1.
“How was it?” Angelo asks me, as I disembark the the death train, as we like to call it.
Iʼve just cycled through my twenty-third life as a Tibetan Monk, and suffered a rather
severe stroke which of course, brought me back here, to the beginning.
“I can say I feel fully refreshed! It was like a good spa treatment!” I say and I
mean it. In past lives Iʼve had stints in rehab, terrible and debilitating diseases, and
experienced, in my opinion, the worst disease of all, extreme poverty. Seventy-two life-
years in a Monastery did me some serious good. I havenʼt felt this replenished since my
days in Samaria on the sheep farm. BC of course.
Angelo is–well itʼs hard to explain to humans, exactly what he is, although you
already know it deep down in the part of your brain you havenʼt yet learned to harness. I
guess the simplest way for you to understand is to say, Angelo is a piece of my soul.
Whatever cycle I choose, Angelo becomes a part of that story. For instance, when I was
the famous Sweedish Opera singer, Jenny Lind, in the 1840ʼs, Angelo was my mother.
When I was killed at Pearl Harbor, Angelo was my best friend and I died in his arms.
Normally when one of us dies, we wait for the other here, in the Holding Room, before
moving on to the next cycle. For instance, in my last life, as a Tibetan Monk, Angelo was
the sick little boy I visited every day in the hospital. He died when I was barely thirty, and
heʼs been waiting for me here since then.
Although that might seem like a long wait to you, it felt like ten minutes to Angelo.
Thatʼs the thing about the Holding Room. It stretches out to eternity. A lifetime is no
more than a hot pinch on the skin of forever. In the grand scheme of things, itʼs nothing.
Typically when we wait, we watch you humans. Mostly while youʼre in the
shower. I kid! I kid! Ok, well only sometimes when youʼre in the shower, but mostly when
youʼre falling in love.
Oh love. Itʼs the thing that keeps us coming back. Before each cycle we program
our lives to culminate in a great grand love affair, when possible. Obviously my life in the
Monastery didnʼt leave much room for love, but thatʼs not what that cycle was about. It
was merely a cleanse. My life cycle before the Monastery was extremely emotionally
draining. Imagine falling madly in love with two people at one time, and having each one
ripped from you by fate and circumstance.
That was me. I was a man who was madly in love with his wife (who happened to
be Angelo), and at the same time, hopelessly devoted to a woman I met at the market
(that woman was Zuzu), only to lose them both in the terrorist attacks in Palestine.
Zuzu is what you humans would call my soulmate. Zuzu is the culmination of all
of my lives. She is the person I begin to seek out from the moment I draw breath. I
can feel her searching me out too, like a dull knife lodged in my stomach. Every now
and then, the pain from missing her flares up and it wonʼt be quenched until we are
together again.
Sometimes Zuzu is the man and sometimes the woman. Sometimes weʼre both
the same sex, and depending on how far weʼve progressed in history, we might be
killed, outcasted, or celebrated for our bravery to love.
The sad thing about the Holding Room is that Zuzu is never here at the same
time as me. Sure, I can keep track of her on the screen that shows where all souls go,
and plan my next cycle in hopes of meeting Zuzu again on Earth, but nothing is
guaranteed.
The worst part is, even in the Holding Room, I ache for Zuzu. Even an Earth-lifetime is too long for us to be apart.
“The Creator is ready for you, Menal.”
I tell Angelo Iʼll see him in the Planning Room and go in to meet my maker.
Sorry, you canʼt come along on this one. Itʼs personal, you understand.
2.
After my meeting with The Creator, I find Angelo in the Research section of the
Holding Room. Heʼs looking at a book about Russian Dictators.
“Oh no, Iʼm not going the Dictator route again,” I say, shaking my head, “too
messy.”
Angelo rolls his eyes, tired of hearing me complain about the time he was
Napolean.
“Oh come on, you canʼt say you didnʼt enjoy the smell of charging into battle. The
gusto, the cheers from the men. I changed the course of European history forever.
Every life I live, Iʼm taught about Napolean in school,” says a proud Angelo. “I dare say it
was my most fulfilling experience to date,” he adds smugly.
“Sorry to interrupt your reverie, but thatʼs not the only legacy you left behind. Are
you aware that, because of you, I have to put up with being told I have a Napolean
complex every time Iʼm reincarnated as a short man?” Itʼs annoying. I hate when my
past cycles come back to haunt me.
“Relax,” says Angelo in his typical unencumbered tone, “you know Earthʼs not
due for another great dictator for at least eight more cycles.”
Iʼm just happy thatʼs up to The Creator and not Angelo. If he could have his way,
it would be a planet full of dictators.
Thatʼs another thing about planning your own cycle. You can decide your station
on Earth, in terms of being lower, middle, and upper class. You can decide what
challenges youʼll face, what failures youʼll confront and how youʼll die. You can even
choose your location down to the city. However, you donʼt decide your sex or your
purpose. Thatʼs for The Creator to decide. Itʼs Her show after all. Weʼre merely players,
hoping to reconnect with our soulmates for the short expanse of a lifetime.
Iʼm not complaining. I can bare anything for the length of one hot pinch if it brings
me back to Zuzu.
Angeloʼs looking at the screen now, probably searching for Turnip. Turnip is his
soulmate.
Youʼll notice by now that I call Angelo ʻhimʼ. Itʼs odd considering we donʼt have
assigned genders in the Holding Room, but Angelo feels like masculine energy and he
says I feel like feminine energy. Itʼs not something we control, itʼs what happens all on
its own as each cycle progresses.
Sometimes youʼll hear a transgender person on Earth talk about being trapped in
the wrong body. Believe them. Sometimes, in the months of human gestation, The
Creator changes her mind about the gender for a reason greater than we know, and
because human nature operates at a much slower pace, a girl can end up being born in
a boyʼs body by accident. This has happened to me before, and let me say, it was no
picnic. Still, that was a hot pinch thatʼs long been forgotten. Thankfully. Iʼd say it was
probably the roughest life cycle Iʼve ever experienced.
The trouble with cycleʼs is that everything I know now, is lost as soon as Iʼm born.
I donʼt recognize Angelo, although I do feel a very strong connection to him that reminds
me of our friendship in the Holding Room. When I see Zuzu, something in me kicks up
in recognition, like at last, we can be together again, but sometimes circumstances
arenʼt right, like my life in Palestine, and we arenʼt allowed to be together.
This kick-up is what humans call falling in love, and what we in the Holding
Room, are so terribly jealous of you for being able to do. Of course, eventually all
humans die and return here. Itʼs just that when you are here, it feels so terribly far away
from human nature. You start to miss experiencing that miraculous moment when all the
stars align to put you back together with your other half.
Listen to me, sounding all romantic.
This is what seventy-two life-years in a Monastery will do to you. It wipes out all
the jaded garbage we cart around from cycle to cycle.
“Turnip and Zuzu are scheduled to be born in Northern Virginia at the start of the
next cycle,” Angelo suddenly announces, sounding markedly more excited than he was
a moment ago. This is because timing is so important. Iʼve only just got back, yet on
Earth, already fifty years have passed since Iʼve been dead. You see how it can be
tricky. If you spend too much time doing research, you end up missing an entire life
cycle with your soul mate. If this happens too often, you see the divorce rate go up on
Earth, as well as the murder rate. Too many souls without a mate is no good.
“Are you ready?” Angelo says as we rush towards the Planning Room. We have
to get to planning our next cycle before we miss our chance.
“Yeah, I think so,” I say, remembering the notes The Creator gave me in our
consultation.
Angelo and I program the major high and low points of our next life cycle so we
can experience emotions weʼve either missed or enjoyed experiencing in passed lives.
In this cycle weʼve agreed to be first cousins, born to twin sisters, in Washington, DC, a
month apart, in the Earth year 2000.
Weʼre all set to go, and Angelo reaches for the last button. Thatʼs the one that
blocks our memory of our past lives, the Holding Room, The Creator, everything. Itʼs the
button we all have to press before we return to Earth for our births.
My finger hovers over the button that is bronze and polished from other souls
touching it.
“You ready?” Calls Angelo, as the birthing train pulls into the station. For some
reason I cannot force myself to press the button and the thought dawns on me: what if
in this cycle, I experience life from the point of view of already knowing whatʼs going to
happen? The thought consumes me.
I hear the whistle blowing for the train and Angeloʼs on the station deck, telling
me to hurry. Since heʼs a part of me, we have to board together.
The bronze button grows smaller and smaller as I back away from the console,
with the full knowledge of everything Iʼve learned in the last four point five billion years.
“It feels good to be on the go again,” says Angelo as we ease back into our
seats. I decide not to tell him that I still have my full memory in tact. What does it matter
now anyway? In moments weʼll be tiny babies in our motherʼs arms and Angelo wonʼt
remember me until we die again.
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La Dolce Vita 