Take a Leap

The pristine white corridor of reincarnation continued for eternity. There was no end in sight; it simply stretched into a gossamer white nothingness that was blinding. Featureless and amorphous it seemed to twist and distort as Yune tried to traverse it. No matter how far she attempted to walk, no matter how fast she ran, no matter how hard she yelled, nothing changed. 

There was a faint noise, like a thousand strangers whispering in a room just out of reach. The air had a faint amniotic salinity that she stung the chapped skin of her lips. Cold crept around her ankles in a dense white mist that obstructed any view of the ground beneath her. Overhead there was a faint warmth, like the remembrance of a mother’s kiss. 

But the only thing to look at were the two doors. 

At first, she had tried to outrun them. In high school, she’d been the fastest sprinter in her grade. She’d cleaned up countless sports days and even as an adult had continued to run for pleasure. But it was no use. Regardless of the direction she faced or the location she stopped, even after running for what felt like hours, the doors were ahead of her. One of those eternal and inescapable decisions. 

The two doors, solid wooden things with great brass hinges, gleaming lacquer and gently arched tops, were differentiated only by the small gold lettering on each. The one on the left read Oblivion and the one on the right Anew.

When Yune had been a child she had visited her grandmother’s shrine in Morioka every new year for the holidays. A family event, they had cleaned the entire shrine from top to bottom, eaten meals and drawn fortunes for the coming year. As an adult, it had been more than twenty years since she had visited that little shrine. She missed it. Why hadn’t she visited home more often? When had she gotten so lazy? Drifted away from her family and into loneliness. 

Her apartment in Tokyo was very nice. Well decorated with plush furniture, bespoke art pieces and closets filled with designer clothes and shoes. Spotlessly clean from top to bottom. Because she had barely ever spent any time there. Instead spending most of her adult life chained to her work desk to make more and more money. She’d been good at her job. Perhaps that had been why she hated it in the end, the precipice of love pushing her over into hatred. 

Her hand reached out for the handle of Oblivion. But paused just short.

Hadn’t that been what she’d wanted when she’d done it? To simply cease to exist. To end it all and never have to feel like she had felt ever again? 

Here in the corridor of eternity things felt different. Her head was clearer. Her emotions were sharper and more her own. The lingering pain in her shin from where she had broken her leg on a camping trip in junior high school had vanished.

Instead, she faced guilt and self-recrimination. Her mother had worked so hard after dad had died to keep a roof over their heads. Worked a job in a dingy office with a rude and sexist manager just to make sure that Yune could survive. And how had she thanked her?

Maybe Oblivion was best after all. Time to wash away the mistake that she was and clean all slates back to bare porcelain purity. 

Yet, if that were the case why was her hand shaking?

Her hands hadn’t shaken when she stood on the platform. Listening to the faraway whoosh of the train as it drew inexorably closer to her end. She had been aware of the other commuters, the smells of stale cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. The thrumming in her gut. The inescapable urge to just get it all over with. To just take one more step before all her resolve fled her.

One final leap.

And now she was here and the doors were staring at her.

Anew. Her hand was trembling as her bones turned traitor. She could start the whole thing over again. A second chance. A time to appreciate what she had. To not settle for comfortable medico arty that slowly ate away at her soul until the inevitable desire for obliteration consumed every aspect of her life. 

But Oblivion was safer. Wasn’t it? She knew exactly what it would be; an eternal sleep with no chance to ever dream again. A nothingness. 

Yune sighed. She wasn’t brave enough for Anew. That’s what her ex-husband had said. She wasn’t capable of changing and transforming. He’d asked her to move to Sweden with him, to start a new life together. To move on and reinvent themselves after Aiko’s death.

But she couldn’t leave her daughter behind. So she’d stayed and hated every single moment of her cowardice. Every day she had gone back to work and every day she had sunk steadily into a mire for which she had not been able to see a way out.

Which door had Aiko chosen? Surely not oblivion. Not for her sweet girl. The teenager with dreams of being a ballet dancer who had been stolen away from her by the whims of a single mass of cells. Surely she had chosen Anew. Somewhere out there her daughter’s soul was running around with her new siblings. Singing with her new mother. Surely she was happy.

Yune laid her hand on the handle of Anew. Her brave girl had surely chosen this door. And, for the first time, she would choose the uncertain too.

Yune opened the door. 

***

Morning light filtered in through the gauze curtain of the hospital room. The soft beeping of the machines coincided with the soft breathing of the baby clasped against Anna’s chest. Such a soft and sleepy child. 

Bone tired but buoyed by euphoria nonetheless, Anna looked up at the sound of jubilant pitter-pattering of feet. The doors slammed open and Aubrey appeared in the doorway clutching a teddy bear.

‘Mum!’

Anna laughed as Aubrey slammed her little body into the side of the bed, wriggling until she had claimed the space next to her in the bed.

She let out a little gasp at the first sight of her sister.

‘Hello darling. Meet your sister, Melody.’

Aubrey got up on both knees to get a good look at the scrunched up creature on her mother’s chest. Slowly, very carefully, she reached out a finger and placed it in her sister’s palm. The baby closed her little fist around it instinctively.

‘Hi,’ Aubrey whispered, leaning in very close to her sister, ‘you found me again!’

Anna frowned, glancing at her husband in the doorway. ‘What do you mean darling?’

Aubrey shrugged. ‘I just know her.’