All my life, I've been careful. Eaten healthy. Exercised in moderation. Looked thrice before crossing the street. Never took part in any extreme sports or dangerous activities. Married an EMT for safety first, love second. It wasn't out of a desire to be at the peak of my healthy, no. It was out of the pure fear I had of my worst enemy.
Death.
Thought about it every night, before going to sleep. It made me shiver, my skin dress itself in goose bumps, my heart unable to beat properly. No matter how many articles I read on near-death experiences who reassured me that the white light was warm and that there was hope. That it would not be a lonely, infinite vacuum, where I would fall into an eternal sleep, jailed in the confinements of nothingness.
Of course, death always finds its way. It happened in the day I least expected it. A truck slammed against my car, its driver having passed out from exhaustion. As I laid over the dashboard, feeling the blood dripping down inside my head, I felt the familiar arms of sleep take over me. However, it was deaths arms, wielding that familiar disguise, saying it was time.
I wanted to panic, but I could not move. I could barely breathe. All I could think was the obvious "Why me? Why now? I dont want to go!"
But death found its way.
When I came to be, I was floating in this massive pool of darkness. I couldnt breathe, not normally, but I didnt feel like I was drowning. I felt smaller. With little awareness I had of my surroundings, a rush of memories seemed to flood through my mind. But they werent just my memories. A flurry of entire lives, all linked by one common element: my soul. Then it finally dawned on me.
This was the two hundred and fiftieth thousandth time it had happened. 250,000 times that I died and came back, reborn as a healthy baby (mostly) every time.
And, as I started feeling the contractions around me, that warm body ready to welcome me back into life, I also remembered it. That each and every time I forgot all about my previous lives, only to end up having the fear of death find me again, take my hand and walk with me every single day.
