May 2023
20 Minute Read
Volume 2. Issue 5.
By Jean-Luc Currie
The Reincarnation Bureau!
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Pop!
His friend seemed to lean back. “Of course this is your first time! What’d you think happened? Do you know how many people there were on earth in the 1800s? The 1900s? Now?” Joseph shook his head. “There weren’t even a billion people on earth in 1800. By 2000 there were 6 billion. And now they’re saying things are heading toward 10 billion! And that doesn’t include all the other living creatures as well. Take mayflies for example. You really pissed someone off if you go back as one of those. A single swarm can include up to 80 billion––that’s billion with a B––80 billion flies. Where do you think all the souls come from to inhabit 80 billion mayflies?”
Joseph stared at him blankly, trying to figure out how the mayfly population had anything to do with him. Pop! He shuffled forward. His friend continued.
“And what’s more, the mayfly population has been decreasing, causing a massive backlog up here and forcing the pneumocrats to get really creative. They’ve had to retire billions of souls early and minting slowed down significantly.”
“Minting?”
“Well, how do you think you got here? You were minted, of course. As was I, just too many earth lives ago for me to count. But like I said, minting has slowed significant––”
“What does it mean to be minted?” Joseph interrupted. “Is it, like, well, creation?”
“Yes, of course.” Pop! “It all happens in Department 3, the department we’re in now, in a different bureau. Once minted, a soul goes immediately to work on earth for a first assignment. You clearly lucked out inhabiting a human for your first go, got to skip all the intermediary steps.
“But I bet it’s because of the declining insect population,” he added to himself.
“So, then, what will I be next?” asked Joseph.
“Ah, that’s up to the pneumocrats who run the Reincarnation Bureau. They’ll review your file, previous work experience, performance in past roles, and then match that against personnel projections. They tried a few earth lives ago to take into account personal preference––you know, geographical location, choice of being, et cetera––but that quickly got out of hand. The surveys came back and there were a huge number of requests for dolphins, cats, and apex predators. Many souls just ignored the prompts entirely and wrote in their own preferences. Quite a few requests for unicorns, dragons, and dinosaurs, from what I hear, although dinosaurs have been extinct for millions and millions of earth lives. Imagine the bureaucratic red tape it would take to try and bring back a dinosaur.” He scoffed.
“Who are the people who run the Reincarnation Bureau? And what do you mean by performance in past roles?” Joseph suddenly felt nervous. His palms, if he had any, would have been sweating, and his heart, if he had one, would have been pounding. He looked around furtively. There was the endless, tan, pale, fluorescent light stretching in all directions. Pop! Pop! Two sounded in quick succession. He came back to reality. “What do you mean by performance in past roles?” he asked again.
“Well it’s all based on K.A.R.M.A.” his friend said. “It’s an entire evaluation system. Stands for Knowledge & Actions Role-Measured Assessment. Developed millions of earth lives ago, and been in place ever since. There’s tons of complaints about it being outdated, too rigid, and so on, but it’s the best we got, and overhauling the evaluation system would be a nightmare. They actually put together a committee to review K.A.R.M.A. once, and they spent dozens of earth lives interviewing souls, gathering statistics, and researching different models. Ultimately they published a report which made a splash, was all anyone could talk about for a while, and then...nothing. Just sort of went up in smoke. Hey, kid, I think we’re getting close.”
Joseph looked ahead. That tan light was changing, growing brighter somewhere up ahead. “What happens when we get there?” he asked.
“Oh, kid, c’mon, I told you. One of the pneumocrats will review your file and assign you a new license.”
Memories came flooding back to him. The time he egged his neighbor’s house and then blamed it on the foster kid living down the street. The foster child was sent back to the orphanage. Or the time he slipped money from his sister’s piggy bank. Or when he tried to buy cigarettes from the local gas station. He asked three or four people walking in until someone finally told the owner who threatened to call the police. “What if we had...um, well, poor past performance?” Joseph asked.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about, kid. Whatever you did in your first, short life doesn’t compare to the K.A.R.M.A. some of these other souls have.”
“But...but what if I don’t want to go back as a mayfly? What if I want to go back as a boy, as a real human boy?”
“Tough luck, kid. Once you’ve been around long enough you’ll figure out the system, but for now you’ll take what they––Hey! Where’re going?”
But Joseph didn’t hear him. He was already gone.
He was off like a shot, moving away from the endless line and its dreary monotony and toward the sourceless, tan, fluorescent lighting.
Joseph had no idea where this would take him or what he would do next, but he knew he couldn’t stay there to be poked and prodded and assessed, his K.A.R.M.A. read to him, and then kicked back to earth as an insect, or even worse, a girl. Then something interesting happened. The ubiquitous tan fluorescence began to shrink, as if it was moving further from him, but as it shrunk it also began to take shape. Harder edges appeared until it coalesced into something he thought resembled a large doorway. And indeed, his supernatural eyesight didn’t deceive him––it was in fact a doorway. He cautiously poked his head through and looked down a long hallway. Hesitating, he looked back. Is this allowed? No one seemed to be after him. No running guards or scolding parents. He stepped through.
Once in the hallway he saw several other doors, counting nine in total. Beside each of these doors was a sign or a plaque. He turned to look at the door behind him. The pale green plaque beside it read, DEPARTMENT 3 in large letters. Below that was a list of things like: “The Reincarnation Bureau” and “The Bureau for the Manufacture of Id, New and Transformed (M.I.N.T.)” and “The Office of Cosmic Union”.
He looked at another one. This door had a silverish plaque beside it that read DEPARTMENT 2. The list below that included “The Bureau for Eternal Records”, “The Re-Education and Adjustment Department (R.E.A.D.)”, “The Office of Mediation for Deals with the Devil,” and finally, “The Office of the Speechwriter”. A notice pinned proudly beside this last one listed several literary and documentary awards for works such as The Ten Commandments, The Koran, and
“The “Ba-ja-vad Jita?” Joseph tried spelling out the last, unfamiliar work.
He wandered down the hallway, reading the golden plaque with DEPARTMENT 4 on it, which included “The Bureau for Statistics, Propaganda, and Strategic Communication” and “The Bureau for Magic and Science”.
“Magic and science?” thought Joseph.
DEPARTMENT 5 had a matte iron plaque that listed the following: “The Bureau for Conflict Resolution”, “The Bureau for Efficiency and the Elimination of Waste” (including a special office to study Soulcial Loafing), “The Bureau for Whatever Needs Doing”, and, in large letters below that was “The Evaluation and Assessment Bureau”—in parentheses “The Office of K.A.R.M.A”. He quickly moved on.
The next door was unmarked and had no plaque.
Joseph stared at it for what seemed an eternity (which it was), feeling a deep draw to step through the doorway. It was like when he was told not to go somewhere and then all of a sudden that somewhere became the most interesting and important place in the world. Except this was now the most interesting and important place out of the world. Why wasn’t it marked? What was back there? Could he finally get away from the maze of lines and bad lighting and the arcane departments and associated bureaus? Maybe this was where the real heaven was, the paradise promised to him in church: no work, no school, no chores. Just endless recess and sports. Who knows? Maybe even streets paved with gold, he thought. The blank door filled his mind, looming larger and larger in his thoughts as he imagined its secrets.
He shuffled forward. Then stopped. But what if I’m wrong?
He squirmed uncomfortably. What if it was just the opposite? Instead of the playful paradise of his dreams, what if it was a detention center for young souls? Or even Hell. All that sweeping and splashing of bleach the preacher on Sunday was always threatening. He stepped back and looked around. He had already swept enough for one lifetime and he hated the smell of bleach, thank you very much.
The plaque announcing DEPARTMENT 6 also included the following sub-departments: the Bureau for Festivals and Cosmic Holidays, The Bureau for Interdepartmental Arbitration, The Transfer Bureau, and the Office of the Ombudsman.
“Transfers!” squeaked Joseph. He began to take a deep breath, realized it was useless, and stepped inside.
Back in the Terminal, Joseph filed past the entrances to Departments 5 and 4, and the unmarked door, stopping at the doorway to Department 3. There was the plaque reading “The Reincarnation Bureau”. He hung what passed for a head and stepped through.
Instead of finding himself back in the Reincarnation Bureau as he expected, he stepped into what looked like a waiting room or reception area at the doctor’s office. Souls sat in perfect repose all around while a small queue formed in front a desk.
Pop! He jumped and looked behind him. Another soul had entered the waiting area, and it shuffled silently into line behind him. He sighed and looked toward the front. Three souls stood between him and the pneumocrat behind the desk, and Joseph could just overhear snatches of the conversation.
“No, I’m sorry but I’ve been given strict instructions to direct you back to the Reincarnation Bureau. Your license cannot be renewed.”
The first soul in line said something which Joseph couldn’t make out.
“I don’t have the power to make that decision. That was the call of your case manager. At this point I’m only to direct you back to the RB.” The other soul said something again. “Yes, I understand you have extenuating circumstances, but once the case manager makes a decision there’s nothing we can do.”
Now the soul in front was practically yelling, and Joseph, as well the rest of the reception area, could hear every word: “This is bullshit! I left a wife and young child back on earth, and the doctors said I had better than 60% chance of surviving. Besides, my case manager is a dim-witted idiot! I understand license renewals are rare but I filed the correct paperwork and my K.A.R.M.A. is spotless.”
“Sir, it says here on the case manager’s notes that a return to earth at this time is not in the best interest of the Organization.” The pneumocrat behind the desk was looking both exasperated and bored. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t grant you a pass to Returns and Exchanges. Either you can return to the RB or head back to your case manager to see if a waiver is possible. But there are several other souls in line behind you...”
“You know what?” screamed the soul, “fuck the Organization.”
The waiting room grew deathly silent. Every soul now had their eyes fixed on the pneumocrat behind the desk and the soul at the front of the line.
“Sir, I’ll ask you one more time to––”
“No! I won’t leave until you grant a pass to Returns and Exchanges. This whole Organization is an inefficient, soulless machine run by lazy idiots. Fuck this and fuck you.”
“Sir––”
“Don’t fucking sir me...”
“That’s it.”
Joseph nearly screamed. Without any warning two creatures appeared from nowhere. It all happened impossibly fast, but in the briefest of glimpses Joseph thought the first looked like a lion and the second like a cow. Did he see wings? And were they covered in eyes? They grabbed the soul at the front of the line and disappeared.
The waiting room let out a collective sigh.
“What was that?” Joseph breathed to no one in particular.
“Blasphemy Police from the Correction Bureau,” whispered the soul behind him.
“Who are they?” Joseph asked, but the soul wouldn’t say anything else, so Joseph shrugged and stepped forward in line.
When it was his turn, he cleared his throat. “Hello?” The pneumocrat looked up from scribbling something furiously.
“Id?” it asked.
“Um, I don’t have an Id yet.”
The pneumocrat let out a small sigh. “Never come with the right documentation,” it grumbled. “Alright,” it glanced down at something, gave a small “Hmmm”, and scribbled a note. “From the RB, correct?” It seemed more statement than question. “You’ll need to see your case manager. Take the door on the left. Next!”
A portal appeared suddenly on his left in the middle of the reception area. No one else moved or seemed surprised.
“We’ve thoroughly reviewed your case, and at this time your request for a transfer is denied.”
Joseph was in a place he might have called an “office” on earth but had the same lighting quality of a police interrogation room. He even thought the ambient light flickered from time to time. The case manager across from him gazed back coolly, calmly, disinterestedly, and Joseph wondered who the “We” was. He didn’t respond.
“At this time, it would be detrimental to your career to pull you off the line so early. If you want to make it anywhere in this Organization then you need to take several tours early to build up the right K.A.R.M.A. A transfer would hardly be beneficial for a soul like yourself. Might I recommend you head back to the RB? Put in the time, and after several earth-lives you’ll be in a much better position to attempt a variety of different roles.”
Joseph felt overwhelmed and angry at the same time. How did this case manager know what was best for him? How did it know what he wanted? And what if I don’t care about the Organization? he thought to himself. What if I was content being a desk clerk in Department 2 or a ghost in Department 7?
“Department 2, especially the Bureau of Eternal Records, wouldn’t be a bad choice for your first off-the-line tour.” Joseph was caught off guard––could this thing read his thoughts? “But Department 7 and tours as supernatural beings on earth are typically reserved for more experienced souls with several successful tours who have completed their continuing education.”
“Should I add that to your Id as a career goal?” his case manager added, “It’s definitely something you could aim for.”
He found himself once again back in the Terminal. The door to Department 3 and the Reincarnation Bureau stood directly ahead. He thought of waiting in line and tan fluorescence and sea turtles and Mark Twain. Existential dread flooded him, and he decided.
He moved down the hallway––past Departments 3 and 4, past Department 5, just catching a glimpse of the imposing iron plaque with “The Office of K.A.R.M.A.” written on it. He stopped in front of the unmarked doorway, hesitated only a moment, and then stepped through.
Instantly he was plunged into impossible darkness.
He began to panic, feeling his way around. He bumped into something that fell with a crash. He retreated, desperately trying to find his way back out. But he could neither see nor find any doorway nor exit nor sign of an exit. Instead, he did the only sensible thing at this point—he sat down and began to cry.
“Oy! What’s your problem?”
Joseph would have jumped out of his skin if he had any, but the shock of that voice in the limitless darkness made him temporarily forget his plight. “Hello...?” he offered tentatively.
“Yeah, what’s your business here?”
He debated getting up and returning to the Terminal. Then he recalled that he didn’t know how to get out of here, wherever here was. And the voice sounded normal enough, so he asked, “Where is here?”
“I’m the one asking questions, and I asked why you’re squatting in my closet.”
“In your closet?”
“Hey! No more questions,” the voice rejoindered roughly, “Tell me what you’re about.”
“I, I’m just trying to get away. They’re sending me back to the Reincarnation Bureau, and I don’t want to go back but they said I don’t have a choice and the case manager said I would have to take a dozen more tours before I could stop going back and I don’t want to have to stand in that line again and hear all the pops! and then there’s the soul who was a sea turt—”
“Whoa, whoa,” the voice interrupted, much softened, “then you’ve come to the right place. I used to have exactly the same problem.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I don’t go back to earth anymore and I don’t have to put up with their bullshit. I’ve settled myself in for the long haul...right here.”
But where is here? thought Joseph. He asked as much of the disembodied voice.
“Didn’t you read the sign on the way in?”
“There wasn’t a sign on this door,” said Joseph.
“Huh, used to be a sign. Well, it’s the Custodial Closet.”
“The what?”
“The Custodial Closet, you know, where they keep all the cleaning supplies. So whenever something needs to be cleaned up they come grab it from here. Even souls make messes you know.”
“We’re in a janitor’s closet?”
“I don’t know who Janet is and it’s definitely not her closet. At this point, I consider it my own, actually.”
“How long have you been here?” asked Joseph.
“Good question. I’m not sure. Maybe you could tell me. What earth-year was it when you came back?”
“It’s the 21st century on earth.”
“The what century? Do you mean they’re in a new millennium?”
“What do you mean a new millennium? When was the last time you were on earth?”
The voice cleared its throat quite a bit and made several unintelligible noises.
“Hang on,” said Joseph, “How long have you been here?”
“Well, erm, I...uh, left earth after the, uh...Battle of Agincourt.”
“The battle of what?”
“The Battle of Agincourt.”
“You were in a battle? Can you tell me about it?” There was a pause. Both souls sat silently in the dark. The other soul didn't answer, so Joseph asked again, “Can you tell me about the battle?”
“Well,” the voice said slowly, “I was a French man-at-arms––”
“What’s that?”
“A man-at-arms. It basically meant I wore a lot of armor and was dismounted infantry.”
“Whoa! Cool.”
“Yeah, so we were fighting the English who invaded France. Henry V, the young King of England, crossed the channel with a relatively small army, and we were on our own ground, well supplied, with many thousands more men,” the voice warmed to the subject, “arranged in two lines of dismounted infantry reinforced by French cavalry. It was a cold morning, and we stood in line for several hours, stamping our feet, drinking some wine and eating food. It was a good morning for us but the English weren't so lucky. They were out of food and the weather was too cold. So, we naturally made a big deal of our feast, yelling at them from across the field. Eventually, they marched toward our lines. Although the sun was rising and the fog had lifted, the ground was soggy and wet from rain the night before, and we watched them stumble over the uneven ground ‘till they were close enough for us to make out the coats-of-arms on their banners. Then they cocked a snook and—”
“They did what?”
“Oh, they marched up toward our lines––”
“I get that. After that I mean. You said they...” Joseph giggled, “did what?”
“Oh, they cocked a snook. You know, when you taunt someone with your thumb on your nose.”
“Oh,” Joseph said disappointingly, the reality far less exciting than what he imagined.
“Like I said, they began taunting us and we started to yell at them, and then the archers fired thousands of arrows. We hunkered down under our shields, but the sound was awful. Horses were hit and screaming. A few men were hit and they screamed as well. All around us it sounded like steel rain as the whoosh! then clang! of arrow after arrow came down. I wasn’t in the front rank, so I couldn’t see what was going on. I just hunkered under my shield until the barrage was finished. Then our cavalry charged them and we cheered them down the field––”
“Did you win?”
The voice again cleared its throat. “I’m, uh, not sure how it ended...I didn’t make it through.”
“You died?” Joseph was awestruck. “Did you take any of ‘em with you? And how did you die?” He could hardly contain his excitement. The Reincarnation Bureau, his denied transfer, the unfortunate kickball game in the street now driven from his mind by visions of horses in armor and dark clouds of arrows raining down on foggy, unploughed French fields.
“Yes,” the voice said quickly, then backtracked, “Well, sort of...No.” The voice paused. “I actually didn’t fight.”
“Huh?” Joseph was confused.
“The truth is that after the arrow barrage and the cavalry charge, I just stayed put and acted dead. I was...uh...too scared to march out with the infantry. I figured we would win anyway, so if I could hunker down long enough then the battle would be over, I could enjoy the victory and would keep myself out of harm.”
Joseph’s suspicions began to grow. “But what happened?”
“Everything was fine until the cavalry charge apparently went wrong. All of a sudden hundreds of French horsemen were charging back across the field. They slammed into our own infantry marching out. I was just peeping out from beneath my bascinet when I saw the huge horse lumbering toward me...That’s it. I think I must have been trampled. So when I found myself back at the Organization I knew I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t go back on another tour and sit through something like that, go through life just to get trampled on a battlefield. Plus, cowardice never rates well on K.A.R.M.A. evaluations so I did the next best thing: I went to the Terminal and hid in the Custodial Closet, or Janet’s Closet, whatever you said they’re calling it these days.”
“When did you say the Battle of Agincourt was?” asked Joseph.
“1415 A.D. by my recollection.”
“1415!” Joseph exploded, “why, that was over 500 years ago! You’ve been in this closet for over 500 earth-years!”
“Kid, let me tell you how it is. Whatever you’re thinking about me and this situation––you’re wrong. It’s much better to be safe and unbothered here than to go through the absolute circus that happens out there. It’s a spectacle de merde, pardon my French. You can’t get away from it. They have you tagged, tracked, identified, measured, weighed, and always found wanting. And working your way up the ranks isn’t worth it. What does it get you? A temporary job in Department 6? Nectar and ambrosia aren’t all they’re cracked up to be...Half this place is corrupt, anyway, and the good ones who are trying to modernize things and make a real difference never get anywhere. They end up changing a policy here or improving a process there but all it really amounts to is temporary relief for a fatal wound. Most of the souls up here are content to flip the sand, so to speak, keep their heads down, not rock the boat, and move up a bit at a time. Everybody talks about reforming the place, then you take a few tours, hang around long enough and get stuck in the same ruts that everybody else is running in. After a few hundred earth-lives of that you forget that it was any other way, and the color drains from your imagination, and instead of thinking about how things could be better or different, you start to focus on what the next assignment needs to be in order to make your K.A.R.M.A. look good for promotion. Me? I wasn’t gonna to do it anymore. I had enough hell on earth. I didn’t need it in Heaven, too. So, I’m going to wait it out here.”
“But wait it out for what?”
“I dunno, kid. Things may never change, and in that case, I’d rather not participate in the system than be a pawn pushed around a board, chasing rewards that either don’t exist or are buried behind so much regulation that it takes a halberd to cut through it.”
Joseph didn’t know what a halberd was, but he felt disgusted. This soul was just a lousy good-for-nothing, someone who wouldn’t stand and fight, and now someone who wouldn’t get out of this stupid closet because he was scared. If Joseph had been at the battle he would have charged with the rest of the infantry. He wouldn’t have hunkered down under his shield like a lousy wimp. Well, he thought to himself, I won’t let that be me. I’m better than that. I can still prove myself, can still do something with my career. And who knows? he added as an afterthought, maybe one day I can help make this place better.
“I’m leaving,” he told the voice. “I’m going back.”
“It’s a bad idea, kid. You’re better off here with me. A thousand days feels like a second. You won’t even know earth lives are slipping by.”
“I said I’m leaving.”
“Suit yourself.”
There were several moments of silence where neither of them said anything. Then Joseph finally said in a somewhat embarrassed voice, “Ok, how do I get out?”
He was back in line.
Back in the same line, in the same place, where he stood what seemed only moments before.
“Back again?” his friend asked. “Thought we lost you for a moment. The good news is that you haven’t missed much. We’ve hardly moved at all. But like I was saying before you left, we’re almost there.”
And sure enough, they were almost there.
His friend kept going, “Incredibly tough to get a job as an RB pneumocrat. Requires spotless K.A.R.M.A. and a tour on earth as a DMV official.”
Joseph wasn’t listening. He was too nervous. This had seemed like a good idea while sitting in the darkness with that lunatic, but now that he was here he began having second thoughts. He peeked ahead and saw a pneumocrat speaking with a soul only a few places ahead. Looking to his right, he saw a display case containing a variety of reading pamphlets with titles like Climbing the Corporeal Ladder, or Ten Hacks to Upgrade your K.A.R.M.A., or Basic Instructions Before Leaving Heaven.
Then he was there.
“Id?” asked the pneumocrat behind the long desk.
Very Sophisticated Sounding British Narrator for a BBC Documentary: “This is Lowell Brook in Berkshire. It’s the stage for one of our most fascinating natural events: the first mayfly emergence. Mayflies have one of the shortest adult lives in the insect world. It’s absolutely packed with action though. Adult mayflies don’t have proper mouths so it’s impossible for them to feed. They are entirely reliant on energy reserves, and flying burns through those very quickly. By swarming together in their thousands these mayflies increase their chances of breeding successfully. Males grab the females with their elongated front legs, and the pairs mate in midair. Oh, look! I can see an adult mayfly which has just emerged, leaving behind its drab old skin and reaching its final form...”
Joseph wiggled his tail.
There was something dark and flaky trailing behind him, stuck to him, and he crawled forward shaking it off. It clung stubbornly, so he began gyrating vigorously. He began to panic. Finally, the thing fell away, and he looked up. Thousands of yellowish-tan insects were rising into the dusk-laden air. The setting sun glinted off what seemed like millions of paper-thin wings. It was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen.
He suddenly felt the urge to join them, and strained and lunged upward, when to his surprise, he was rising. Then he was among them, dashing and dancing, his long legs reaching out in front of him.
He flew up and floated down, and flew up and floated down. He felt a need to latch onto something but in the ecstasy of the moment he couldn’t distinguish that need from the imperative to fly up, and then parachute down.
Then he began to grow tired.
He looked around and saw that the swarm was thinning, only a handful of fellow insects fluttered in the dying light. He glanced around frantically as he made another ascent––and then he saw her, the most beautiful mayfly he'd ever seen, his nymph turned imago dei. Her delicate wings flashed above her. A long, bifurcated tail flowed behind her. He flew toward her. He flew up and over, and then floated casually back down, trying to appear nonchalant. As he moved closer, his long legs twitching with excitement, she saw him. And he knew it.
A dance began between the two. He moved closer while she coyly flew through the air.
Suddenly, like a car engine that sputters and backfires, he faltered. Momentarily he lost lost altitude, but he recovered himself and surged back up. Again, he found her, but again, he inexplicably dropped several feet.
He willed his wings to move faster, but he grew more and more tired. The serene blackness of the water threatened ominously below. He flew up and away from it. He faltered once again, dropping to within a foot of the water. Something rippled beneath the surface. He looked up and saw her dancing in the soft light of dusk. He surged, failed, and fell.
Pop!
Jean-Luc Currie is the co-editor of The Hart & The Cur.
He looked around, seeing only in front of him a body that wasn’t a body. But before he had time to investigate he was startled by a perfunctory pop! He turned to look and saw another body that wasn’t a body behind him.
Turning back to the front he examined the thing before him. It had the basic outline of a human but seemed to lack clear definition, a hazy amorphous outline. And it was translucent and slightly off white. Like a ghost, he would have said if he believed in such a thing.
He heard another little pop behind him and turned. But all he saw was the same ghostlike form from before. Leaning to his left, he craned his neck to see another translucent, ghostlike form. It looked different from the first but nearly the same, as if just one or two things were off. Like someone tried to make a replica of the first but messed up the nose, or smudged the hairline. But that wasn’t quite right either because he couldn’t tell for certain that these things had noses, much less hairlines.
He turned to the front. The figure in front of him hadn’t moved at all. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. Nothing happened. He cleared his throat––at least, he imagined he was clearing his throat––and tried again. “s’cuse me, sir, s’cuse me.”
A bored voice lolled back at him from the figure, “What is it?”
But there was no face. No eyes. It sounded like the words came from a mouth but, then again, he never saw one. “Well?” the voice droned on, “You’re the one who interrupted me. Get on with it,” it said with a sigh.
“We...well, you see sir...”
“Yes, yes, spit it out.”
“I was wondering what was going on. Where are we? And what is this place?”
He heard a laugh and winced.
“Never been here before, eh? A first timer?”
Joseph had the distinct feeling that if the thing in front of him had hands this is the point in the conversation where it would have condescendingly clapped him on the back. He braced himself, but no back-clapping was forthcoming.
Pop! came the sound again from behind.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” asked the voice.
“Well,” said Joseph, “I was playing kickball with friends and the ball rolled into the street and I ran after it. As I approached it I was just hearing my mother’s voice in my head, her prattling ‘Look both ways before you cross the street, Joseph,’ which I thought a funny thing to think about at that time because there was a loud buzzing sound that made me mad. Wait, no, it wasn’t a buzzing...it was more like the sound a goose makes, just loud and long and endless, and I was just looking up to tell whatever was making the noise to knock it off when I found myself here instead...”
He broke off.
“No. No, no, no, no, no, no...This can’t be...you can’t mean...”
He fell silent and looked at the figure in front of him. Pop! Even fainter than before. He was growing used to them now and hardly noticed it.
“Am I dead?” he finally whispered.
The other figure broke in. “Don’t be upset about it. There are worse things that could happen to you. You could have ended up in the Transfer Oversight Office.”
“The what?”
“The Transfer Oversight Office. It’s the department that reviews applications for people applying for a position to review inter-departmental transfers. Sometimes souls get stuck in there for thousands of earth lives.”
“Thousands of earth lives?” Joseph repeated. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then realized he wasn’t actually breathing. He had no breath to hold onto or exhale or choke on. Pop! Faintly this time. “So if we aren’t in the Transit Oversight Off—”
“Transfer Oversight Office,” the figure corrected. “The Transit Oversight Office is a different org under the Transportation Bureau in Department 1.”
“OK...The Transfer Oversight Office. If we aren’t there, then where are we?”
“The Reincarnation Bureau!”
If it was possible he imagined the figure smiling broadly with arms outstretched, the kind of gesture Willy Wonka would make welcoming visitors to his factory.
Joseph looked around.
There was nothing really to look at. To his left and right space stretched away endlessly in a light tan nothingness. There was no dimension, no horizon, no end, no beginning, just the pale, fluorescent light from nowhere illuminating nothing. Except the figure in front of him. He leaned to the side (at least he thought he was leaning) and gazed down an endless file of similar ghostlike figures stretching on, infinitely it seemed to him. He looked behind him, where before there was only one, now there were several figures, all in a perfect line, waiting.
“Are we ghosts?” he asked.
“Ghosts?!” The figure guffawed. “Don’t be silly. Ghosts are in Department 7. Although I do hear that a tour as a ghost is quite enjoyable. We’re souls. We’re in line for reincarnation, like every other soul here.”
“But how does that get decided?” Joseph blurted out. “Why are we in line for reincarnation instead of ghosts or part of the Transition Oversight Off—”
“Transfer Oversight Office. The Transition Oversight Office was reorganized many earth lives ago under the newer Mobility Division as part of the modernization effort. Happened while I was a sea turtle awhile back.”
“Oh, look! We’re moving!” a soul shouted from behind him.
Sure enough the long line was wiggling forward, the white translucent souls shuffling one by one. The movement snaked its way back until it was his turn, and he took a small step, occupying the place where his friend, for that’s how he felt about his conversation partner at this point, previously stood.
“You were a sea turtle?”
“Cylindraspis triserrata. Lived on the island of Mauritius. Do you know what Mark Twain said about Mauritius? ‘Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and heaven was copied after Mauritius.’ Which you and I both know is a bunch of bullshit. Far less bureaucracy on Mauritius. You know I met Twain’s soul once. Lovely soul. Real swell personality. I think he went back as a rooster or a goat or something, but then someone realized the sheer waste of talent, him just standing in a field eating grass all day, so now he works in Department 2.”
Joseph started to speak but his friend cut him off.
“Did you know they used to ride the sea turtles in Mauritius? We were that big. It started shortly after the Dutch arrived. Don’t remember much after that actually...” he trailed off introspectively. There was a long pause and Joseph waited for him to begin again but his friend said nothing.
The line lurched forward slowly, and Joseph stepped into the next spot. He leaned out to look again. The line stretched to where the souls were just a pinpoint. “Can I ask another question?”
“I don’t see why not,” his friend responded. “We’ve got quite awhile here. They say the Reincarnation Bureau’s gotten more efficient, you know, as part of the modernization efforts, but I haven’t noticed any real difference in my last few cycles.”
“Well, that’s exactly the sort of thing that’s bothering me,” said Joseph. “It seems like you’ve been here before, maybe dozens of times, but this, I think, is my first time...”
Joseph opened his eyes and blinked.
More from
The Hart & The Cur
“We’re closed.”
“Um...” Joseph wasn’t sure how to respond.
The radiant being in front of him repeated itself in a droll monotone. “We’re closed.”
“Uh, sir,” he mumbled quickly, “I need to ask about a transf—.”
“I said we’re closed.”
“Closed?” said Joseph, growing frustrated. “How can you be closed? Isn’t this the afterlife?”
The being looked up. Golden hair spilled over its head and down to its eyes, which were the deepest hue of emerald. To Joseph it looked nearly human. “Do I need to repeat myself?” the being said. “We. Are. Closed. We’re closed for the day.” Joseph wondered how something could be closed for the day in Heaven. It continued, “You’ll have to come back in another time.”
“But I—”
“Closed,” it cut him off.
“But—”
“Closed,” it cut him off again.
“But—”
“Closed.”
He paused for what felt like the briefest of moments and then turned around dejectedly to step back through the door. He was just contemplating where he would go next when he heard from behind him in a completely transformed voice: “Hello, welcome to Department 6. Please provide your Id and your purpose.”
He turned around.
Now the golden-haired, emerald-eyed thing was smiling at him. His frustration mounted.
“Hello and welcome to Department 6. So that I can direct you, can you please provide your Id and your purpose?”
His frustration spilled over. “Wait a second...weren’t you just closed? How can you just––all of a sudden––be open again?” But the thing just smiled its idiotic, cherubic smile. Then it dawned on him––a cherub. The thing looked like an adult cherub. In the midst of this revelation he temporarily forgot his frustration, and the cherubic clerk again asked for an “Id”.
“If you’ll provide your Id and purpose, then I can direct you to the correct department.”
Purpose? What does that mean? All the teachers at school are always encouraging us to find our purpose, thought Joseph, maybe it’s because one needs it in heaven. Then aloud he said, “I’m not old enough to have a driver’s license, so I don’t have an I.D. But I memorized my social security number. Will that work?”
“No, that won’t work,” responded the cherub curtly. “Have you not been issued an Id yet?”
“I don’t even know what an ‘Id’ is.”
“You don’t know what an Id is.” The cherub harumphed to himself. “Have you not been to see your case manager? Well, an Id is the deepest, most fundamental part of who you are, determining your subconscious behavior and driving your most misunderstood and often forbidden thoughts, desires, and emotions.”
“Really?” said Joseph.
“No, of course not. It actually stands for Individual Documentation and contains your personal data, including past lives, KARMA, requests for transfers, et cetera. So if you haven’t been issued an Id yet, I’m afraid I can’t help you. You’ll need to speak with your case manager first in Department 2, and your CM will also issue your Id.”
Joseph stared. His frustration started taking definite shape, rearing its head. He couldn’t believe it. “You mean I have to go back to Department 2 to speak with another person before I can come here to have my transfer approved?”
“I’m afraid that’s the long and short of it.”
“Why can’t you just approve me for a transfer?”
The cherub laughed. “I don’t have the authority to do that. I just direct souls to the right bureaus and ensure they have completed documentation. I’m the gatekeeper to keep things running efficiently around here. Nothing gums up an effective process more than missed paperwork.” The cherub smiled idiotically once again. “If you don’t mind, there are more souls in line. Like I said, lack of documentation always slows things down.”
Joseph turned around. Sure enough, several other souls had appeared behind him at some point. No accompanying sound effects in Department 6 apparently. As if reading his mind, the cherub said, “You wouldn’t have noticed them. We muted the preemptory pops! millions of earth lives ago. Our Department Head thought it was overly archaic...unlike some Departments.” He rolled his eyes and gave Joseph a knowing smile.
Deflated, Joseph walked out.
