Sins

Dear World,

I'M SORRY. In a past life I did something awful and now you seek revenge. I was not thinking when I sacked your village and plundered your precious silver. We barbarians did those sorts of things. When I smashed golden statues in your palace, it was the alcohol forced upon us pawns. Stealing your boat and leaving you stranded on an island was not cool, but what did you expect from pirates? I honestly don't remember what I did, but it must have been terrible because the karma coming at me in this life is strong, and I'm tired.

Also, if I did anything naughty this past year, please forgive me for that, too.

Joyce

I'm the Host for This Post! PAST LIVES

If karma is real, I must have done something dreadful in my past life. Perhaps all of us teachers burned multiple villages and our students were the victims of that wrath. They take pleasure in helping us atone for those heinous crimes. Why else would we step into a classroom?

That might have been my first incarnation, but it wasn't my most recent one. To quote Steve Martin, "I was born a poor black child." Seriously, I looked something like Aunt Jemima as I watched the white folks dance with a fiddle around a campfire. I longed to join the fun but looking at my fat, black thighs, I knew no slave could dance with whites.

I saw this image under hypnosis at a college event at the AEPi house. The fraternity hired a hypnotist for an evening's entertainment. As we sat in a circle, we closed our eyes, traveled back to a previous life, and voila––the slave watching the party.

Each fraternity brother and little sister told a unique tale of guarding castle walls or enjoying picnics with a family. My friend frantically recalled a room filled with people screaming as fog entered vents. The hypnotist immediately snapped him out of his trance.

One may argue that a brief vision of myself as a slave does not mean I was one; however, this image makes a lot of sense. Every t-shirt I own has a stretched out neckline from my compulsion to loosen anything tight around my neck. I've never been able to wear turtlenecks and seeing choker necklaces makes me ill to the point that I once got dizzy from looking at one. I always wear my long sleeves rolled because I despise anything tight around my wrists, too. Even my watch dangles loosely from my arm. Did I once endure tight ropes around my wrists while being led to my hanging?

I also find a natural chemistry between African Americans and myself. No doubt about it, I was a slave.

Before I suffered in the fields under the lash, a family friend, who has been helpful to us over the years, claims to have been Queen Isabella of Spain after a visit with a hypnotist. She has since apologized for her cruel actions toward Jews. I guess karma strikes again.

Furthermore, when my daughter was two, she told me she missed her other mother. I said, "I'm the only mother you've ever had." She insisted she remembered another mother with yellow hair who wore a doctor's outfit. Who knows? Maybe Erica really did remember another mother.

I've found a few interesting reads on the topic of reincarnation. Dr. Brian Weiss was skeptical until he met a patient recalling her past life traumas. He went on to write multiple books on the subject, which I absorbed like a sponge. A few years back, I read a fascinating work of fiction by Ann Brashares called My Name is Memory about a man who remembered all of his past lives and worked through multiple lifetimes trying to make the same woman fall in love with him. This book kept me up all night but after three years, I've yet to see the second book of the trilogy.

Now it's your turn. Since I'm the host of this post, link up after midnight. What do you think about past lives?


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#GBE2 Challenge: Wretched Life

Great Rental Place

We have a most unique challenge with the GBE 2 group, and as a writer, I'm certainly up for this one. Write a 100 word fiction story. I'm all on it, with the exception that I've cheated a little by taking a story I wrote some time ago and cutting it down, but what do you want? I'm vacationing in Charleston. Today, I even tried a paddle boat for the first and last time. After falling into the Charleston Harbor, I decided to swap it for a kayak. Then I went up Shem's Creek where two playful dolphins jumped in front of my boat.

Here is a story that has nothing to do with paddle boating, kayaking, or Charleston, but I hope you like it anyway. It can't be over 100 words, including the title. Really, Beth? "You're killing me Smalls."

Ballymote Castle

Wretched Life
by
 Joyce Paull Lansky

     Jeremy followed the tour under a familiar tapestry suspended in the banquet hall. He’d been fascinated by fourteenth century Ireland. Now, he was there!

     Staring at a cauldron, he felt certain he'd eaten scraps of honey-covered mutton from the Master’s platter. Worse, he'd slept nude on hay-covered dung while the Lord and Lady enjoyed a cozy pallet; but, being naked was better than wearing insect-infested tunics.

    After climbing slyly-constructed, irregular steps that circled a stone column, he ducked under the wall's arrow slit. Jeremy cringed from the memory of the arrow that had ended his wretched past life.


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