Rosa: A Wangxian Reincarnation Story

Rosa 1: Loneliness

     I sit at my desk and wait. Will he come through the door today? Will he walk by my office window?

     He has rarely been this late before. Always seeking me out, finding me first. Relentless in the search, except for the last time and this one. Not a peep, not an "Mn." Nothing, for two lifetimes in a row? We always reincarnate quickly, anxious, I suppose, to be in one another's arms. The last time, when I was born in 1950, he never showed up. So I headed for Berlin when I was 35 and when I had saved up enough money to survive there for a while. Why the hell not? Without him around, I was bored out of my mind and aching to see him again. So I thought, MAYBE?

     MAYBE, go back to where Hans and I started the lifetime before that, back to the place we met, exhausted after the first World War. Young, loving each other in a desperate and frantic fashion as soon as we met. Berlin, the city of dreams, where we began our cabaret, so popular in the 1920's and 1930's and where we were free to love openly.

     Until Hitler.

     Our people were targeted first and no one spoke out. Despite the burning of our nightclub, detainment with only the little handouts of food, rotten and repulsive, the lack of water, we stayed together, even though Hans could have slipped out and passed for straight much easier that I could have, at any time. He refused to leave my side, swearng he was full and insisting I have part of his share of food. Despite the shame of the pink triangles, the round-ups, and the cattle cars, and our arrival at the camp, we stayed together. Until they started choosing the line for the workers and the line for the "showers"

     Hans struggled so, to save me from that line, leading toward the building belching dark, thick smoke and that awful smell of death. Only to be killed as he fought to be beside me, leaving me with the memory of the light fading from his eyes and turning to embrace the last few steps into the building, happy that it would soon be over. The end was quicker than I thought it might be. But then, I deliberately chose a space by the closest shower head and breathed deeply at the first sound of a hiss.

     I thought, MAYBE the location's earlier, good memories might have drawn him back. But nothing. It was 1985 so I hung out in the club district and I just partied my brains out until whiskey and a night of cocaine ended it quickly. It was totally accidental that time. However, I never once sensed him in Berlin at all, prior to that second death there. On a visceral level, I could not sense him looking for me, nor could I sense any emotional contact. No meeting of our souls. Perhaps he came looking later. But I do not have that feeling at all, either. I have lived two lives in Germany. Two deaths. I will never return there again.

     During this lifetime, I began my current business out of practicality. I mean, I should be an expert at past lives, after so much experience. I went to the Edgar Cayce Foundation in Virginia Beach and trained to do past-life regressions. Then I settled in Charlottesville and decided to finish my degree in art at the University of Virginia.

     I support myself doing regressions. I paint as therapy. People are desperate to find answers these days. With the advent of Covid grabbing the globe by the throat, I have never been busier. I guide my clients through self-hypnosis and let them make all their own decisions of where they regress to. I simply record their journey on their own phones as they relive them.

      I had hoped he might need some help sorting things out as well. Charlottesville has a gentleness about it that appeals to just about anyone seeking solace from a crazy world. Healing is in its DNA.

     He did not come, but it brought Lan XiChen to my door. We recognized each other immediately, but when I asked about him, his warm eyes grew sad, and he shook his head. He, too, had not seen or heard from his brother again. Xavier, as he is known now, has chosen to be a postulant in a monastery, His two years of training as a postulant are nearly completed. He has been hoping, as I am, that eventually, his spiritual outreach would help with his own search for my silent husband. But nothing. He wants his brother back as much as I do. Both of our souls ache from loneliness and fear. He has begun warring within, lately, about whether to take his final vows. It is even more constraining that the Cloud Recesses way within those walls and he is realizing that his quest is affected. Searching for his lost Ming and his errant brother will always be first in his heart and core. Being a reclusive monk that has taken a solemn vow of silence and seclusion may bind his hands too much.