Live, Die, Repeat

“The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here.”

The hospital room’s antiseptic scent masked deeper notes of mortality. Medicines, decay, and the essence of ambition's final hours lingered in the air. Through dissolving consciousness came mechanical sounds, oxygen hiss and morphine drips creating a requiem of medical machinery. No family waited at his bedside. No prayers accompanied his passing.

“Where am I?”

Somewhere distant, a nurse dropped a metal tray. The crash expanded outward, each wave carrying fragments of unraveling awareness. The beeping of medical monitors stretched toward infinity before ceasing altogether.

“You've been here before,” a disembodied voice clarified. “Many times.”

Once again, death separated Gustavo Collier's consciousness—his soul, some would say—from  a wasted body, transforming one hundred and twelve years of physical existence on Earth into an ethereal sphere woven with glowing strands of mortal memories.

“Yes,” Gus said. “I’m beginning to recall. Eight times. Maybe more.”

“Move along.”

Gus’s spirit drifted into an ornate and expanding gallery that materialized before him. Colors and textures shifted on the wall as if mimicking eons of tectonic plate movements. The air carried notes of copper and incense, underlaid with old blood and older regrets. Every surface defied perspective. Somewhere, a phone rang, tapering into silence, ignored, like so many unanswered midnight calls seeking to draw him out of his studio and into the reach of family and friends.

A memory surfaced. His mother's hands, callused from cleaning offices, pressing cool cloths to his forehead. “Mi pequeño artista,” she'd murmured while bill collectors knocked. He'd promised his art would lift them from poverty. His first commission, created using supplies bought with money his mother had earned cleaning by night, sold the week after her funeral.

More sounds flowed into the gallery. Brush strokes, clinking wine glasses, polite applause masking vicious whispers. Critics’ voices overlapped. “Transformative.” ”Groundbreaking.” “Uncompromising.” The word “uncompromising” distorted into “unforgiving,” then “unforgiven.”

In narrow corners orbiting just beyond the gallery, Gus observed other souls facing their review.

A soprano in blood-stained Versace stood before fluttering, life-sized sheet music and performance contracts. “Your voice had once moved presidents to tears,” the singer’s nearby curator explained. “Now, take note. It’s all broken and raw, empty of beauty.” Gus listened further, and felt a vast wave of emptiness engulf him accompanied by ovations tangled with the cries of lost and lonely children. Encores drowned bells at funerals the singer had missed.

A photographer knelt in a corner, watching his flickering images. Each photograph revealed its cost. Betrayed confidants, sabotaged rivals, abandoned lovers. Their faces shifted in eternal accusation. His curator’s gentle speech could not mask the terrible truths spoken by the subjects in the photos. Broken promises, desperate pleas, all punctuated by the soft click of his camera capturing despair for exhibition and fame. Camera shutters multiplied into a mechanical roar. Gallery owners whispered through the din. “Brilliant.” “Fearless.” “Worth any price.” The word “price” fractured into a sharp refrain, thunderclaps ebbing and flowing.

Gus’s curator appeared wearing only black and a red name tag with the letter “M” printed on it. New sounds accompanied their arrival. Pens scratching contracts, books closing, ledgers clacking to reach a final balance.

“Eight lives,” M said, their voice vibrating in and around Gus. “Eight attempts to achieve transcendence. Shall we review?”

The gallery shifted, wrapping itself in a white shell. Gus’s masterpiece, “Symphony of Borrowed Time,” hung center stage. Each brushstroke revealed its true price. A daughter alone at her recital, perfectly composed in abandonment. A sister in her hospital room while he sought inspiration abroad. A lover in autumn rain, peace offerings clutched against his chest.

“The painting benefited the governor’s signature children's programs,” Gus said. His words crystallized in air thinned by widening walls.

“Let us examine its full impact,” M replied, their words conveyed by echoes in every human language.

The painting hemorrhaged consequences. It had inspired greatness yet driven young artists to abandon their authentic voices. Canvases tore. Brushes broke. Dreams withered. Collectors decimated emerging art scenes hunting the next sensation. Critics weaponized his success against rising talents.

“Those weren’t my choices,” Gus whispered.

“Who chose your silence?” M asked, moving Gus farther into the gallery as it transformed into a vibrant cityscape.

Gus pondered the question, reflecting on the many facets of his storied career. Offering no conclusive response, Gus walked with M along a sidewalk, passing his famous restaurants. They appeared without façades. Inside of each, Gus’s award-winning dishes—their origins extracted from authentic local cuisines—arrived at tables crowded with well-dressed, well-fed and self-starved afficionados. In adjacent theaters, his stage productions played in perpetuity, showing how he’d harvested emotions until actors broke. Applause rattled above the sobbing and swearing of breakdowns in dressing rooms and beyond.

Gus spoke, uncertain, “I excelled. I was acclaimed. I sacrificed.”

“You emulated your previous incarnations,” M noted as the gallery rippled with an exhibition of past lives. “They established this pattern.” M conjured a swirl of dust, dialects, scents, and emotions. “The ancient world marveled at you, the temple architect who built magnificence as your slaves toiled and expired in the wake of your demands.” Shifting the display, M pointed to a medieval monk. “You hoarded knowledge, denying it to others, and watched while plague decimated your village.” Steam clouds and a train whistle greeted M and Gus. “Then there was the captain of industry who earned hundreds of millions of dollars off the labor of immigrants,” M said. “You noticed dirt on your boots more readily than the sweat and suffering of others.”

“Surely my most recent life, in which I lived longer than a century, brings me to transcendence,” Gus said, confidence wavering. “I did so much.”

Around them, other souls reached the end of their exhibitions. The soprano’s final note shattered her gallery into millions of shimmering bits, all dissolving into darkness. The photographer flickered and faded. Camera clicks became heartbeats. They raced and merged into a shriek.

Gus felt a growing chill and said, “Where have they gone? Did any transcend?”

M stood next to Gus as the city block reverted to a vast and ornate gallery. “Concerned about their fates, Gus, or really just your own?”

Eight lifetimes of spiritual calculation pressed on Gus’s awareness. He heard his mother’s voice. “Mi pequeño artista.” My little artist.

“What were you trying to prove?” M asked.

“I deserve peace,” Gus whispered, hearing what sounded like the knock of bill collectors. “I deserve to transcend. To—”

“To profit?” M’s form grew, incorporating pieces of every judge who had ever weighed a soul. “To collect the dividends of fame, success, wealth, influence?”

M transformed the gallery into a dark, moldy archive. Rows of black filing cabinets stretched and curved out of view. “This is just one of eight floors.” They pointed and walked with Gus to one of cabinets. Opening the top drawer, M said, “Each moment catalogued and measured. Lives elevated balanced against lives diminished. Inspiration given weighed against connections severed. Love rejected in favor of achievement.”

The archive filled with noise, a rising tide of voices, cries, pleas. The sounds harmonized into a single, stinging note followed by silence.

“What have you learned?” M asked. Devoid of judgment or mercy, their manner suggested only the perfect neutrality of cosmic law.

Gus spoke, but the sound that emerged resembled neither word nor scream, but a soft, innocent cry, like that of a newborn baby, warbling between peace, warmth, hunger, and the promise of a another life.