Part Two

After a brief return to life as a frog, i found myself back in the courtyard of the recently dead. I shied away from the memories of my few painful days of life under the care of the little girl who meant well, but had no idea how to take adequate care of me. It was a slow, painful death that began as soon as she'd picked me up.

I thought of returning to my table, but decided against that and walked directly toward the building. It felt wrong, and as i passed, all conversation stopped and curious, fearful eyes bored into me. I looked down at the door, my hand hesitating on its handle. There was no noise behind me, and i could feel the weight of the multitude of stares crushing me, pushing me through the door just as surely as the crowd had done the first time. I nearly fell through the door after i'd opened it.

I looked around me, this time noticing that the conveyors were controlled by people. I wanted to go through the turnstiles, but they would not turn. I was approached by one of the conveyor workers. She was a neatly dressed woman in her middle years, wearing a blue oxford shirt, khaki pants, and a yellow hard hat. I wondered briefly what the hard hat was for.

"It's not time yet," she told me, her voice expressing that this was something i should have known without being told.
"What is all this?"
"Fate."
"I can see that. But what IS it?"
"What you're doing is Samsara. You're choosing rebirth, and all the misery and death that accompanies life."
"You're saying i don't know how to be happy?"
"I'm saying you're chosing Samsara."
"Where do they all go?"
"The belts? To different lives, of course. Why are you asking me questions you already know the answer to?"

I pondered that. It was true, i WAS only asking the questions i felt would be answered in a predictable, unthreatening way. I was not asking where the crouchers went. I wasn't asking how many times i could be reborn. I wasn't asking about an afterlife or my soul. I continued not asking those questions. After a few moments, the small woman went away to take up her position by the initial conveyor. People began crowding in behind me, and the turnstile let me through at last. I pondered the woman and her remarks as i stepped onto the conveyor. When it began moving, i sprinted and leapt, this time in the opposite direction.

I opened my eyes to find i was holding a baby in my arms. I was disconcerted a moment, thinking i should have been the baby. I realized that this woman's life (my life now) was truly in its infancy. We'd not been really living before this moment, merely going through the motions. She (I) felt the life in our arms gave us a reason to really live, and she (I) was born with our realization.