akaCLL

A reincarnation cycle in which you remember everything about your previous lives.

––– Once, on foot, I crossed the borders of what are now continents. In the vast expanse it was just land, and my sights could unfurl like an unending carpet. 

When the land began to break up and inch away from each other, I was a flower on the precipice overlooking the ocean, blown in the wind that swept across the landscape to breathe a giant 'shush'.

As the trenches deepened and the mountains grew taller, I was a nomad traversing the ridges and indents that would come to be filled with water. I started off with hooves for my daily travel, far and wide with nothing much to reach, contented with the exploration. But as time did its work my skin shrivelled up and by then I'd reached India.

There, I laid dormant a long time. The world had more faces to recognise and more progress to make, and I settled an agreement to keep me in the cocoon until it was ready for me again.

I don't know how much time had passed; time was not important. But when another earthquake shook hard enough as to break the shell open, I understood. Born into a chaos, suspended by the waves, I touched the tips of islands and was borne away again. By this time I was wondering what is was that I was supposed to arrive at; making circles about the globe, the crashing of the waves became anything but second-nature and was quite difficult to bear, and I was hoping to find some respite on the steadiness of sand.

Through a force of will I found myself washed up on the beach, where I reached outwards and into, and wrapped my roots in between the granules. Here, I learned to reach toward the heavens for satiation, and before long was aware of my being so erect. To extend was one of my conditions, although it never left, a particular nature to lay with the landscape, to never have been recognised nor sought. To tower so near the sun was also to threaten my tresses, and one by one they turned yellow, curled inwards, and relieved themselves of my rough and hard centre.

I hear them eating away at me. The dampness reached my bones and the termites made me their home. They made streaks on my surface, complicated pathways eaten away and trodden on, but I had learnt of duty and made songs of my hollowing out in order to hold this house upright. The inhabitants observed well, collected material to be my replacement, and finally I could collapse to release the melodies I'd written.

Time was awfully pertinent now. I had thought it alright to have left it there, or gone into one of those comatic cocoons again for an indefinite period. After all, I could still hear the incessant termites and the footsteps-- theirs or mine I couldn't be sure. But this time I was sent into the wind, whirling and uncontainable, a tangle of dandelion fluff and wishes latched onto my skin. For so long I'd sought a landing place, to cease to be so porous and fragile, to give their wishes at least a hope of germination. I did, eventually. And once I'd settled the dreams into the soil and had myself grown into maturity, I was cast away yet again by another gust of wind, another child of dreams. So I went on as such, as the bearer of closed eyes and crossed fingers, of hopes that stemmed from so distant a place but which were all mine, keeping me dizzy and afloat.

Until one day I reached the soil and did not rise again. I was of the earth and of its will, barely conscious but with bated breath I awaited its next decision for me. Ins and outs of contentment and impatience, and I remember being something one day and then back again the next. I imagine Time was a series of lines and grooves, when I was nothing and something, just like those heartbeat monitors except the record of an entire human life is only like a single mountain on that vast unending expanse–––  

Thanks Rachel for your prompt! Was challenging but so fun :) xx