Before continuing, though, mayhap we should fall back to the basics of courtesy.

My name... Hmm, I guess I still don’t have any at the moment, do I? As for the past, I have borne many, too many to count, really, and only temporarily, until the end of each race. Currently, I could hardly point at any I feel particularly attached to...

Call me Ishmael! I guess. But only if you’re feeling particularly exuberant, or suddenly experience the urge to go whaling. Otherwise, pick whatever suits your fancy. Chances are someone somewhere already called me that way anyway. More so if you go for any synonym of ‘bastard’.

Naming issues aside, my current situation -if it can be called like that- begins with my death, strange as that may sound. Well, the death of my previous body, anyway. After that stinky vessel I joyfully got rid of drew its last breath, as always, I found myself back in the Corridor, as I’ve come to call the place.

What place, exactly?

Well, I can only admit my ignorance. I lack any idea of where it is, nor do I know the process by which I get there. In fact, I can only say that it is a structure whose origin and purpose I don’t know, can’t even begin to guess, and am -for some reason- viscerally too scared to think of too deeply about, so let’s leave any further considerations about it for another occasion or, hopefully, never.

That being said, as -what I think of as- my soul finally got rid of the last dregs of the decidedly unpleasant sensations associated with my rather violent latest demise, ahead of me laid utter darkness and the unknown. Just like every other time. Likewise, behind me stood proudly a familiar, ever-present couple of plain white walls, about thrice my shoulder-width apart, seemingly going on forever into the horizon. Like always, of course, I knew that last impression to be a lie. During my successive previous deaths, I had personally walked through the entire length of that hallway of sorts, from its cul-de-sac-like beginning up to the very point where I stood. As for exactly how I can tell my relative position in the Corridor, when everywhere but its very beginning looks the same... well, I just do.

Irrelevant details aside, I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone -and my first thought would be that it isn’t-, but that pretty boring, empty building seems to be my own fancy version of the afterlife, or at least what little I get to experience of it. A bit plain, but comforting in its quietude nonetheless. In all fairness, I can’t really complain; while it’s obviously not Valhalla, and there are no pleasures to be had, it certainly does beat some of the alternatives in myth...

Regardless, as soon as I came to, and most definitely not for the first time, my right foot stepped forwards, refusing to tolerate uncertainty. Like always, again, as if my consciousness was a torch and my will its bearer, darkness receded by just that one humble step, revealing yet another tiny patch of white walls, perfectly identical to the rest. Immediately after, as if not wanting to be outdone by it, my left foot overtook its sibling. And again, and again.

What can I say? I know plain walking makes for a rather plebeian dance, but it’s the one my limbs are most familiar with.

After that, for an eternity, the heavy echo of my footsteps repeatedly profaned the quasi-sacred silence in which the Corridor always ought to be. And just like in every other instance, that rhythmical sound seemed to be getting imperceptibly lighter every time my soles struck the immaculate white ground.

Of course, it’s not an actual eternity I speak of, only something that seems impossibly close to it. I’ve long since come to the conclusion that there’s no real concept of time in the Corridor. Either that, or its time is somehow disconnected from that of the real world. As a matter of fact, every single visit of mine seems to last for centuries, if not more. Yet, in the waking world, sometimes a death of mine turns out to be just months apart from my next birth.

But, such matters are beside the point. This particular visit to the Corridor differed from all of its predecessors in that, after an unknown amount of steps, something unexpectedly changed.

To understand my shock at the time, it must be stated that, in my experience up to that point, the Corridor had always had its own little dynamic, and ‘change’, as a whole, never felt like something that even could be on the menu. Ever. In fact, it felt fundamentally wrong, as if suddenly the sun was allowed a little flight of fancy and decided to rise from the North and set in the South. Previously, every single step of mine had left behind the same, hard-lined whiteness and, ahead, the same, shapeless darkness; it was a fixed tableau, immutable over millennia, perhaps even more.

In the first place, the only reason I ever bothered with taking any steps at all was...

Well, to be completely honest, there was never any concrete objective behind it, just the need to find any way to preserve my sanity while spending an eternity in soundproofed, forced isolation. That, and the unrelenting feeling that I simply had to pave my way into the dark. Of course, it’s not like I couldn’t stop, or even turn around and retrace my steps. As a matter of fact, I had, and plenty of times at that.

The latter, though, obnoxiously enough, always gave me the feeling that I was doing something pointless, that going on and moving forwards was the only real way to overcome perennial stagnation... Now that I think about it, that might be something that both the Corridor and life have in common.

But I digress, again...

Change, yes!

After an umpteenth step into the dark, there was a glaring flash of light and, suddenly, I could see all the way up to a good twenty meters ahead of me! More to the point, my widened eyes, provided the expression can be applied to a disincarnated soul, were clearly seeing how, for the first time ever, my eternal companions, those white walls that hid behind easily-frightened darkness, were no longer square. Right ahead, curving abruptly, the Corridor forked into two opposing passages.

Of course, unexpected as all of it was -and even though I got the feeling that picking either side was some sort of permanent deal-, my feet didn’t stop nor hesitate for a moment; I went straight right.

Why? Because fuck the other option, that’s why! Sure, both passages looked absolutely identical, like mirrored images. For whatever reason, though, the path to my left felt like a scam, and I’m in the habit of trusting my gut... Except when I’ve recently ingested faba beans, curse those tasty little bastards!

In any case, I turned right and, after another eternity walking through a Corridor that had rather quickly found back its usual appearance, I finally felt a familiar phenomenon; my consciousness slowly started fading away. So much so that, eventually, the only thing I was aware of was how light my steps felt, until even that vanished too.

Then came light, and the familiar rush of air filling my lungs, and suddenly -but definitely not for the first time- I became very aware of how much I had missed having those. My joy was short-lived, however, dying as soon as I realized where, and more importantly what, I was.

Have I already mentioned how much I hate regaining true awareness during infancy? If not, well, let me state it here. I do. With a passion.

After crying my lungs out, both for the sake of venting my frustrations and avoiding being deemed lame at birth, I fell asleep. Then, for a while, my mind felt pretty feeble, enough that I can’t recall much of what happened. Of course, since my eyes took their sweet time slowly transitioning from ‘pretty much blind’, to ‘extremely short-sighted’, I surmise there wasn’t much to recall anyway. The only thing that managed to become a decently formed memory, in fact, is the face of my new mother, along with the taste of milk filling my mouth.

Oh, I know, I know! The idea is disgusting, in many ways. And honestly, I agree, but I didn’t get much of a choice, did I? Again, infancy sucks.

That being said, for the most part, I always try to behave as befitting my physical age. Doing otherwise would be futilely rebelling against the inevitable. The alternative is death, and, no doubt, bringing unnecessary grief to young parents who are in no way responsible for their son -for some reason my sex is always the same, not like I complain- being unintentionally hijacked by some old thing. Plus, my death would only lead to yet another birth, somewhere else. Another birth where I’d be aware from the very beginning too, if I may add.

Refusing sustenance would thus simply turn my existence into an unending cycle of torment -from experience, starvation and dehydration are no fun way to go-, pointlessly spreading my own misery left and right. I’m not obstinate enough to put up with that...

Well, not again anyway.

At least the general dizziness and cognitive impairment I experience as a newborn helps with that period. Still, I always try my best to get weaned as soon as possible.

Unpleasant details aside, there’s unsurprisingly little to be done as a baby, even with the spirit of an ancient thing inside. One needs too much sleep, the body’s too weak to move much, and even the brain’s still too green to think much, but this isn’t supposed to be a rant about infancy.

Even if it really does suck. A lot.

But back to the point. My first couple of months were pretty normal, as far as my condition allows for normal. Pretty much whenever I was conscious, I found myself bonelessly lying in a crib -my crib, I guess- or being carried by Lina, which happens to be my latest mother’s name. Despite my multiple, denigrating restrictions, however, I did quickly notice a couple of striking oddities.

Firstly, I couldn’t make head nor tails of whatever tongue it was that my parents spoke in. Granted, perhaps that may not seem too strange, not at first glance, anyway. But! For all of my limitations, when it comes to languages, and probably only in that respect, I do consider myself to be somewhat of an expert and, dare I say, maybe even unmatched. No, that’s not sheer narcissism on my part! After all, I’ve forgotten more languages than any well-learned polyglot ever managed to get familiar with! Actually, nowadays -as in, during the last few centuries-, I always seem to know some close relative, or at least the older roots of any of the few new dialects I’ve come across.

Not this time, though. Lina, her husband, and the handful of other voices I’ve heard so far might as well have been speaking in martian. Which, for all I know, might not be too far from the truth...

Leaving that aside, the other unusual thing I found myself confronted with was the craftsmanship of, well, pretty much everything within sight. The crib, the blankets used to cover me, and even the clothes on my parents... Well, kindly put, all of it seemed pretty shabby to me. At least, until some introspection made me realize how quickly my last couple of lives had distorted my perspective, getting me too used to the standards of the industrial era. Rather than my new family being afflicted with crippling poverty, it just so happened that everything we owned was handmade.

As soon as realization dawned upon me, I started theorizing what the origin of those oddities might be. Had I been reborn in the midst of some weird cult? Had the third world war managed to send everything back to hell? Or, perhaps, had that strange bifurcation in the Corridor sent me back in time, or maybe even to a parallel reality? For sure, the latter seemed like a bit of a stretch, but I considered it to be still well within the realm of possibility. Why not? To my ears at least, it certainly didn’t sound any more arcane than the idea of reincarnation in and of itself. Plus, as a swaddled baby, impeded by stupid infancy, I felt rather inclined to daydream.

Immediately, I lamented temporarily saying goodbye to abundant food, digital music, and toilet paper -I never realized how much I needed those until I had access to them!-, but I was already starting to think that perhaps, for the first time ever, I would try my best to stand out.

The idea seemed simple enough, in principle. I’ve never been much of an innovative thinker, but even I would be able to use modern knowledge to cheat my way to the top of the hierarchy in a more primitive society, right? Hell, I had even seen it done firsthand, a handful of times!

Provided my new circumstances were anything more esoteric than just being born in a cult, if I played my card rights, maybe I would even be able to create my own religion! A bit of hand waving, some penicillin here and there, perhaps a helping hand from friends Faraday and Tesla... And could Aqua Regia be used to make smokeless gunpowder? No matter, I could definitely cook up something impressive enough. The point is, if I ever got a religious base, I would make sure to spread first-order logic under the guise of core religious tenets, probably along with some excerpts of a work originally addressed to a certain Nicomachus. That would, hopefully, help prevent some of the unsightly shitshow that was undoubtedly already brewing somewhere, sometime in the future. Then if Karma turned out to be real too -why not? my brain was having a hell of a party, and no killjoys were allowed!-, maybe that would finally net me enough brownie points to get rid of my curse? Hell, my tongue could already almost taste Meng Po’s delicious forgetfulness soup!

All of this brings us back to the present, and my hopes and dreams being ostentatiously murdered, before they even got a single chance to leave the crib. Or, would it be more suitable to say that they got shattered?

Hmm, yes, ‘shattered’ does seem to be a better fit. ‘Shattered’, just like the pot Lina had been holding in her hands when she fell from the wooden stool she had been using to reach the top of a particularly tall cupboard, visibly breaking her leg in the process... Shattered, along with the pot, actually.

No, to be fair, the fall itself wasn’t what brought an end to those silly dreams of mine; rather, the spoilsports was the wizened woman Munok -Lina’s husband and, hopefully, my father-, brought into the house, just a few minutes later. That old crone who currently stands in front of Lina, like an impossibly ugly guardian, a gargoyle given breath, her hands radiating warm emerald light that gradually dims, even as the younger woman’s leg visibly sets itself back in place.

As the grievous wound promptly vanished, like some illusionist’s little trick, I found myself experiencing a rather familiar feeling. Resignation... Well, either that or I’m about to soil my swaddling clothes. Believe it or not, it is often surprisingly hard to tell.

Truly, the indignities of inhabiting an undeveloped body know no boundaries; most nurslings can’t talk, but anyone who can’t remember the truth of my words should feel free to ask any teenagers around! And, that’s with most of them usually being able to wipe their own behinds!

Anyway, the conjured healing light raises the obvious question, exactly where the fuck am I?