Next Life Choices.

The first sign of an upwardly mobile season was evidenced tonight by the first beetle wandering aimlessly around my office floor. It looked lost. Beetles always look lost, and it occurred to me that when I’m floating patiently around that nether region known to the Buddhists as The Between, and the disembodied voice asks me what I would like to be  in my next life, I might answer ‘a beetle.’

‘But beetles are always lost,’ will intone the disembodied voice.

‘So what,’ I will answer ruefully, ‘I felt lost for the whole of my last life as a human. Nothing new there.’

‘If you’re a beetle you might get eaten by a bird or something.’

‘If I’m a human I might get eaten by a lion or something.’

‘True, but beetles spend most of their time in dark, damp places.’

‘Most of them do, but I’ll be a smart one. I’ll find myself a nice little niche under the floorboards in some rich person’s house which has proper central heating where I can stay all winter and be comfortable. I never had that privilege as a human.’

‘Really?’

‘No.’

‘You poor thing. OK, you can be a beetle if that’s what you want. But I thought you had your eye on being a deep space astronaut.’

‘Mmm… I did, didn’t I? Do they have beetles on spaceships?’

‘Doubt it.’

‘Oh, right. Leave it with me and I’ll come back to you.’

It occurs to me that it would be a good idea to come back as an apex predator like a salt water crocodile, but I don’t think I could face being that ugly.

(I just heard a disembodied voice coming from somewhere beyond the veil. It said: ‘Have you looked in a mirror lately?’)