A text of Tibetan Buddhism describes the time of death as a unique opportunity for the spiritual liberation from the cycles of death and rebirth and a period that determines our next incarnation.
-Stanislav Grof, psychiatrist
As the icy cold and endless darkness of death embraced me, a cold and unfeeling void washed over my body and purged the pain from it. The sensation of the ever present bed that I had lived my un-life from had faded away.
My life’s slow undoing finally came to a quiet, anticlimactic end. There was no incomprehensible, omnipresent being here to greet me and shake my hand. No beautiful afterlife was there to comfort me, absolve me of my sin, and free me from my mortal restraints.
I was truly alone.
It was at this point that I made an uplifting, wonderful discovery: my damaged brain no longer restricted my thought. I was finally free to once again explore the far reaches and uncharted depths of my own imagination. There was nothing I could desire more.
As quickly as my own peaceful reunion with myself had come, it departed. This time, though, it did so painlessly. The blackness became a mind-numbing bright white that strained against my eyes and fought away my obsidian blanket. I found myself totally apathetic, though concerned that my white-coated wardens were refusing to allow my escape and returning me to that fate worse than death.
And just like that, I was no longer alone. I lay upon a table, unable to clearly see the ceiling which stood over me. Even so, I could see dirty, uneven coloring that filled me with hope and relief. I had not returned to that place. I would never return to that place.
The emotions that I had so tirelessly suppressed returned with a vengeance. Everything that had withered away, beaten back by a torturous, artificially extended life - all of my fears, my hopes, my frustrations, my attachments - snapped back into place as if they had never left me. Through my dysfunctional senses, I could feel tears escaping from my eyes. I did not wish to stop them, though. My piercing wails were a remnant of and a testament to the life I had lived and lost. I felt as if, in my own comically dysfunctional way, I was shouting to whatever being had cursed me so: “I’m still here, fucker! You’re delusional if you thought I would give up with just that!” I decided not to address the fact that I had essentially given up on life some uncountable number of minutes ago.
As I was reveling in that which had returned to my soul at long last, a voice broke through the shell my thoughts had formed around my mind. The voice was a man’s: deep, at least middle-aged.
“Polemos, come quickly!” He shouted giddily in the other direction, presumably toward a doorway.
“What is it?! Is Elly alright?!” Another deep, gruff voice responded. He was almost laughably anxious: it was clear that he cared about this ‘Elly’ figure deeply. His wife, perhaps? His heavy footsteps shook the floor as his obscured figure dashed through the doorway, stopping right by my side. His face constantly rotated, darting between me and something on the other side of me that was out of my field of view. No matter how I turned my head, I could not sate this curiosity.
Finally, he forcefully placed his hands against the side of the table, causing me to recoil slightly. “Look in her eyes!” He spoke with wonder.
Wait… her? Also, why can I still not properly see or move? In response to these questions, I lifted my hand. Though I couldn’t see much, I could see that my palm was fat and my fingers were stubby. I was, without a question, in an infantile body, extremely likely a female one.
I set down my hand as if operating a puppet, and looked up to find two faces staring down upon me, wide-eyed.
“They look like the night sky!” The female, likely Elly, said in wonder.
“They’re beautiful.” The man remarked. “So, what do we name her?”
“I have just the right one!” Elly said excitedly. “Estera, of the falling stars!”
Polemos jumped up in excitement. “Wonderful!”
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Life went on slowly. As we settled into normal life, I found myself constantly at Elly’s side. Polemos was only home for one in every ten days. The other nine, Elly seemed… not to be herself. She preoccupied herself with my care - I still hadn’t full control over my senses or body, so it was necessary to be bathed, fed, and otherwise cared for. It was terrible, frustrating, patronizing, and a million other things I can’t begin to describe, but it also filled me with immense gratitude. She was a an immovable figure of untold patience, and her grace and compassion made me relieved and joyful simply to be around her.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The melancholy that invaded everyday life was too much to disregard, though. My father was a dutiful guard of the city, and my mother was cursed to see her beloved for only a tiny fraction of their time, though I was certainly aware that they made the most of both their days and nights together. Surely I was enough to keep her loneliness at bay, but not enough to quell it. Still, it seems that I am without sight. I cannot see her expression, I can only feel it in her stiff, anxious arms as she holds me against her.
There is one thing, though, that I can see with brilliant clarity. A brightly colored light surrounds and flows through her body. This fills me with excitement and hope. I have reason to believe that this world is one with access to the wonders of magic.
With unending determination, I set about to testing all sorts of different potential systems of magic. I used the little time I wasn’t supervised to draw utterly ineffective magic circles, and quickly gave up. I spoke quiet incantations to myself to no avail. I flailed my arms around arbitrarily, eliciting nothing but the joyful laughs of Elly.
Learning magic was like learning to walk, in that I was utterly failing at both. My weight, my center of balance, and my strength and lack thereof were all nearly impossible to get used to, leaving me lamenting my own pathetic weakness.
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The warm, golden sun rose over the mountainous horizon and hung over our land, the warm embrace of its rays bringing comfort and prosperity before it relinquished us once again to the depths of darkness. This cycle continued into a blur, and before I knew it, I nearly looked like I was just a small version of a regular human being. I could lift my body up using only my legs, and I could stay balanced upon them. Endless trial and error punctuated by falls, bruises, and walls finally had rewarded me with the ability to move myself around the house. My hair had finally grown out, and Elly tied the black strands up into short pigtails at the back of my head.
One other revelation had struck me at long last. With much more practice than I had needed to learn to walk, I had devised a basic understanding of the system by which magic functions in this world. That enchanting, flowing aura that blanketed all of the people I saw and seemed to change quality with the weather was a concentration of magical power. It gathered itself and coagulated around everyone, but some people had a bigger, brighter aura than others.
I theorized that the bigger one’s aura was, the stronger their affinity for and experience with this magical power.
When I closed my eyes and concentrated, some unexplainable feeling followed and I could see and feel power concentrating itself in my body. Only with months of practice was I able to direct the power into only a single part of my body, but from there, it was as if a gateway to a new world of opportunity had quietly cracked open, allowing me a glimpse at the realm of incredible possibilities. When I charged just my palm with concentrated energy, I could use that palm to guide and control the rest of my power.
After practicing further still, I could move my abilities out of the magical world and into the physical. When I brought my hand a bit too close to the fire, I could memorize what it felt like and replicate it. After many tries and a few inevitable burns, a tiny flame lit up my finger like the wick of a candle, the heat floating just above my fingertip. It was a wonder just what one could learn with only the gift of uninhibited experimentation.
Thus, I familiarized myself with the beauty of magic: its advantages and its limitations were the subject of much rumination and wonder, though I found myself slightly disappointed. My magic could only affect the basics of the natural world: I could impart and take away energy, I could affect matter to a very minimal degree, and I could manipulate basic forces like gravity and electromagnetism. Beyond that, I found myself powerless. Certainly, it seemed like an incredible amount of power, but judging by the fact that even a tiny sliver of flame left me with extreme fatigue, I didn’t have the power to do anything.
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“Mama?” It was a frustrating, patronizing way to speak, but I feared speaking as I used to would raise concerns and red flags. “Can I go with you?” I requested, standing at the door as she stepped down the dirt pathway toward the gray cobblestone-paved road that led through the town.
Immediately, her face lit up in excitement. I hadn’t shown any interest in… well, anything. She was probably concerned with my perceived apathy, and this was an opportunity for both of us to, well, get to know each other. “Of course you can, Estera!” She said, beckoning me forth. I stepped out of the door and into the bright midday sun, walking slowly.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing my index finger at a tall, abnormal building. I wouldn’t be wrong in stating that it just didn’t belong - its marble walls ascended far above the roofs of even the the tallest buildings around it. From a dome at the top, it cascaded down into a huge structure that even had the luxury of beautiful, clear windows.
“That’s the courthouse.” Elly replied. “That’s the building where important men go when they come here, and where they keep all of the money.”
“Money?”
“Yes, money. The courthouse is part of a big kingdom, and it needs money to pay men like your father, who keep us all safe.”
“If they have so much, why does papa only get ten scarabs a week?”
Elly laughed at my inquiry. “Papa may be a big strong man, but he’s only one of dozens in our town, and there are hundreds of towns in the kingdom. If papa got more, everyone else would want more, and the king wouldn’t have any money left!”
She gave a shockingly good explanation of military budgeting to a three-year-old. I was impressed - perhaps my mother was sharper than I had bothered to expect.
As we treaded down the uneven path, my mother guided me around a corner. As soon as we turned it, I found myself in the presence of a beautifully lively, bustling road. All around, men and women were scurrying from vendor to vendor, buying up everything from fruits and vegetables to swords and chainmail. The more fortunate among the sellers operated their own buildings, selling wares and foods from their walls and tables. I found myself stopping to collect my thoughts before I had to run and catch up with Elly.
Beyond the sea of excitement, though, there stood a single building. It was not tall, only two stories high, but its brick construction and glass windows made it stand out from the simple wooden buildings that surrounded it. Today was not a day that I would get to sate that curiosity, though, as I closely tailed the avid shopper that I lived with.
By the time that the noise had faded from my ears, the sun had yet again abandoned us and I was half asleep.