Magnetic Moment

This morning I was reading my book on the train and I got caught up in this sentence:

He called to her in a kind voice, and Tereza felt her soul rushing up to the surface through her blood vessels and pores to show itself to him.

Sometimes I forget that it's okay to be affected by this sort of thing, and sadly, I only reluctantly admitted to myself that I could relate to what the author described. When life gets serious and systematic, it's easy to discount the soul's capacity to saturate.

Once I believed in soul mates. I don't anymore, at least not in the traditional sense, but I can clearly remember the night that I thought I met mine. We held hands and silently stared, unabashedly prying each other open. I read his thoughts. He said, "You know when you just know somebody?" and I totally did. My soul flooded my eyeballs and I'm sure he saw it.

I heard on NPR yesterday that when they capture crocodiles in residential areas, they tape magnets to their heads while transferring them back to the wild. The crocs are disoriented by the magnetic forces, their navigational systems disrupted so they can't find their way back.