Have You Ever Seen the Sun Rise at Midnight?

After

Hello.

      Everything around you was quiet and calm. You were too, despite knowing everything that had happened a few seconds prior. 

      "Hello?" You're voice came out uncertainly, but it was clear the being before you was pleased. It wasn't human... well it wasn't not human... you thought. It seemed generally human shaped, but it wasn't bound by flesh and bone either. 

Hello. It- they-? repeated. Welcome to the afterlife. 

      That's right. You weren't sure- okay, you were sure how you had gotten distracted the being was strange in so many out-of-this-universe ways, but that didn't change the dreadful, sinking fact that you knew and remembered. You had died.

       It hadn't been quick, or exactly unexpected, sickness had slowly overtaken you as you had aged until finally, you had died, in your sixties. You hadn't died particularly young, but you had been far from setting any new records either.

        "So what happens now?" Despite knowing you had died, you couldn't help but ask the question; who hadn't wondered what came after life before? It was one of the greatest mysteries and, it seemed, you were about to find out. You hadn't left anybody behind to question about anyway, it had been a lonely end.

Well, you have options. It explained.  You can move on and enter the true afterlife, you are only really in the lobby right now. Or you can go back and be reborn.

You paused, not having been expecting such a choice, and thought about it, or at least tried to, but it was all a little overwhelming and the more you thought the more lost and confused you felt, so you asked the first thing that came to mind, "Can I go to the afterlife and then later he reborn?"

You could. It agreed. If that is what you wish to do.

Even as they said it though, you knew it wasn't. If you did go, you doubted you would ever want to leave. It was only now, fresh as you were from the expected kind of death that you had the courage in you to contemplate what was essentially dying all over again.

"No, thank you, but no, I'd like to be reborn..." you hesitated, not wanting to waste this being's time with your indecision and curiosity, but you figured this really was the only time you'd ever get to ask, "but... before... but could you tell me about it before I... before I'm... wiped?"

You smiled, sadly, promising yourself that was all the emotional displays you would allow yourself and then continued, "I think... I think I'd like to have my curiosity assuaged, as a sort of last thing I ever do."

You couldn't see any expression on it, but it felt warm and inviting at your question and you leaned closer as if that would help you hear what it had to say. It agreed, almost fondly and spoke, explaining about the plane that was the true afterlife that all souls went to. How they need not worry about food and water because everything they could ever need was provided for. How sickness did not exist, because what is there to cause it? And all the many, many ways one could occupy their eternity of time.

You nodded, it sounded peaceful.

Finally you sighed, "Okay, I'm ready."

Very well. It agreed and you were sent on your way.

Slowly bit by bit everything was erased away, leaving you cocooned in treasured memories before, abruptly, without ever feeling as if those much loved moments were slipping away, you were no more.

Every time. The being whispered with a sad sort of fondness. In the end, all this time, they never change much at all, do they.

On Earth a small child was born, wrinkled and slimy, it's face all scrunched up as it made a few quiet first sounds. It too would grow old before it eventually died, when it would have to make the very same choice. In a way, all over again, but in another for the very first time.

The world kept turning. Day after day the sun rose, soon, a new day would begin for the very first time, yet in the same sense it was just yet another of many days in the grand cycle of things.