A Quest;looking for gods

The human lives spanned a long time by her estimate. Counting the years spent "dead" between incarnations,it seems to be over 200000 years. That was her counting in retrospect,using what she new, little as it was ,of the theories around human evolution and the development of technology, the rise and falls of civilizations.

So much for the Bible and other creation myths...not that she believed.

She had had lived in every clime,been born into every ethnic group,many now extinct: destroyed or subsumed through inter-breeding,evolving into new ones almost unrecognizable from the original.

Six times she was born male, and it was only as a male that she came across him again-the sun beam human. When she met him, he was also male.

The rest of her lives she was female. Except for when she was living through war,drought and famine,her lives as a woman were good. Though she yearned for something, always wanting she knew not what- she just buried the feeling and carried on with life.

She would marry if she didn't die early through injury or disease, she'd have 2 or 5 children, both girls and boys, more often girls though. She would mostly live to what passed for old age ,usually mid-forties, and die peacefully in her bedding.

Except for wars,she was only murdered in cold blood once as a woman. Incidentally it was also the only life she was a Caucasian. She had been kidnapped by her "husband ", as was the custom amongst the people in that region. He beat her to death. Beating her up was his favoured pastime.

All her male incarnations died violently in agony and despair.

The first time Chrysalis was male, he died in early puberty. Stung to death by wasps. He and his cousin (the sunshine being, the only time they would be in the same family) had been foraging for mushrooms at the bottom of a cliff when a wasp nest dislodged inexplicably to smash near them. Running and tripping the creatures were on him,then it was his friend, covering his body with his own, taking the brunt of the attack. He had died first. His name was Jarek.

The next time he was born male,his people were on the move in a world of constant ice and violent storms. Food was hard to come by most days, they were all short and lean, indicating that for some generations they had endured privations enough for small bodies to be the best for survival. When he was old enough to take part in the tribal rite of passage to manhood, he and three others in his age group were led away from the temporary village deep into the featureless plains.

That it where they came in contact with other groups on the same errand as them...and amongst these other boys was his sunlight. He knew him at first sight, when their eyes met,it felt like the sun coming out from beyond the clouds.

His name was Ahiga, the next summer, he married into my clan and we lived and hunted together, placed our tents close to one another, our wives were sisters and were as close to each other as we were.

Five years later in a time of plenty, war broke out between the tribes and my friend died. I spent the rest of my life taking care of his family before I too fell in battle.

The third time,Chrysalis was born into an decadent civilization, much obsessed with beauty. He himself was born third in a large family and had a club foot. They only kept him until he was eight, at that time, another son was born,one without deformity. Chrysalis was then given to a temple where he was castrated. The life wasn't so bad, he seemed to accept his life without bitterness and did his best to rise amongst the ranks of the temple eunichs.

Fifteen years later, amongst a batch of new acolytes, Chrysalis found the sunray. A miserable adolescent who had to have his right foot amputated after a wound from a spider bite became septic. He had been heir to the richest house in the land until this. Full of rage and rancour he finally killed himself,less than a year after being cast away. His name was Emesh. Chrysalis died ten years later in an uprising of the peasant classes, burned alive with his fellow priests in their temple.

The forth life as a male, he was born into a nomadic seafarer people. He met the sunshine being while making port in a trader harbour on some small island. He too was a trader,they chatted briefly and went their separate ways. After that Chrysalis always thought of him...he never knew his name.

The fifth life Chrysalis was male, he was a restless man from the subcontinent of India, never settling anywhere, he spent all his youth wandering the world, what he could access of it while traveling as a peddler in miscellaneous goods with a donkey. He was ambushed by bandits in a mountain pass twenty years into this life,he managed to kill one of them before he was overpowered and injured. He died a month later from the suppurative stab wound to his abdomen. He had felt a shock-like feeling of recognition as he looked into the eyes of his masked assailant. The eyes haunted him to his last breath.

The sixth life he was born male, he was a desert nomad, part of a warring people riding the rolling plains on ponies. A great war chief at this time rose amongst them and united the clans. Attacking the stagnant civilizations that build in stone, the tribe grew strong and rich from pillaging, those that survived the battles. Chrysalis had a large harem and eunuch slaves, amongst them, a beautiful honey-skinned boy with eyes like molten bronze,it was the sunbeam. Though in this life Chrysalis bedded both men and women he never touched his favoured slave,he was clearly favoured, treated better than even his own children. His name was Jasper. Jasper died barely a man,murdered in conspiracy by Chrysalis's large brood, forsaking his family he went into the desert and mourned him long, refusing to eat or drink until he died.

The seventh and last life as a man, Chrysalis was born into a small tribe living in a dense rain forest. Peace was all he knew until in his middle age, they were attacked and the survivors carried of and sold,him amongst them. He was sold and resold three times before he met him,a starved young man who was too pretty for his own good. He said his mother had called him Ras, before he was taken from her and sold to this place. He would've been treated better if he had complied, he always made the overseer beat him senseless before he could violate him. I did my best to take care of him after such incidents,no one else would do it as such acts earned a whipping.

One night after several days on the mend, knowing that with the bruises fading he would probably be called by the overseer, he crawled into my bedding and asked me to hold him,which I did until morning. I watched him leave the shed we slept in the weak morning light and was afraid. I followed after him. He knew I was there and said nothing. In silence I watched as he hanged himself with the hemp shirt he took of his back. I watched his corpse swing until the morning activity of the slaves roused me, then I took his body down and away from the ranch,I found a crevice in the rocks late that afternoon and dropped him into it. I waited the all the rest of that day and night, finally the overseer and some slave catchers found me around midday. I refused to say where my friend was, the beating I received then was the worst so far, thankfully I died.

These are the lives I lived when I was a boy.