Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

Author:Michael Poore
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-08-21T21:00:00+00:00

She faded a little more each day.

She could see the sun through her hand quite clearly now. Like a bright red tattoo.

Shit, thought Suzie.

Sooner than she liked, she would vanish completely.

How did she feel about that? It depended on the moment. It depended, specifically, on her frustration level. Some days she was perfectly happy to get canceled out and not have to deal with anything anymore. Other days she had a gritty kind of hope. Milo would find her, or she would find him. The universe would decide she was right after all…that a little imbalance wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

She wandered.

She blew from place to place, leaves and wind. Sometimes she let the currents of the afterlife just take her. She materialized on shores and in restaurants. In parks and on boats and in kitchens and recycling centers.

The universe didn’t seem to think she was serious about quitting her job; it took her to the bedside of a dying Nigerian king, once.

“I told you,” she said. “I quit.”

The universe flexed its boa. It growled and creaked around her and around the Nigerian king.

“If you and the universe would take your quarrel elsewhere,” sighed the king, “I would be most grateful, as I am engaged in a difficult transformation.”

Wind and shadows. Suzie hit the road.

Was Milo even here? Or was he down there, on some planet, living one of his final lives?

Her instincts seemed to take her away from busy places, out onto the fringes. The places people went when they were tired, or running from something, or looking for something.

Once, she passed through a place where Milo had been. She could feel him there, like a troubled footprint in the sand. Gone now. Leaving behind a catastrophically unpleasant camel.

Dust and wind and faraway places.

Humans had a thing for these kind of places, she had learned. More than any other creature, they needed sometimes to simply flee. To reduce themselves to zero and make something new out of nothing.

She found herself thinking of someone she had known once. A friend she’d had. A human, besides Milo, who might have understood her a little. A man who had gotten her into the biggest fight of her life.

—

His name was Francesco. He lived in Italy.

Francesco had a rich family, and gorgeous surroundings, and was handsome and smart and fashionable. He spent his early years having a hell of a good time, drinking and singing and getting laid with his friends. Then one day it became necessary for them all to go off to war. Their families dressed them in armor and bought them horses and sent them off singing and laughing and flying colorful banners, and almost right away they were captured and tossed in a foreign prison.

This was kind of embarrassing, but the young friends tried to make the most of it, singing songs and telling stories, seeing who could kill the most rats or eat the most bugs, and eventually the war ended and they went home, still singing.

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