So, I died. Again. 

My second death was sudden and violent.  Pain ending a life of avarice. 

After I passed through the marble door, I was reborn, 1921, Seattle, Washington state, USA. 

I didn't remember my first life at all till I was in my late teens, and then only in very small parts. The memories mostly came as sense of Deja-vu, or suddenly knowing about an event that had not happened yet. Rarely I would have a sudden compulsion to fix something, a situation, a relationship, or even a behavior, that I somehow knew I would come to regret later. I tended to ignore those compulsions. 

My 20's where very rough when I started to think I was certainly insane. Excessive drinking landed me in trouble often as I wandered from place to place.  Eventually the bits and pieces I remembered started to match, both with an internal consistency, and with the times.  

I made money. Lots of it. It was hard work at first, putting in long hours, and sweating with anxiety as I put up large amounts of money against my maddingly vague hunches about what was going to happen. Most paid off, and after a certain point, it became easy to make more. I would point my people at what I could recall from the 50's and 60's, and they would almost literally print money for me.  

Money won't make you happy, but it can make you arrogant. Fuelled by the certainty that there was no heaven nor hell, and a massive pile of money I became a truly epic asshole.  

Cars, women, drugs, sex, if I could buy it, I did. And if money couldn't buy what I wanted, money could buy the means to get it. Teams of lawyers to find loopholes, Proxies to buy out ownership or apply financial pressure, investigators to dig up dirty skeletons, and the thugs for when a more personal touch was needed. 

But when you stop playing by the rules, others no longer play fair in return. 

In March of 1972, I walked out of a private club in New York and right into the barrel of a gun.   

Trevor Gosselin was a former business partner that had run afoul of my desires. I had blackmailed his beautiful wife into sleeping with me. When she finally had enough and refused me, I released her dirty secrets and as an added measure, proceeded to ruin Gosselin as well.  

After divorce, humiliation, and years of alcoholism, Trevor tracked me down and placed two bullets into my chest. 

… 

I opened my eyes, the grey twilight greeted me with cold indifference. I had re appeared, standing, in the afterlife. 

The full weight of memories from my two lives flooded my shocked mind. The disgust and humiliation on how I lived was battling with the remembered pain of being shot and the need to destroy the plebe that dared to stand against me. The two personalities clashed in my head, each trying to claim dominance. A war of two voices, saying different things, were using the same mouth at the same time. Two me's that were both me, fighting to be me. 

Slowly, piece by piece, I became only me again.  

Walking out of the club in New York I had a 20 something beauty on my arm that was going to be mine that night. I had pushed her out of the way before Gosselin could fire.  

The day that I had successfully closed a huge business deal from my first life.  

My first kiss as a teenager. 

The memories where both personalities did not clash became the catalyst, and like a chemical reaction those points spread, consuming the components, becoming only one.  

I blinked grey grit out of my eyes. The scenery had not changed while I was rebuilding my mental landscape.  

I raised my arms to rub the grit from my face, only to realise that I was completely covered in a fine layer of the all-pervasive grey dust.  

“Uhkey!”- Me 

I quickly started brushing of the dust, disturbed by the knowledge of where it all came from. 

- Huh? This suit shouldn't be this pattern? 

Like I had appeared in Pjs from my first death, this time I was wearing the suit from my second. 

White dress shirt, Jacket and pants in the deep black you can only get from the best tailors. But the vest accents were no longer the crimson I remember, they and the liner where the soft grey from my original Pjs. I raised a cloud of grey as I checked out the changes in my clothing. 

- The dust is even in the vest pockets? How long was I standing here for? 

Another thought occurred to me as I was flapping my jacket around trying to dislodge the dust. 

- It is even on the inside of my cloths. Maybe this dust didn't come from somewhere else. Maybe it came from me? 

I stood still for the moment 

- The glittery partials the Uglies collect. The grey dust the bearded man turned into. Do we shed spiritual debris here like we shed skin when were alive? 

I looked at the slightly thicker layer of grey grit that lay on the ground surrounding me. 

- Wow, does that mean I had a lot built up? Or that represents the parts that couldn't be reconciled between my two lives?  Yay, more unanswered questions from the afterlife. 

I put the suit jacket back on, and really looked around. The same grey plain from my first round in the afterlife greeted my scrutiny, only disturbed by the roped of entrance vignettes, and accompanying spearmen. 

- At least 4 doors in sight, but none close enough for the Uglie guards to take notice of me. And the breeze is heading that way. 

I looked in the direction of the wind. 

- Should I head towards the Marble Door? Try for a third life? And what are the chances another riot will distract enough guards that I'll be able to sneak past again? 

I brushed my long hair out of my face. 

- Huh? It's a really dark red now? What else changed? 

A quick check later showed a few differences 

- Twenty something year old body, Check. Male, thankfully check. Body shape, somewhere between the two lives. Hair, an idealized mix between the black and red I had before?  

I ran fingers over my face. 

- No mirrors, so I have no idea how that changed, but I'm willing to bet that id find a mix of both faces. 

"I bet I look like an illegitimate child from my second life and a pretty Asian girl”- Me 

The pang of guilt I felt at my joke probably meant that it was too soon to make self-deprecating jokes about my past lives. 

- Especially since you did have illegitimate children you morally corrupt prick. 

I sighed and looked around again. 

“Beating yourself up is not going to get you anywhere.”- Me 

The Uglie at the nearest door was now staring in my direction. 

- Let's go where we know there are no Uglies 

I started to walk with the breeze on my face.