I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Rabindranath Tagore
I don't remember much about my passing. I just remember the sudden release of physical pain, the strange floating sensation, the sounds of your quiet sobs, your tears falling on my face, and the taste of our final kiss. Then you were gone and I was floating away with your last promise to me echoing in my soul. You promised me that love never dies, and that we would find each other again.
The next thing I remember was another passing. This one from a warm, fluid dark place with the comforting sound of a beating heart surrounding me, into a cooler world of bright light. There were more sobs and more tears, but these were born of joy. I heard a woman's voice saying hello and telling me how much she loved me, as well as the soft chuckles of a man declaring that I was going to make a phenomenal fast pitch softball player, just like her mom.
Time passed. I grew up, learning things and meeting people. I didn't think it at all strange that some of those new experiences didn't seem so new at all. More like reacquainting with things and people I'd lost touch with. Sometimes I questioned why it was happening but usually put them down to an odd sort of deja vu.
But one day I saw a tall, good looking young man in the student union hall. Physically he wasn't familiar to me. I couldn't ever recall seeing him around campus, but it was early in the semester so that wasn't unexpected. Still, there was something so familiar about him that it haunted me for days afterward.
Then the dreams began where I kept seeing two men's faces. They were strikingly dissimilar and dressed in the styles of different eras, but there was also the impression the two were actually one person. The dreams would stay with me. One day I realized the young man I now saw around campus quite regularly gave me the same feeling, that he and the two men in my dreams were all the same person.
The incongruity of it finally emboldened me enough to approach you one day and introduce myself.
When our eyes met, when I saw you smile, I had vague impressions of experiences that I'd once shared with you though we'd never met before. You were looking at me in the same quizzical way when you asked, “Have we met before?”
“No, I don't think so,” I replied, “but I've been wondering the same thing.”
We talked for a while before we had to get to class, but we agreed to meet again for lunch the next day, and from then on our friendship grew and deepened. We both felt as if we were becoming reacquainted rather than merely acquainted and were just catching up on all we had experienced since our last meeting.
The blossoming of our romance was a wholly natural experience, like a reuniting of souls. Just one more of the oddities of our relationship. But when you kissed me the first time, I suddenly remembered other kisses from other times, shared with men who should have been different but were somehow the same. Not long after I asked you if you believed in reincarnation.
“I don't know,” you answered, “I guess it's possible. Why?”
Instead of answering your question I posed another.
“Do you think souls can find those of people they've loved in other lives?”
Your eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“Again, it's possible. Why are you asking?”
I chewed my lip as I pondered how much to tell you before deciding to take a risk and telling you the truth.
“I-I've had this feeling since I first saw you that I've known you before even though we'd never met.”
I watched you carefully, waiting to see how you were taking what I was saying. You watched me in return, your expression becoming more intent.
“I've felt the same thing,” you finally admitted, “Strange, isn't it?”
I nodded, relieved that you weren't backing away at my apparent lack of total sanity.
“Yes. But then, when you kissed me just now, I remembered you. Not you now but you before. It wasn't as if I was kissing someone else. It was you and the you from before at the same time.” I blew out a frustrated breath and looked away in embarrassment. “God! That sounds too bizarre to be taken seriously!”
Your voice lowered until it sounded almost reverent.
“No it isn't, because I felt the same way.”
“What do you think it means?”
We gazed into one another's eyes in growing wonder before you kissed me again, oh so gently. Then you pulled me close against your body and laid your chin atop my head.
Very nicely done. Not only dealing with the reincarnation theme, but also the idea of seeing loved ones again after death. In this case, familiar and even similar.
As usual, your femme fatale always gets her man, even if she has to die trying.
A young widow joins her aunt’s house-restoration project in the wilderness, determined to take a stand for independence, but two men have different plans for her—and so does God.
