qualities and somehow turns them into determination and independence. Suddenly his weak areas are now his strengths and just like that, he is back on track, getting what he wanted.

Sometimes he is difficult to live with. He has some crazy ideas, he believes in reincarnation, only not coming back in a different form. He believes that time expands and contracts and in doing so, that time repeats. He actually believes that we live the same life over and over and if we learn, then we can become better each time. Part of me wishes it was true, that maybe I can learn something and make my life better, the other part of me knows it is garbage. We get one shot at life, I really messed mine up.

When I began using drugs it didn't take long until I lost everything. Any money that I had managed to save, I squandered away. I'm twenty-five years old and have no option but to live off the good grace of my thirty eight year old half brother just to survive. For some reason, he thinks that I am worth saving, but Jack can't see into my black heart. I'm not worth saving, I haven't even told my sponsor how dark I am inside. I keep hoping that if I pretend it didn't happen, it will go away and not be true.

Jack wants me to meet Izzy. If he could see inside my head, he would change his mind and would want me as far away from this girl as he could keep me. Thank God she is back in Nebraska, hundreds of miles away from California! At first I couldn't understand Jack's enamoration with this kid. Why would a man his age want to spend so much time with a young teenager? He was obsessed with her. I couldn't understand until I spoke to her myself. Jack just handed me the phone and walked away and suddenly I was speaking with this amazing person on the other end of the phone.

I admit there is something special about her, something that entices me. The conversation was light and funny, yet it was intimate. I felt as though I was being caressed by her hoarse low laughter. It felt as though she was pulling the darkness out of me, by the end of the conversation, I felt lighter. It was as if she could feel what I needed to hear and feel. It felt physical and I was invigorated. Her laugh drives me crazy, in a good way and almost makes me believe that there is hope, that I can be saved.

Inside Keith's mind

Jack

Inside Keith's mind

I'm an old soul, I've been around forever. Each time this life begins I manage to remember a little bit more from the time before. Most things remain the same, my family continues to have the same issues. My father never learns and continues to ruin each relationship in his life. He leaves behind him a trail of broken marriages, broken hearts and broken children. My brother Keith is one of those progeny.

Keith is intelligent, talented, witty and gentle and I will begrudgingly admit that he is the better looking of the two of us. His looks favor his mother. She was Dad's second wife. She was a kind soul, she was gentle and creative. Dad destroyed her just as he had my mother. Keith obviously has her DNA, he not only looks like her, but he is also a gentle soul. Just like his mother, he craved approval, his insecurities got the better of him, the approval he needed from Dad, just never came and after the death of both his parents, Keith began using drugs.

I'm not sure how long he had been using before he became addicted, but I don't think it took too long. Drug use numbed him and helped him get through the days. The needle stole from him too, each day he used, his sweetness evaporated, there were times that I would look into his eyes and I didn't even recognize him. The boy I knew as Keith was almost gone. Each time I lived this life, I couldn't find the answer to save him.

The first time I saw Izzy, I knew she was there before I pulled back my living room curtain. I had heard the neighbor pull up on his motorcycle and something in my gut, pulled me to the window, it told me to look outside. She had just pulled off her helmet, long blonde hair swept to one side, a few freckles across the bridge of her nose and hauntingly dark blue eyes. My window was open and I could hear her laugh, it was a low hoarse laugh that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. She was the key, I knew it, the universe had brought her to me.

When I went outside and introduced myself to her, I shook her hand. I felt the reverberations of her soul all the way down to my toes, it was like touching an electric fence. Izzy felt it too and laughed again. Then I noticed her perfume, it changed scents, with each emotion she felt the scent would change, it was affirmation to me, a sign. It was showing me that she understood change is constant and that different actions brought about different outcomes. The universe was speaking to me through Izzy, it was telling me that he could change.