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Byline: Tom Slemen

THERE are people put on this earth who are made to love one another, and they are called soul mates, but there are also soul enemies - people who seem to be forever at one another's throats, and their mutual hatred may not be limited to one life.

In the 1970s there was a petty 16-year-old thief in Warrington named Ben. He visited his girlfriend Andrea one afternoon, and caught her kissing Rob, a lad from school. Ben and Rob had hated one another since the infants and were always getting into fights. The pair fought again and wrecked Andrea's living room. Andrea was furious, and packed the two of them in.

Five years later, Rob was a policeman in Liverpool, and was on the beat on Smithdown Road when suddenly the door to a bookies opened and Ben was thrown out by a punter who told the policeman that Ben had been cadging money off customers.

Rob grabbed him by the collar, and there was a fight. The two men rolled along the pavement until a huge Irish priest intervened. He separated them and held them apart. 'Fighting like the Kilkenny cats, you two were!' said the priest, releasing the combatants. 'And I can see this animosity between you goes way back!' The policeman's eyes met the priest's, and Rob sensed he knew something. Ben thought the same and said: 'Sorry, father?' 'Cain and Abel, Romulus and Remus, Lucifer and Michael - it has to stop here, boys,' answered the priest. He told them he had a gift of reading past incarnations of people. The gathering crowd smirked, and Ben ran off. Rob turned to talk to the priest - but he was gone. That night, Ben was about to go upstairs to bed when the door burst open. In came what looked like a spaceman with a gun which shone a laser at Ben.

'Police!' cried the figure - who had Rob's face. Then the intruders suddenly vanished.

Afterwards, he had recurring dreams where he was a highwayman and Rob was after him, and it ended on the gallows. Sometimes he was a criminal of the future, pursued by Rob - a hi-tech cop. Sometimes Rob was a Tommy in WWII fighting a Nazi Ben. These dreams went on for years till Ben underwent hypnotic regression. The hypnotist was fascinated, because he had regressed a policeman named Rob, and he too had the very same dreams. 'I know Rob,' said Ben, 'we have a history' | Tom Slemen's Tales from the Weird 2 is now available from Amazon.

Copyright 2016 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

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Title Annotation:Features
Publication:Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, England)
Date:Feb 20, 2016
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