Schemata

“Can I help you?” said the salesgirl at the counter.

He had been looking down at the product beneath the glass counter when he heard her voice.

He looked up, and their eyes met.

Reincarnation arrived in waves of deja vu. It was a sense of familiarity, of having been somewhere before, except the feeling didn't go away and grew stronger with each passing moment.

When they locked eyes, a cascade of memories, thoughts, and emotions flooded the space between them. Shared moments of existence.

Her eyes widened in recognition, but she did not acknowledge it, in spite of the inner turmoil clearly visible on her face.

“We have new ones that just came in yesterday’s shipment,” she said and quickly moved to the glass display on the wall.

He followed her, looking at her new body with the auburn hair and olive skin.

“It's you!” he whispered and stood beside her looking at her reflection on the display.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Are you going to purchase something or not?”

She had never seen this man in her life, but there was a vague familiarity about him that caused her eyes to dart from side to side under his intimate gaze. She took a deep breath as if remembering something. Then raising her eyes, she looked at him with the recognition of lifetimes spent together, and the pain of lifetimes spent apart.

Now, here they were again in these new bodies in this new place and time.

“Please leave,” she told him.

It was not easy finding out that the life that you had lived was just one in a long chain that stretched back to primeval beginnings. People could understand this intellectually, perhaps even instinctually, but to actually remember the details of all those past lives was a shocking revelation.

“Some other time then,” he told her, knowing full well it wasn't easy for her, and she would need time to adjust to the idea.

She remained silent with eyes lowered.

“You know it’s not possible to prevent our attraction,” he said. “We’re bound across time and space.”

“I’ll call the police if you don’t leave the premises.”

Outside, the streets glistened in the aftermath of the rain that had poured earlier. Across the ocean, the clouds blanketed the mountains in sinuous mist.

He had seen countless skies and misty mountains, scorching deserts, flooded plains, rivers, and much more. Across different eras, he had been a warrior, a priest, a shepherd, a beggar, a rich man, and even a bug. This and more. He remembered all those past lives, and on each life, she had been there.

A plane took off from the harbour and disappeared in the twilight.

He remembered the day when he had seen his first plane during a demonstration by the Wright brothers. Quirky but inventive pair. What a moment that had been. History had unfolded before his very eyes.

As he reminisced of days gone by, he heard approaching footsteps behind him.

He turned just as the figure of the salesgirl fell in his arms.

“What will happen?” she cried hugging him. “I get to see you die again? Disappear? Leave me for another? What sorrow will befall us this time? What dissolution?”

He did not have an answer.

“We’re close to resolving the mystery,” he said instead. “Remember the blueprints? The schemata?”

She closed her eyes.

He wiped her tears. Fingers tender but firm.

“It seems that every time we meet, it ends in tragedy. It doesn’t matter to the universe how well we live our lives, how many children we have, how much wealth and knowledge we acquire. We always crumble only to return in another form. When will it stop?”

The memories flashed in their eyes. On the African savannas, the grand deserts in the north, the Eurasian steppes, South-Asia, Siberia and the northern tundra, the jungles of the equator- everywhere they had lived a lifetime.

And died.

“We are close to the answer,” he said. “Remember, it repeats across time and place, similar but different with each iteration. It’s somehow abstracting the features across life-frames and experiencing the universal timeline through us.”

“Who? Who is doing the watching?”

There was no stopping the two of them from coming together. Reincarnation was not a solo affair, but came in pair-bonds. Was it a glitch in the universe? A feature maybe. They had considered it before when attempting to draw the blueprints of this game of life and death; in the smoky dens of Byzantium, the caves of Tibet, and the grand bazaars of Marrakesh.

They had met others too. One could sense them in the way they synchronized their behaviour and movements around each other. Partners in time.

They would live a lifetime together. Of that, there was no question. The spectre of departure would always hover over them, in sickness and health. It was the price for the knowledge of eternal life.

Their lips met, gently then forceful in the depths of their historical yearning, eager and steaming in the cold evening air.

They had embraced and kissed in this manner countless times before- it always felt like it was the first time- the rush of sweet bliss and heart palpitations. Round softness. The moist knowledge of each other as a single being.

“What is your name?” he asked her.

“Amara,” she said.

“Hi Amara, my name is Finn. Will you marry me?”

"Yes!"

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