Chapter 7

Marilyn was right. Half a million might just be a good enough reason to eliminate the competition. Me being the competition.

"But WHO?" I asked her.

"Now that is the question ... Isn't it?" Then she quickly added, "I'm not sure who or why. That's what we'll have to find out!"

Then she bid me a little farewell, saying she wanted to be with her mortal being. Interesting thought. My mortality had ended and it was almost like feeling I was without a home. Marilyn had a home to return to. Where was I to go?

I can say for all intents and purposes, I was no longer, but yet, I was still here. I figured, like Marilyn's Spirit, I could go anywhere. So I did.

Now the next part is super weird. I just thought that I should wander over to check out ME and what might be going on. Almost instantly with that thought, everything faded and I seemed to be shrouded in a soft white glow. It felt as if I was wrapped in pure white silk fabric, somewhat like a cocoon.

My next awareness was I was back in my operating room, right where my thoughts had wanted me to be. It was darkened and the two prominent sounds were the clicking of the ventilator keeping my lungs functioning and the constant rush of the artificial heart machine I was hooked up to.

Looking at me rippled a little sadness through me. I still really didn't have much of an idea of the hows and whys of my new state. Nor did I know much about what to expect.

I guess the main thought I had was, "Do Spirits die? What would happen to me then?"

I know in life I always lamented about, "The ultimate end of things." It seemed a shame that the experiences of an individual life are just lost into eternity. Yeah, history gets written into books but not real particulars about a LIFE!

Especially not about someone like me. No one is remembered for generation after generation. Definitely not someone who is ordinary. Like I said, not about someone like me.

Think about it. Who of the ordinary people do you really know about from say a hundred years ago. Perhaps less than a dozen. You might have heard a few names of ancestors, but do you really know much more than a few stories about them. But what about just a Plain Joe or a Plain Jane from back then. I'd guess, zilch!

Go back 500 years and I'm willing to bet you don't know anything about your ancestors lives or even how they lived. I'll bet that knowledge dips near to zero. Beyond that, zip for sure.

So, what has happened to THEIR Spirits. Where are they. Have they died? What happened to them and their Spirits. What about all those memories?

"You Goof!" shot into my consciousness.

At first I thought it was Marilyn back with me. But that wasn't right. This was a younger voice. Plus I was sure it had to be someone who was already connected to me. "Valerie," I thought.

"Right on," she replied and she seemed to appear before me. This time she was more substance than shadow.

I guess I was learning a new skill. You know what I mean, taking a projection and turning it into something that looked like flesh and bone. She was a little transparent, but better than the shadows I conjured up before. I wanted to reach out and touch her. I wanted to feel her substance but I restrained that impulse.

"Look," she started. "Spirits don't die so don't worry about that. We just don't die."

"Well, where do they go," I asked.

"Guess," she replied. Then after a rather long pause as I tried to figure out what she was talking about she said, "Think Reincarnation!"

"Don't tell me that my next stop is to be a bull or a cow in India?" I asked. "You know like a head of cattle."

She laughed and then said, "Get serious. If you believe that or want that, then yes, you could be the Spirit of a cow or a bull. It's your choice. Why do you think cattle are sacred in India?"

"I don't have a clue," I answered.

"Many thousands upon thousands of years of experience," Valerie said.

"Actually, every living functioning animal or insect has a life force ... a Spirit. Why do you think some religions prohibit stepping on something like the lowly ant?

"Buddhism teaches: We Are One With Everything.

"Think about that. How can that be if we are not all in some way connected. One of the Noble Truths of Buddhism is: No thing, Including Ourselves, Has A Separate Existence.

"Pretty much every religion has some sort of belief in the Eternal. Why do you think that's true?

'Sure it could be just a wish that there's something more, something beyond mortality. The older the religion, the more it's based on Spirits. It's only really modern religions that discount that.

"Hinduism has its origins back in Humanities early years, long before the written word. Perhaps even as much as hundreds of thousands of years ago. It's called the World's oldest religion. Origins when Spirits were recognized and believed.

They first divined the concept of individual Spirits and realized the interconnections between all beings. They were the first to understand how Spirits moved through life and beyond, only to return in another form.

"We are all connected in some way," she finished.

"I never thought insects or anything that wasn't human had anything like that," I told her.

"They do," she said. "It's your choice whether or not you want to be reincarnated. You can choose to stay disconnected from another host for as long as you want. Forever, if that's your desire. Likewise, when you are ready, you can join with whomever or whatever you want.

"Although, you need to be careful if you want to join with someone. It's best to choose a host who doesn't have a Spirit already. A newborn or younger child is the best. Then you can grow with them.

"But there is a definite downside to making the wrong choice. I'm talking about choosing to join a host that already has a Spirit. I'm sure you've heard of people with multiple personalities. Well, if you choose to join with someone who has a Spirit already connected to them, trouble can arise very quickly. Conflicts between Spirits can be nasty as they struggle for dominance.