Revelations

You're a stranger 'til she whispers you can stay.....

I remember....


I remember so much.

I remember the first time it all came back. In flashes at first.....then a surge, painful, like being slammed by a tidal wave. Clawing helplessly for the surface, for air, for a reprieve. And then it passed. Always I lay doubled over, eyes closed, breath shallow.....the beads of sweat pronounced across my face. No rhyme or reason to when. It could be scent, familiar once that brought it all back. A tune I'd once heard.......a book I'd once read......a face similar to one I'd known long ago.

I remember it all.

For over three thousand years, I have been born, lived, died, only to be born again. Never knowing of what once was.....until the wave.

The timing was always different. At the earliest, I was 6 years old when it first came upon me. The wisdom granted by such a massive influx of experience proved invaluable over the course of that lifetime. Though, I will admit that it lead to a great melancholy as I never truly fit in again. At its latest it came when I was 73.....I died 2 months later.

But the memories.....ah, the memories.

The places I have been.....when I've been. You see, I have always come to be somewhere different. Upon reflection, seeing one of these places again seems to be the major trigger.

The people I have known....sadly, most long since dead. Some perhaps still live, from my most recent go around in Budapest. There was a time when I would seek out those I'd once known in my previous life. To tell them their friend yet lived. Occasionally, such encounters would go well, but more often than not, they didn't believe me, called me crazy, sent me away. The worst were loves left behind. Whether they couldn't or wouldn't accept the truth I gave them, it didn't matter. The pain of such.....dismissal was unbearable.

I don't seek out my past anymore.

But what now? This is the first time I'm revealing my secret to so many. I suppose I just want to know if there are others.....or if I'm alone in this. How did this begin? Why? Am I doomed to walk this path for all eternity until the stars themselves are distant memories?

A call for answers that likely won't come and will be scoffed at as fiction.....a fanciful dream.....the writings of a lunatic.

But I have to know.

I must know.

Please. Someone......tell me.

....You're a stranger 'til she whispers that your journey's over