I Don't Want to be Reincarnated

This was my funeral.

The pastor was quoting something--from Genesis, perhaps--but I wasn't paying him any attention. I was looking at my mother, who was crying into my younger brother's shoulder. He was doing his best to be the rock that she needed him to be but I knew that he was having a hard time of it.

Then there was my father, seated across from his son and ex-wife. God, fuck him. He had his arms draped across the back of the pew. He was looking around--for me, most likely--and the gesture gave him the appearance of a man waiting for his son's little league game to end. Failing to find me, he looked at his watch, and then turned back to the pastor, with only the most palatable effort.

And that was everyone. I was embarrassed that more people hadn't shown up, but I hadn't lived a life which would have made my funeral a big attraction.

The pastor was inviting my family to say their final goodbyes. My brother led our mother to the closed casket. I was too far away to hear what they are saying but something caused her to fall on top of the casket. She was screaming. In Dean Koontz novels you'll sometimes hear about a character releasing a "haunting" howl. I understood for the first time the kind of howl Koontz envisioned as "haunting"--it was the scream from a mother as she puts her eldest to rest.

Eventually, she gathered herself and my brother guided her away. The pastor looked to my father, who looked around again. For a moment, I thought he would dismiss the pastor's invitation. But then a change flickered through his mannerisms. The change was subtle. I thought I was the only one who noticed it. His eyes softened, his indifferent smile became just a little less indifferent. He approached the casket.

I was reminded of that time when I was much younger and our cat had died. My parents had finalized their divorce just a couple months earlier and my father had taken Paul and I out to the family cottage. We had brought our black cat, Mystery, who was taking medications for her kidneys. The vet said that she didn't have much longer to live, but my father hadn't believed him until we woke up one morning to find Mystery with her eyes peeled open but staring at nothing. My father loved that cat. For all his coldness, for all his hardness, he loved Mystery like a daughter. And in the minutes that passed before he broke down into tears, he looked at her corpse like it was a question mark appended to the inquiry for a higher power:

"Why?"

He was looking at the casket--my casket--like that now.

My father tossed the seal to the casket aside, apoplectic with rage.

"Harold! Harold!" My mom howled. My brother raced towards him, trying to restrain him, to pull him away, but my father was much larger than Paul. He pushed him off easily.

"Jacob! Wake the fuck up!" My father commanded my unmoving corpse.

My casket had been closed for a reason. I had never been handsome in life but I was hideous in the moments before my ****. There were deep scars across my face and throat from where the orc had attacked me. My jaw had been taken clean off. By the time other adventures had found me, the orc had taken my legs and most of my torso as lunch.

The orc had really done a number on me.

When news of my **** reached my family, my father thought it was a mistake. Even my mother and brother didn't believe it--at first. Orcs were no joke but I had killed plenty of them before. It seemed silly that I could lose to one. But, when my mother and brother identified the corpse, they accepted my ****.

Now was the first time he had seen his son in ****.

He fell to his knees, punched the ground, yelled, screamed, howled. The pastor stepped back, afraid. My father was a big man--well over six feet and over two-hundred and sixty pounds. Even my brother couldn't work up the courage to face him.

It was my mother, who had gathered herself, who had grown strong while my father had grown weak, who snaked her arms over her ex-husband's shoulders and down his chest. Her face nuzzled into the crook of his neck. Slowly, he became quiet.

This was probably the first time she had hugged him in more than ten years.

Suddenly, I wished that I could join them. The desire was so unlike me--to miss my family. I thought that I had buried that desire centuries ago. As I chided myself, I could already feel my mind pulling away. I tried to will myself to stay--to see what came next, but it was impossible. A familiar, irony taste, like blood, lodged in my throat, even though I was just a thought.

"No, no," I heard myself whimper, "I need more time. Give me more time."

I vanished.