The following essay is an early draft of a paper written (and later rewritten six more times) by John H. Watson during his third year of university. He had a peculiar professor for the mythology class he took that year. The man wasn't much older than his students. John was in a small class of twenty-four people. Rather than either assigning everyone the same topic to write about, or letting the students choose a topic, his professor would assign topics at random. Every time they had to write something, one student at a time would walk up to the sequined top hat and remove a piece of paper. Approaching the hat for the penultimate time, John had selected the following prompt: Choose a phenomenon explained by mythology. Explain its relevance throughout history, and how it affects us today. Discuss your personal experiences with the phenomenon.

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Aristophanes said that everyone had a soulmate. He claimed that humans were originally cylindrical beings: four arms, four legs, and one head with two faces going in opposite directions. There were also three genders of humans: the male, the female, and the "androgynous" (half male and half female). When the gods began to worry about how powerful the humans were, they hit a wall. They considered obliterating the race, but they didn't want to lose their playthings and the sacrifices from the humans. Zeus eventually decided that he would cut the humans in half to cripple them. That's how humans came to be as we are now. The phrase "searching for my other half" is because of this split. We search high and low to find the person that we were taken from. The androgynous were severed into heterosexuals, and homosexuals were cut from the single-gendered humans. When we find our literal other half, we never want to let go.

Even before the markings began showing up, many cultures had stories about people being bound by the soul. The red string of fate, bashert, Cupid. It has always been known that people belong in pairs. The confirmation didn't appear until sometime during the middle ages.

Around the tenth or eleventh century, people began to notice the markings. The strange symbols began appearing on people gradually. It was thought to be random —or witchcraft— until someone who was intelligent enough to figure it out was brought in. This man, a French priest, realized a few key things: first, the symbols were mainly letters (illiteracy rates were astonishingly high in the middle ages); sometimes they were other things, but they were usually letters. Second, the letters, which were sometimes symbols, mainly appeared on new couples within weeks of their meeting. This led to his third conclusion, which was that the letters were initials. Last but not least, the initials were those of the bearer's soulmate (now called their "determined").

Despite the clergyman's leap of faith on part four, he was right. The markings, as they have been called from the beginning, appear upon the first touch of a soulmate. It's a gradual darkening of skin over the course of a few days resulting in a mark that resembles a tattoo. They're nearly always between one and two centimeters big —according to Guinness World Records, the biggest is three and a half centimeters wide— and almost always in a subtle, semi-hidden spot. The location prevents embarrassment, but it's difficult to notice when a marking appears. Not everyone ends up with the initials of their determined. Usually, it's the more creative and unique individuals who get a picture. The picture is entirely symbolic of the relationship.

Though the marks are a useful heads up (and prevent infidelity), there are some drawbacks. They can be a bit embarrassing, especially if you're young. When I was nine years old, a friend of mine tripped and knocked over a girl on the playground. Four days later, the girl's initials appeared on the back of his neck. He was teased mercilessly. After all, girls had cooties. The concept of being forever tied to someone else was foreign at that age.

Society had to place strict rules to ensure safety and order. Your determined can be anyone; propriety is irrelevant. All public places have cork boards for notices of accidental markings. In schools and businesses, gloves must be worn at all times. In a corporate meeting, attendees must not sit close enough for accidental contact to occur; papers would be passed by an already-marked third party. Special gloves were created that go all the way to the armpit. Once they're snapped into place, they shrink until they're like a second skin. Many clothing companies have cashed in on the new technology by adjusting the gloves for different demographics. Breathable gloves for the summer, disposable gloves for doctors, and bulletproof gloves for police and soldiers. Even those who are marked wear gloves. This is both to avoid the hype that surrounds announcing a determined, and to prevent one-sided markings.

A one-sided marking binds you to a person for eternity, but not the other way around. They are your determined, but you are not theirs. The cause tends to be a traumatic. Nobody is quite sure why it happens, but the soul reaches out for a few seconds after severe emotional trauma. If two people form an emotional connection during that time, which is rare, the one who was traumatized misdetermines. They connect to the other person (perhaps a savior), and sever the connection to their original determined. Typically,the attachment both to and from the misdetermined is cut, and the original determined is none the wiser. Therapy is usually the next step after confirming that the marking is one-sided.

Preconceived notions of sexual orientation are sometimes irrelevant when it comes to marking. Other than one-sided markings, there are no mistakes when it comes to who your determined is. They're always a perfect match, even if it's in a twisted way that you need to squint to see. One would think that the absence of choice in a determined would obliterate homophobia. Rather than removing the issue, the mark polarizes opinions. Some see it as the mark of the devil.

At this point in my life, I have not found my determined.

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John's professor informed him that more self-aware people can sometimes describe their determined before meeting them. The two men made a bet. They would each take a crack at describing John's determined. The professor would make his guess, place it in an envelope, and then John would describe his soulmate to his teacher. John's guess would be placed in the envelope, which was only to be opened upon finding his determined. No matter how far in the future, John would seek out his former professor when the envelope was opened, and the losing man would hand over 100 pounds.

The older man had a strong idea of the type of person that John would be marked by. Just to frighten his student, he wrote on lined paper in large handwriting, skipping multiple lines. His two paragraphs ended up being five pages long.

"John Watson, future doctor. You have a strong, unusual personality. Opposites attract is the only way to go. You have a paternal instinct beyond compare, so they'll probably be naive in many ways, and possibly younger than you. You're more than an adrenaline junkie: you get your kicks through near-death experiences. He'll have a dangerous job to keep you on your toes. He? Yeah, he. You need to be a part of a team. The two of you will exactly compensate for any weakness from the other. A difference in gender would tip the scale; breasts and pregnancy scares would get in the way of danger. Polar opposites means an aloof and abrasive personality. Any shorter than you would ruin the balance. Why do I keep going on about balance? If they're going to be an equally strong but opposite personality, balance will keep the boat from sinking. Since shorter is out, taller than you also points to a man. Especially because an abrasive woman would just confuse you. You'll probably have to apologize for him a lot.

You'll be his heart, so what will he be? Any less intelligent than you would make you overcompensate. Being of a similar intelligence would make you feel like you're putting more into the relationship than you're getting. The only thing left is that he'll be much smarter than you. You'll be the heart to his head (which will be rather far from the ground), and the human to his robot. He'll nearly get you killed more than once, and you'll probably spend your nights stitching him back together. You two will be such opposites that I wouldn't be surprised if he has dark curls, pale skin, and an older brother to match your little sister, tan, and light hair."

The professor chuckled when John gave him his prediction. It would seem that the future army doctor felt that the adrenaline seeking had to be suppressed rather than cultivated. John had given him a near self-portrait in his list of traits...only changed in small ways that made the woman seem like a cat. The prediction was sealed in an envelope with a smirk, and handed to John.

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The two kept in contact after John graduated. Periodic letters and phone calls forged a friendship between the two men. During John's second year in medical school, his former professor got bored with mythology and decided to join him. They kept in touch until the day that John H. Watson, M.D. pulled on his bulletproof gloves and was shipped off to Afghanistan. It would be years before he saw his friend again, but Professor Michael Stamford, Ph.D. could wait.