A Life of Continuous Death

A Life of Continuous

Death

written and illustrated by Hazel Wagner

For my cousin Phoebe

who can make the toughest people smile.

Maple leaf writing program

Brattleboro Vermont

Part 1

An Unusual Event

“What's the point of life? Sure, you have a great experience but I think there's more to it. I think that after you succeed a point in your life that you move up a rank. You don't remember previous lives but you remember the point. Say you were an ant in your previous life, then maybe a trait you would have as a human would be obedience. Or if you were a beaver, then in your next life you would be very skilled with architecture or carpentry. The possibilities go on and on. But back to my point on ranks. I believe that your first life is usually of an almost useless creature, but once you fulfill the role of that creature you will move up a rank and become a creature of more importance. I believe that humans have gone through millions of lives before they have reached humanity since humans are of such importance. This science I'm devoting my life’s work to is called reincarnation, the study of life after death. We can't ignore it because it’s of such a level of importance. If we find a way to remember our previous lives than we can discover so much more. We could learn about extinct animals, why, we could solve the equation of the universe! I'm ready to give my life for this study. Who’s with me?"

Emily looked up when she finished her speech. It was a midsummer day and the sun was shining a brilliant yellow-gold over Central Park. A man stood up holding a beer and looking like he just rolled out of bed.

"Do you people seriously believe this crap?" he said. Some people in the crowd had fallen asleep; others were on their phones not listening to a word she said. Only one person stood up.

"I will support you,” the woman said and made her way to the stage. She had long bronze hair and clear green eyes. She picked her way up to Emily who was turning a dramatic shade of yellow at the lack of enthusiasm from the crowd.

"I’ve always been interested in reincarnation," the woman said. “But I’ve never thought of it that way. I think your study is worth something, so I will sponsor you, but if you discover that this is real I want my company’s name written all over it. Is it a deal?" Emily looked out over the crowd. People were watching expectantly at her. How could she lose her only sponsor? She turned back to the woman and grudgingly agreed to her deal.

Emily left Central Park still in shock at what she had just done, and now hoping in a way that she wouldn’t find that her study would be correct. Her sponsor wasn’t trying to help her study, she was just trying to become a millionaire and get rich on her company. Emily decided to stop dwelling on these bad problems, and decided to walk down to the local bagel place on 5th Avenue, hoping to find some comfort with a full stomach. She went to cross the road to get to her destination but by the time she looked up it was too late. The van was speeding toward her; she had no time to move before it collided with a sickening crack into the left side of her body.

Death is surprisingly peaceful, well if you ignore the pain. There's a cool sensation and everything fades around you till you can’t see. You start to forget how beautiful the sky was, and how the birds sang. You realize that you can never in a thousand years appreciate life enough.

Then you remember your family and how they would love and support you through anything, and how in return you would come home after a long stressful day and let all the anger trapped inside of you pour out on them.

Emily let her mind wander. She thought about her boyfriend, her parrot Max and she thought about her job. HER JOB? Was she really that stupid! Her eyes flew open; she was in a small clearing with tall grass swaying at her feet.

Part 2

An Uneventful and Boring Life

OK this wasn’t exactly what Emily had expected. Yet here she, was a totally helpless chunk of lichen near the top of a very tall tree. So much for ranks!

It had probably only been about an hour since she had been changed but it felt like years. At first she thought that her theory was very wrong and this was just some crazy after life. But if so why would she come back to earth? No. Emily had a strong imagination but she still believed in some religion and she figured that if reincarnation didn’t exist then heaven did, so she knew that she had definitely been reincarnated.

A harsh gust of wind sent leaves flying in all directions, Emily felt herself falling, and realized how high up she really was. She felt as light as a feather as she floated down to the ground. “That’s strange, I must be a very small being to be this light,” she thought. Then she felt herself crumbling and realized that another life was over.

She was back up in a tree again; Ok that’s weird she thought and looked around, noticing that she was in the same tree in the same clearing! She looked down hoping to see a fragment of herself lying on the ground that could give her a clue as to what she was but all she could see out of the ordinary in the piles of leaves that covered the ground was a large piece of lichen. That was all the answer she needed for she knew now what she was.

There was only one problem, she didn’t have any explanation as to why she came back after she died from that fall only 5 minutes previously, unless… and then it came to her in a flash of brilliance! “If lichen grows in multiple clumps on a tree,” Emily thought, “what if they were connected in such a way that if I fell or died I could just come back as another clump of lichen in another location on the tree! It wouldn’t spread to other trees because the trees are too far apart and the fungus isn’t accomplished enough to spread that far.” Emily sucked in a breath. This was only a guess so she had no idea if the theory was right or not, but she decided not to dwell on things she didn’t know and instead tried to turn her attention to more important matters.

More important matters arose as she realized how late it was and sleep began to take her. She was grateful to the distraction and quickly fell asleep.

In her dream, her parents were crying over their lost daughter, looking at the obituary they had put up on their Facebook page. So far they had gotten over 400 comments, many of them were from people they didn’t even know, but so far they were all kind and full of old memories.

Emily’s mom sobbed into her father’s shirt and he was hugging her. Emily knew that he was taking her death harder than anyone else but his sorrow was deeper than crying, it was in his bones. When he even so much as moved he could feel it was like having every disease and sickness at once.

Emily tried to call out to them but they didn’t seem to hear her so she called louder and woke with a start, invisible tears streaming down her invisible face.

All she could think about was her family, so she made the decision to try another shot at reincarnation. For it was her only shot at being back to her old life. And by the end of the night she had managed to peel all of her disgusting fungus off of the tree. She felt the pain as she got sent again through reincarnation.

She kept her eyes open wondering what she would see. Indeed it was an amazing sight, as if driving through a tunnel at light speed except she could see the world passing by her. Everything was in a blur of color and then she was in a huge room adorned all in white.

Pillars lined left and right. There was no way out. Emily’s heart began to skip. Three enormous thrones were lined up against the wall in front of her. ”Emily Berkshire,” a voice said, and from out of the shadows came a man the size of a tractor trailer. He seated himself in the center throne which fit him perfectly. He was wearing a full suit complete with bowler hat. He looked at her quizzically.

Two other huge people entered and seated themselves on either side of him. One, a woman with long curly blond hair that fell to her waist and a beautiful white gold dress that flowed gracefully all the way to the floor. The other, a young man about the age of 20, was also in a suit but no hat, instead, short spiky black hair that probably had taken hours to gel.

They all looked at her like she was a bomb about to blow up in their faces; the middle man spoke again. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Emily thought of being rude but thought better of it, realizing that these people could probably eat her and never give another thought, so she decided to be honest, “Um, no”.

The woman spoke, “We summoned you here because we can’t let people know about reincarnation. We are in charge of it but if other people know we can’t take away their knowledge and when people know they will just kill themselves for a better life. Have you ever wondered why people didn’t exist when the dinosaurs roamed? It was because people knew about reincarnation. They didn’t like their lifes as humans so they killed themselves and eventually the human race was wiped off the face of earth for millions of years. So we vowed to never let anyone know about reincarnation ever again.”

“So you’re like god things?” Emily replied, hoping to change the subject or distract them. She really didn’t want to be fried by gods today.

“Yes you could-

“Cool, are you immortal?” she interrupted.

“That’s enough,” the man in the middle bellowed.

Well, so much for my plan Emily thought and fell silent. The god looked down at her “Mortal one,” he said. “you have caused much trouble for us.” You should have kept your theory a secret, thats why we tried to kill you In the first place”

“WHAT!” Emily said her voice rising, “You killed me. Why?”

“We had no choice!“ the woman argued ”You were telling people the secret. It was revealed then the world would be chaos again!”

“Why would you bother to try to kill me if you knew I would just reincarnate?” Emily replied in a softer voice.

“Because,” the god replied, “If people don’t truly believe in reincarnation then they will reincarnate, but they will forget all memories from their previous life. That’s what we thought would happen to you but we were wrong, apparently, you take your ideas very seriously.”

By now Emily was almost sobbing. “My family,” she moaned between hiccups.

“We are prepared to make a deal with you,” the young man to her left said. At that Emily’s head shot up. “Since you know about reincarnation we can’t kill you or you’ll just switch to a different life, so we’re willing to let you live but under a few conditions. You won’t be human anymore, you will never reincarnate, and you will be strictly watched by us if you communicate to anyone in any way about reincarnation. Then we will damn you to a life where you will suffer greatly. Is that clear?”

Emily’s river of tears had stopped, “Will I see my family?” she asked

The god paused, “… yes but your family will not know who you are. They will adopt you as a kitten from the shelter down the road.”

Emily wasn’t happy with this but it was better than nothing. “I agree to your terms,” she said.

The god raised an eyebrow; “Very well” he answered, stood up, and pulled out a enormous glove from his pocket. “This glove allows me to make rips between dimensions,” He told her. He bent down and raised his gloved hand in the air pinching his fingers together as he did. Emily looked harder at the space he had pinched and saw a small opening in the air that quickly grew to the size of a full length mirror.

“The portal will only stay open for another 30 seconds, you must leave now!” the god shouted, for a powerful gust of wind was sweeping through the room. Emily looked back at the other two gods who nodded reassuringly, and with that, Emily jumped through the portal..

Part 3

An exciting return

Emily looked around startled, this time she hadn’t gone through a whirlpool of color but rather just appeared in her destination, which happened to be a small run down animal shelter, on the corner of her parents’ street.

She looked down at herself but already knew what she would see. She was a beautiful black colored cat with long fur. She looked behind herself and saw a long fluffy tail swinging around, and realized that she was moving it. “This will take a lot of getting used to,” she thought.

Two people walked in the front door, setting off a loud bell. They were dressed completely in black. The only time her parents ever wore black was when they went to her great uncle’s funeral when she was 8. “They must have been at someone’s funeral,” she thought “Her funeral!”

“MOM, DAD!” She tried to yell but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a high pitched meow.

Her mom looked over at her “Bill” she said addressing Emily’s father

“I think I know which one I want.”

“Which one is that?” her dad replied exasperatedly.

“The one with the purple eyes,” her mom said, looking straight at her.

“Sue,” she said addressing the woman at a desk near the front of the room Emily hadn’t noticed before. “Can I take this one out?”

“Sure,” the woman named Sue said in a thick sloppy British accent. “We just got her this morning, isn’t she beautiful?”

Her mom didn’t answer, instead walked over and unlocked Emily’s cage. Emily made another meowing sound and sprang into her mother outstretched arms; her mom laughed but made no move to put her down, instead, carried her over to her father. He looked at her curiously. “her eyes are the same color as Emily’s,” he said

“Can we get her?” her mom said like a child about to get a large ice cream.

“I won’t stop you,” her dad said happily.

Emily would have kept listening to their conversation but cats use their energy very quickly so soon she was fast asleep in her mother’s arms.

Epilogue

(17 years later)

These are my last moments with you, my readers, and I wish for you to know that I had a happy life with my family. They will always mourn their lost daughter, but over the years they have healed over those scars, and found new light. I think in a way they know it’s me in the form of a cat and even though I can’t talk they love me just the same. After I died they referred to me as their second child, and as tragic as that is I can’t help but be happy that they will never forget about me. I have spoken with the gods and they said that once people know about reincarnation they have the choice to stop living. They told me they hadn’t spoken of this before because I was too stubborn and I would never accept death unless I got to see my family. But now I have so I’ve agreed to end my life on a happy note. I will miss living but in the same way I accept death and I know it’s my time to die.

My best wishes to you,

-Emily Berkshire