I have been friends with Jacob for three years now. We met right after the turning point of puberty - that awkward spike where hair sprouts from every comprehensible nook and cranny on your body, and testosterone drags you forward like a carrot on a stick.
I was vulnerable, having lost my mother the year Jacob and I had met. I was attracted to his disposition - what a soft person he is. His facial features are soft too, his lips fade into his face with subtle tones, and his eyes curve down at the sides, displaying a feminine charge. I always maintained a keen eye for him.
My friend Kat didn’t like him at first glance. She was brought up in a crowded family by her housewife mother and pastor father, and her religious side unveiled itself when it helped her most. I think she was jealous of my blossoming friendship with Jacob.
She used to hiss at me the words ‘Satan himself transforms into an angel of light.’ through her woollen sleeve whenever he smiled at me.
I’ve never been particularly religious.
One night, when Jacob was sleeping over at my house, after a rowdy night of boisterous conversation and a potato chip dinner, he made it clear he wanted to go to bed. He lay on the blow-up mattress beside my bed.
‘Are you afraid of death?’ he whispered into the cold night between us.
‘Not really.’ I responded bluntly, as you do to meaningless dialogue during a teenage sleepover.
‘I know what happens.’
‘Tell me.’
‘You will wake up in a new life, just like you did when you were born, and just like you did the last time you were born.’
I have always considered the prospect of reincarnation as I still can’t entirely comprehend the concept of consciousness. The existence of life is even mind-boggling to me. But I don’t believe in it.
‘Oh yeah? How do you know?’ I sneered.
‘Because I remember all the lives I’ve lived. And I’ve lived some terrible lives. I have lived through poverty, torture, endless torture and poverty, cancer, all of it. And I’m sick of it. I want to get it out of it. Every time I die, I come back as every person who ever lived.’ he croaked with wet eyes.
His sincerity is baffling. I’m a little spooked. This whole conversation is so sudden, and right after us having such a good time and laughing? I’m starting to think something’s wrong with him.
‘And the worst part? I can’t even remember the beginning. It has just been death, amnesia, coming back as another person, and now all of a sudden, in this life, I remember all of it?’ he said with a nasal chuckle. ‘I have lived as everyone. Even Kat. I know all of the secrets you’ve told her.’
‘Are you alright man? You’re scaring me.’ I winced.
‘Is your pet goldfish alright? I think his name was Randy.’
I didn’t tell him that.
‘That’s such a simple thing for you to know. She probably told you that.’
‘That’s the biggest secret you’ve told her. I also lived the life of your mom. She died on your birthday, right? And that she died of a heart attack and that your last words to her were ‘Thank you for breakfast’?’
Those were my last words to her. I was thanking her for the syrupy pancakes she made me on the morning of my birthday. She makes it better than anyone else. Made. She made it better than anyone else. I burst into tears.
‘Do you want to live the life of everyone else?’ he asked with a soothing tone.
‘No! I don’t!’ I whispered in a small moment that I stifled the flow of my relentless tears. I hadn’t cried about my mom’s death until then. I think I wasn’t ready before this.
‘This is what we have to do. We have to intercept the process. If we are both aware of our past lives, we will unite and it will all end. We will descend and return to the Earth beneath us.’ he said mystically.
I agreed, and he sat me down in front of him. He looked into my eyes, held my temples between his two palms, and kept looking. I had a feeling that it was working because my vision was going black.
I thought I would have thrown up, but I didn’t. I consumed a near-infinite amount of memories and lives at that moment, and the little lives that I have lived began to light up like little lightbulbs amidst a vast wall of memory. I remember all of the mothers I’ve had and all of the children I’ve had. I remember the life of Kat, how she cut off all of her friends after she graduated and how she killed herself after college. I remember how it felt being stabbed and shot and burned alive, many times over. I remember how it felt to starve in a little village, and how to stuff my face full of delicacies offered in some palace in Bulgaria felt. In a way, it’s liberating.
Jacob and I continue to look each other in the eyes. We acknowledge the information we are faced with, and our heels sink into the carpet beneath us.
‘It’s working.’ he uttered.
‘What will happen?’ I ask.
‘We’ll find out tomorrow. I need to sleep over at yours tomorrow so we’ll descend together.’
The next day at school was a migraine. I looked at everyone in the halls and visualised the life I lived as them. I was not able to recall any memories of myself, in my current body, from the perspective of another person. Even Kat. As Kat, I could remember all of the memories she made with family and friends, but not me. And I’m her best friend.
‘Are you okay?’ Kat asked me. My ankles are submerged in the ground at this point.
‘I’m fine.’ I spoke dismissively.
At lunchbreak, the ground was up to my knees. Jacob was also in the ground as far as me, but nobody seemed to notice us being literally in the ground.
When I got home, Jacob came with me. The ground was up to our groins now.
The house was stark, and bleak in a haunting way. It was like the sky went grey and was leaking in through the windows and removing any joy that the house created. I almost felt like I was diving into the past. The seat my mother always sat in had a dent in it. Her dent. I could visualise her silhouette lounging there.
My father came home before sunset. He called out to me and I responded tersely. The ground was up to our torsos now.
Jacob and I sat in silence until night. We were recalling the lives we’ve lived and the wisps of joy we felt in each one, and the gargantuan volume of sorrow we felt.
I don’t know how long I was out, but when I came back, I couldn’t move. The hollow shell of the house was harrowing, and I felt so distressed and in agony to be in my body. I wanted to end the cycle. I was standing next to my bed and in front of my bedroom door. Only my head was out of the ground.
My bed is elevated with nothing underneath it. I liked it that way because I was always able to crawl underneath when I desired a feeling of cosiness. The room was dark and my eyes were yet to adjust, but I could see a figure laying beside Jacob’s blow-up mattress, visible from under the bed. I squinted at it to get a sense of what it was, but my eyes couldn’t pick it up.
I don’t know where Jacob is right now. I call out to him a few times, but all that responds is the echo of my presence. Almost non-existent.
I can see what the figure is now. I had a feeling it would be this, but I hoped not. Otherwise, my journey with Jacob would have been for nothing. But it is. It’s my corpse. Staring at me with glassy eyes and a droopy mouth. My skin looks purple and sheened by the faint glow of the blue light dripping in from the tightly-closed shutters. A dark substance runs down my corpse’s face from its temples.
I turn to the door, and Jacob stands before me. He is above the ground, his feet digging into the carpet. He looks down at me. His smile is warped and his eyes are blank. They look uncannily human. The shadows on his face obscure any other conceivable details. I feel myself sinking.
‘Maybe Kat was right,’ he said silently. I hear nothing but his voice.
‘Satan himself transforms into an angel of light.’
No God could save me now.