Olivia

I give to you the latest snippet picking up from The Reincarnated in eleventy-one words...

(See Reincarnated for other posts in the series.)

A precocious eight-year-old took the first leap of faith. Dissected and haphazardly reconstructed with interwoven threads of myriad anecdotes, research might reveal the true narrative, but it wouldn’t compete with the titillating tall tale.

It begins in a Connecticut town on a blistering August day. Eleven-year-old Olivia and her best friend, Charlotte, were sunning themselves on the patio. Olivia whispered, ‘Do you remember anything from before?’

‘Mostly just shadows, feelings.’

‘I remember.’ Olivia spoke earnestly. ‘I died young, had two boys; I can see their faces. But my “parents” forbid me to talk about it.’

Olivia’s mother walked in on queue. ‘Hi Charlotte,’ she said as she eyed her daughter knowingly.

Wheel of Fortune

I give to you a memory in eleventy-one words...

On weekday evenings, my grandparents watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Obvious questions caused them to critique contestants with gently inconsolable superiority whilst the more challenging trivia relegated them to docility.

Only sporting events disrupted this nightly ritual. Then, Grandpa – and often my jokester uncle – raucously rooted for their team whilst Grandma watched television in the bedroom.

On one of those exceptional nights, Grandma inadvertently uttered a legendary line in the annals of Murray history. As my uncle exited the bathroom, Grandma squawked, ‘You shoulda took a P’ at the ignorant Wheel of Fortune contestant. Without missing a beat, my uncle retorted, ‘I just did!’

Happy Birthday, Grandma. I miss you.

Perception and Intention

 I  give to you a reflection in eleventy-one words...

What do you perceive?

What do you intend?

What’s your story?

I mark my life with questions. These interrogations have, at times, persisted for years. What is my greatest fear? What do I want? What are my principles? The point has not been so much to answer them as to become comfortable with them.

What do I perceive?

What do I intend?

What’s my story?

I’ve no answer, yet. That said, I’ve recognized a relationship I’ve not intimately explored, namely the one between perception and intention. Perception is interpersonal reality; intention is intrapersonal reality. Perception swaddles intention; intention inspires perception.

What do we perceive?

What do we intend?

What’s our story?

Eyes

I give to you a story in eleventy-one words...

A monk - bald, bespectacled, and garbed in black, flowing robes – enters. His face contracts to keep his coke-bottle glasses adrift upon his aquiline nose. He navigates the sea of cross-legged students with remarkably superb agility. His magnified eyes find a small patch in front of me. He executes his dual bows and crackles his body – with his back to me - onto the buckwheat cushion.

His eyes meet mine. Not the ones encased by thick, brown plastic frames, but rather those tattooed on the back of his head. Pale, faded, and droopy, they peer out lazily atop a zig-zagging carrot-shaped beak. I stare. Dismayed. Mesmerized. Until the left eye winks…

The Reincarnated

I give to you the continuing saga that began with Husband and Wife and continued with Avalanche in eleventy-one words...

(See Reincarnated for other posts in the series.)

After the initial shock, renowned scientists and religious leaders of every ilk offered their myriad contradictory thoughts. A deity’s work? Or the next step in our evolution? It seemed an answer to an ancient quandary; and yet the phenomenon was as – if not more – mysterious.

Whilst academics bloviated, communities reacted. Some in East Asia thought the children holy. Others in the Middle East and Africa shunned them. The majority of families fell somewhere between, loving their children in theory but treating their childrens’ ‘gift’ as a handicap.

An Australian government official happened upon the moniker – albeit not entirely appropriate by traditional standards – that would define the generation. They became the reincarnated.

Avalanche

I give to you a story in eleventy-one words...

(See Reincarnated for other posts in the series.)

Who first noticed?

No one knows.

The phenomenon wasn’t immediately apparent. The population had reached its maximum number – approximately 7.3 million – a few years prior. Only demographists had been mildly concerned. Most knew the population would taper, but not that soon.

There came reports of exceptional toddlers who claimed to remember past lives. At first, a few tabloids deployed their reporters to interview the parents and their terrific two year olds. Ironically, those writers didn’t spin their stories; they and their editors believed them to be so absurd that they published them almost verbatim.

Those stories were the snowballs; what followed was the avalanche.

The world would never be the same.

Husband and Wife

I give to you a story in eleventy-one words...

(See Reincarnated for other posts in the series.) 

He stared into the mirror at his face so young and plump. His mother’s voice – still foreign – spoke what would be the ceremony’s next line. He mimicked her diction and intonation robotically; she smiled knowingly.

The priest knocked, told them that the time had come. The boy felt awkward, excited, confused. His mother reassured him that this ceremony would help bring closure.

When the boy entered the sanctuary, he stood dumbstruck. Twenty people stared at him intently, lovingly. He approached an old man in the first pew. The boy spoke what had been familiar words in his once native tongue, ‘Hello husband.’ The old man grinned and hoarsely replied, ‘Hello wife.’