People seem to think about reincarnations a lot. They believe that their birthmark was where they were killed in their past life. Some, however, believe that once they die they spend their time in a dark “void,” while others believe that they get to watch their lives play out over their eyelids. I’m here to tell you what really happens.

When you die, you wake up in a movie theatre and watch your reincarnated life. For example, when I died – I had cancer – I woke up in what seemed like a cinema, and I had the immense pleasure, and disgust, of seeing a baby being born. Luckily for me, I wasn’t the only person in the audience. There were people that looked a lot like me. It was a weird experience. When I had mustered enough courage to ask someone about what the heck was happening, she told me that we were watching our reincarnated life.

The baby being born, was the life that started after mine had ended. We would lead a similar life – if everything went to plan – or our lives would end up being completely different. All that you really need to know, is that our lives were connected by a red thread. The fortunate people who are still alive, also have their own ideas about this string; they call it “The Red Thread of Fate”. These people believe that the gods tie an invisible red cord around the ankles of those that are destined to meet one another in a certain situation or help each other in a certain way. Those people are wrong.

What actually happens is that our collective soul – the cumulative soul of all of the reincarnations – are twisted into the invisible red thread and tied to the little finger of every reincarnate. This ensures that they end up in the right theatre when they die, and also helps guide their life.

Oh, I guess I never introduced myself. My name is Ai and I am the 566th reincarnation of Ainsley Gatten, I was born on April 6th, 1997 and died May 11th, 2013. I had cancer. Which is interesting to note because I am the first reincarnation to die of cancer. The most common death among us is suicide. The top three causes of death, for us, are suicide, influenza, and car accidents – in that order. I believe the numbers are 22 suicides, 19 deaths by influenza, and 14 deaths for car accidents. I am lucky number 1 for cancer!

The other reincarnates think that my life (and subsequent death) were the saddest and least entertaining because most of my life was spent in the cancer wings of multiple hospitals. I tell them to screw off.

Anyways, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing my afterlives on the big screen twice over. The first was the baby I was previously talking about – Aidric. He was born on May 11th, 2013 and died on December 13th, 2030. He got into a car accident. So I guess that brings the count up to 15 for car accidents! The second afterlife I got to see was Avia, she was born on December 13th, 2030 and hasn’t passed away yet! She is currently in the running for “Longest Life.” She’s 19.

Apparently, the reincarnates of Ainsley don’t get to live very long.

She was a baby born with deep blue eyes and pink skin named Avia. She started her life alone. Avia cried so much that they had to put her in a separate room, devoid of the other infants. A nurse checked in on her every few hours. Nobody blamed the nurse, she had other pressing matters to attend to – Avia’s mother. The new mom’s heart rate was growing out of control and her breathing suffered.

When the young lady died, she did so whispering her child’s name. I wasn’t sure if she even got a chance to hold Avia or smell her newborn head. In that hospital room, with the flat-line beep of a heart rate monitor, the nurse checking on Avia stood – lips quivering and fists clenched.

In this world, children were supposed to be loved by their parents. If not the mother, who else would? For Avia, it was nobody, not even herself.

The orphanage boasted posters of smiling blonde-haired boys and girls with deep blue eyes. Avia could’ve been a poster girl if she ever smiled. But no matter many how many stuffed animals were thrown her way or how many smiles and hugs they offered, they weren’t able to get those lip-locked edges to curve up.

By the time she was fifteen, she had already smoked her first cigarette and drank her first beer. Nobody wanted to tell her, but everybody knew. Nobody adopted teenagers. She would be a lifer, an unwanted child turned into an unwanted adult.

And on her nineteenth birthday, she bought a gun.

None of us watching were worried. Despite everything that has happened, Avia was a gentle girl and that was her problem. Nobody could reach her through her overpowering politeness. It took a mother’s love to chip away as the girl and all she had was an old photo of a ghost who once loved her.

She snuck out when the moon had reached its apex and flooded the fields with an ashen glow. All she left was a small package and a letter. Thanks for taking care of me. And that was it. She didn’t sign it nor address it to anyone. She wrote it in cheap pen and stuffed inside was twelve-hundred dollars cash and a photo of a ghost.

The spot she chose was out of the way. Nobody needed to be disturbed. No runners would come this way and be scared. The only selfishness she allowed was that it was by a river, a black canvas of glittering moonlight.

It was never meant to be, she told herself. This is fate.

Some of us nodded with her – wishing for another suicide count. Others shook their heads. I stared, neck stiff, eyes unblinking as she put the gun to her temple.

“No,” I whispered. “Don’t do it.”

Some of us, the more boisterous ones, cheered along, edging the girl to pull the trigger. They had seen a hundred lives and would see a thousand more. A single life in a single point of time meant nothing to them.

“No,” I said and stood from my seat. “Please.”

The screen flickered with the tremble of her finger. Soon it would go completely black.

“No!” I screamed, “This isn’t how it has to be.”

The boisterous ones were no longer laughing. The others around me turned their eyes away. At one point in time, they had all been me. They had thought that life mattered, that pain had meaning. But after a hundred shows of a hundred lives, most of them only slept through the show.

I clenched my fists, the words swelling in my lungs. Then I took a breath of life and prayed, that somehow, I wasn’t just a dead girl with a loud mouth.

“Don’t pull,” I yelled, tears pouring down my cheek and snot from my nose. ‘Not until you have a chance. Maybe you never will, maybe this will be as it always is, maybe I’m wrong about everything, but there is meaning in your pain! I can’t tell you if I’m right or if I’m certain.” My voice dropped low, “I can only promise.”

Avia closed her eyes. She hadn’t heard me, of course, she didn’t. I held my breath.

Then, Avia broke down, the gun still pushed against her temple. “So cruel,” she whispered to nobody. “After all this, I only have a promise. That’s all my fate has to offer.”

My eyes went wide. My jaw dropped. “And that’s enough,” I said, my voice too low even for myself to hear.

There, Avia stood, the gun rigid in her hand. And when her tears fell, the gun did too.