Heavenly Creatures

I woke the next morning to Sun’s face hovering above me.

“Let’s go on a trip,” Sun said.

“A trip?” I echoed, incredulous. “What about school?”

Sun waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that.”

“How can I not worry?” I asked. “I’m a student. It’s my job to go to school.”

“Time works differently in the heavenly realms. We can be back before Monday.”

I whistled. “So, this trip is going to last a day?”

“I told you time works differently. What do you say?”

I sat up slowly, my brain finally catching up to my surroundings. “Wait a minute… What are you doing in my room?”

Sun chuckled. “Erm, I came in through the window.”

“You really have trouble with boundaries, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

I shook my head. This was a conversation for another day. “Never mind. Okay, then, what about this trip?”

“We’re going to travel to several places,” Sun said. “Starting with Mongolia.”

An inexplicable chill ran through me. “Why Mongolia?” I asked, suspicious. I had a strange urge to throw the sheets off and run as far and fast as I could away from Sun.

“There’s a place I want you to see,” Sun said. “From your past.”

“A place from my past?” I echoed again. “I never lived in Mongolia.”

Sun smiled mysteriously. “Didn’t you?”

I was quiet, considering what I had planned for the day. It wasn’t much. Was it better to stick to my routine or face the existential dread of going on this mysterious quest with Sun? Not one to back down from a challenge, I steeled myself for whatever lay ahead.

“Let’s go then,” I said.

Sun smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.” He took my wrist, and our surroundings shimmered around us. I was suddenly standing in a vast, green field. There was a dense forest nearby.

“What happened?” I asked, whipping my head around to look at my surroundings. “How’d you do that?”

“We teleported,” Sun said. “It’s hard to explain how exactly, but my way of doing it is to focus on our relation to time. Some of my friends have told me that they focus on light instead.”

I laughed weakly. “So, normal Sunday morning protocol. Just typical teleportation stuff,” I said.

“It is normal, Tara,” Sun said. “This is the world that we live in; it’s just that humans aren’t usually open to the miracles around them.”

“So why are we here?” I asked.

Sun pointed into the woods. “To go in there.”

My stomach lurched as I looked into the dark undergrowth. “In there?”

“Yes,” Sun said. “Unless you’d rather not?”

“I’d rather not,” I said. “But that’s never stopped me before.”

Sun nodded, smiling. “I knew you’d say that.”

For a while, the soft padding of our feet on the grass was all I could hear. I marveled at the towering trees and the silence of the forest.

“Remarkable, isn’t it?” Sun said.

I looked at Sun and wondered again why we had come here.

“You said before that I had lived in Mongolia in the past,” I said. “What did you mean by that?”

“Everything in this world is made of matter and energy,” Sun said. “And the force holding us together is gravity, or love.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

“Love is the force that pulls humans to each other and leaves imprints on our soul,” Sun said. “Even when we don’t want it, love is always there. Sometimes, it’s just disenchanted.” Sun stopped. “We’re here.”

A powerful sense of deja vu whipped through me, making me dizzy. We had arrived at a clearing in the woods.

“Do you remember?” Sun asked.

I sunk to my knees, winded. “That’s strange. Let me just catch my breath…” An image flashed through me, briefly, but long enough for me to acknowledge it. I covered my face with my hands.

A man knelt in the clearing, clutching the mangled bodies of two little boys. The snow muffled his cries, and his weeping sounded ghostly in the quiet of the woods.

I spoke without thinking. “Father! Brother!” I seemed to enter a darkness so profound that I lost track of time. I huddled up into myself. “Help me, please.”

“Tara,” Sun said. A gentle hand touched my shoulder. I stirred, and when I opened my eyes, I realized I was on my side on the forest floor. It was already dusk. The wetness on my face made me realize that I had been crying. I wiped my face with my sleeve.

“Do we have to go back?” I asked.

“No,” Sun said. “Time works differently here, remember? But we do have to go. We have some more ground to cover.”

“What was that?” I asked. “What did I see? I don’t understand.”

“That was from your past,” Sun said.

“No, it’s not,” I rebutted.

“It’s from your past life,” Sun clarified. “Your mind doesn’t remember, but your soul does. You were left here to die by your mother.”

I drew back. “What? Why would she do that?”

Sun touched my wrist again, and we were transported to another forest.

“Where are we now?” I asked, still reeling from what Sun had told me.

“We’re in England,” Sun said. “This is where King Arthur reigned.”

I remembered the dream I had had the night before. “Was I a knight during those times?” I asked.

Sun nodded. “You were. And you were something similar in many ensuing lifetimes as well.”

“I heard the name ‘Lancelot,’” I said. “That couldn’t possibly mean…?”

“Some things are stranger than fiction,” Sun said.

“This is too crazy,” I said, vehemently shaking my head.

“Poor creature,” Sun said. “With no memory of your past lives. How do you deal with the confusion of a human life?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Do you remember all of your past lives?”

“Of course I do,” Sun said. “It’s pretty common for heavenly beings. And for beings in hell, too.”

“What would be the purpose of that?” I asked. “I mean, I understand why for hell, but why do heavenly beings remember?”

“For closure,” Sun said. “Anything that hasn’t reached resolution persists in the energetic body.”

“Have you achieved closure?” I asked.

“In most things,” Sun said. “But even I admit to not knowing many things. That’s why I’m here.”

I scoffed. “Typical Monkey King. At least you can admit you don’t know everything.”

Sun suddenly stiffened. I looked around.

“What’s wrong? Sun?”