The Soul Never Dies

Whenever someone recalls their good old times, it always feels the same. They think that their time was the best, and right now is the worst. This cycle keeps going on, the older ones go on and on about how times have worsened, the younger ones grow up and tell the same when they are old.

Although I can't say the same in my case, one thing I'm certain of is that a lot has changed since I was born.

A bird decided to eat fruit from the fig tree which was my mother. That's when I first came to life, inside the stomach of the sparrow, surrounded by its excrement. A lot of people die in their own shit, but my journey started as a seed in a sparrow's stomach.

But as luck would have it, the bird answered its call and left me on fertile land. When I first sprouted from the soil, there were many other fig trees that grew around me.

We probably lived for more than 70 years without being disturbed. People came by for picnics, children played in the fig forest, birds ate more fruit and dispersed our offspring, the cycle of life kept rolling.

All this until a bigshot bought the forest. She was a person in a high position in human society. She wanted to build something grand here, some kind of a place where humans have to pay a lot to eat. A hotel or something like that.

Of course, all the fig trees had to be cleared out. Do you know what they did with us after cutting us down? They used the same trees to make furniture for their hotel.

I expected it to be a harrowing experience, but to be honest, I never felt any pain during the process of being turned into a table. The only time I felt pain was when their chainsaw drilled through me. I didn't feel anything when the angle grinder was shaping me into a table or when the varnish and wood polish was being applied onto me.

During my first few years as a table, I was never free. I was always used to serve the customers of the hotel. The hotel ran well for about thirty years, and like everything else, it too started to deteriorate.

The tables weren't kept clean all the time, the food they served was reduced in quality. The costs of running their hotel and their profits didn't add up. So they gradually lost their staff and then abandoned the place altogether. The tables began to rot, so did I.

The bricks became brittle, the discolored walls began to break apart and the elements of nature reduced the building to dust over the due course of time.

As we the tables rotted, we got absorbed into the soil. I thought this would be the end for me. But even after the rotten tables got decomposed into the soil, we continued to remain independent. I could still speak to my other friends who had been through this journey with me. I thought all of our souls will merge together in the soil, but no they didn't.

So we waited and waited for years, until finally one day, the soil was dug up. Some big contractor began to dig up the soil. He dug up the soil because he wanted to sell it off as gardening soil.

A florist bought the entire lot of gardening soil in which I remained. She then used the same gardening soil to grow her flowering plants. I began to move out of the soil and into the marigold plant. And I finally went and settled in the bud of healthy marigold. When I became a fully grown marigold, the florist carefully plucked me out and put me into a marigold garland.

Someone eventually bought the marigold garland, I didn't know exactly who the person was and their intention was to buy the garland, but he looked down. He looked sad and depressed.

When we reached his house, that's when I realized why the garland had been bought. Someone in his family had passed away and the marigold garland was to be used for the funeral. He placed the marigold garland on the corpse and people soon began to throng the place.

At the risk of sounding inhumane, I have to say that I hated it when cried mourners cried on us marigolds, their salty tears were distasteful to fresh marigolds like us. But what can we marigolds do, we have been grown to serve as a commodity for humans.

They had a heated discussion about whether to bury the corpse or cremate the corpse. After a long discussion, they agreed to cremate it.

Along with the corpse, the marigold garland and other garlands too were put on the pyre. A priest narrated some hymns, and then the pyre was lit. As the corpse, the garlands, and the firewood burned, I never felt the warmth of the fire. Even the soul of the deceased person seemed to agree with us.

But once we had been reduced to ashes, the ashes were collected and then dispersed in a river. The ashes soon settled at the river bed. Where another plant sprouted, a fish came and ate the plant, and a person bought that fish.

Once the person ate that fish, I ended up in the sewers after a long journey through his digestive system.

I thought that I will move somewhere else, but I remained in the sewer. After what seemed like an eternity, the city's municipal corporation decided to let the sewage waste into the ocean.

The salt of the ocean cleansed me of the filthy impurities, and once again, I settled at the ocean floor. It was at the ocean floor that I realized that I had been through a tremendous journey. From the fig tree to the hotel to the marigold to the fish and finally, here, I had been through a long ride.

And it probably doesn't end here. My soul never seems to die, I don't why. Am I an adult who's recalling their childhood? I am confused, because I was a young tree at a point, a young table at a point, a young marigold, a young fish, a young piece of shit, and all that. How long will this cycle of going from one thing to the other, keep going on? Do I have an escape from this cycle of rebirth?

I don't know the answers to those questions, I don't know anything, but I never cease to exist.