Loneliness is the key to discover your true self (quote from a hermit).
Caution: smoking scenes
A lonely person evolves different from someone who lives with many others. It doesn't require to be a hermit on top of a mountain. You can live a lonely life in a crowded city. While the mainstream population is influenced by others, a lonely person develops a different personality, strongly influenced by its own self. Elements from a past life are far more easy to discover at lonely people.
It is Friday noon at the Galileo university on Callisto, Jupiter. Classes end-up early this day. Many students, looking for fun, rush to finish what they are doing, to get enough time for a party. Most teachers go home. In the weekend, usually only students that are from other planets remain around... and they know it is their time to have fun. Not the same can be said about our two heroes, David and Julia. This evening, their psychology teacher will connect them to a supercomputer to reveal their past lives.
The two finish their last class, then meet in the park, on the bench where they met the first time. David wears a white coat, with grey trousers and grey shoes. His long brown, painted hair, gives him somehow a feminine look, even if his clothes are those of a man. Julia wears a white, knee-long dress, with a white sweater. Even if it's a bit cold and the air is wet, she wears her sandals, with no pantyhose and no socks on.
In the 2500's, there is a major difference between men and women clothes. Women clothes are elastic, they copy the form of your body. Many call them 'elastic membranes'. They are made of a material similar to what was used in the 2000's for leggings and tights. Some are translucent, some are completely opaque. Girls use to layer translucent clothes for their hands and feet, with opaque ones that cover intimate areas. Even skirts and dresses are elastic. To keep them in place, they are fixed on the feet with laces. This comes with a big advantage. Depending on where you want to fix your laces, higher or lower on your feet, you can make your dress longer or shorter.
Men clothes are not elastic and are more baggy. They don't copy the form of your body and are never translucent. Unlike in the 2000's, men do wear skirts. This became a common trend after humans colonized the warm Mercury and Venus, where settlers encountered high temperature variations. However, men skirts are never elastic. Also, men copied the fashion to paint their hair and nails. It is no longer like in the 2000's, when women used to have long hair and men short hair. In the 2500's, men have a more voluminous hair then women, while women use to fix their hair in a ponytail.
They sit on the bench and light a cigarette. Julia found smoking to be so natural for her, like if she smoked before. It only took a week until she found out that she is hooked. After taking the first drag from her cigarette, she says:
"I am sure that I smoked in my past life. Many colleagues needed weeks, even months to start. For me, it was all so natural, like if I did before".
"Do you believe the theory of reincarnation?" asks David. "I am skeptic about it".
"Why?" asks Julia, with her cigarette between her lips.
"First of all, most people who were hypnotized, said they were kings, big priests, scientists or military leaders. I don't believe that. I think, if it is true that we reincarnate, that most of us were just average people, as we are today".
"Yes, that is a good argument", replies Julia, looking how David plays with his hair.
"Secondly, I completed a few times an online quiz", says David, looking at Julia's feet. "They gave me different results, all of them saying that I was a man who knows where, in places I have no connection with".
"Is that the reason why you don't believe?"
David takes a deep inhale from his cigarette, still looking at Julia's feet, then speaks, mixing words with smoke:
"If I had a past life, I think I was a woman. But, as far as I know, souls follow the same gender as they reincarnate".
These words make Julia so surprised, that she almost coughs as she takes a new drag of smoke.
"A woman?" she says. "Why?"
"You know that bully?" says David.
"Yes. Why?"
"He says that I am gay. But I am not. I feel no attraction to guys at all. He says that I move like a sissy".
Julia smiles, then says:
"Yes, you move like a sissy. I noticed from the first time. The way you keep your hands together, the way you keep your cigarette, the way you walk. When you walk the stairs, you move like a woman wearing shoes with heels".
David looks shocked and a bit disappointed.
"Maybe you were a woman in your last life", says Julia, looking at her cigarette, which is almost finished. "Did you ever find attraction to women clothes? Like the desire to wear them?"
David looks down. He has the face of a thief trying to hide his capture.
"Please, don't hide anything from me", says Julia. "I did not hide anything from you, ever".
"Yes", says David. "I did, when I was on Earth. I did wear women clothes, candid in my room".
Julia looks at him, thinking for a while, then she decides to light another cigarette. She gives David one too.
"You?" asks David.
"I don't know", says Julia. "I feel comfortable both in men and women clothes. Maybe I were a hermaphrodite".
They both laugh at this, like at a good joke.
"You never identified something at you that might belong to the other gender?" asks David.
"Well, once, I did. My brother used to watch porn on our computer. One day, he forgot it on and I took a look at what he was watching. There, I found a shemale. She was a woman in all aspects, only that she had a penis. I thought 'Wow, I would like to be like that'. Her image remained in my memories for almost an year. I opened the computer many times in secret, to see more. Well, when I found out that most shemales are actually men, I stopped".
"Maybe you were a shemale", says David with a smile.
"Maybe, or maybe not", answers Julia, with a sad voice. "I play with a shemale character in VirtualLife".
"You play in VirtualLife?" asks David amazed. "I play too".
"Let me guess", says Julia, with a smile. "With a woman avatar?"
"Yes. Her name is Diana".
The two laugh a bit, as they light a new cigarette. Two guys come. One of them looks at David and says:
"Hey buddy, you know Monday we have a test. Help me!"
"No problem, George", answers David. "Just sit behind me and copy what I write. I won't let you down".
"Just be careful with those cigarettes, you two! You will burn the whole University!" answers the other guy, as they are leaving.
"Believe me", says George to the other guy, "these two weirdos will blow the world. Newton, Einstein, Lawrence, Campman and Amsir were all weirdos and boxing bags for bullies in school".
"What a fuck?" says the other guy. "These two dorks? I can tie their guts on the roof if they cause any trouble. Better this way then to have another idiot to learn about".
"So please be gentle while I crush the sky!" says George, laughing.
**********
When time comes, David and Julia go to the Psychology sector. There, their professor with his assistant, Nick, are waiting them. Outside, it is getting windy. Dark clouds are starting to be seen and soon it starts raining. This is an atmospheric cooling effect, which occurs on planets and moons far from the Sun. A cold mass of air passes through the greenhouse layer, cooling the lower atmosphere and creating a big storm. Temperatures will fall dramatically, then, for 10 to 20 days, the sky will be clear blue.
As they arrive, it is already raining and very cold. Julia is shaking, both of emotions and of cold, as her feet are getting wet. David gives her a cigarette to gain some courage. Lightning covers the sky, which became dark.
The professor appears and invites them inside. It is a room full with equipment, computers, 3D diagrams, screens and lots of glowing wires. Inside, there are four seats like those used by dentists for their patients, only that they have cuffs for hands and feet. On one chair is a girl, connected to a lot of wires and sensors. Nick, the assistant, appears from behind. He is a black man, with a shiny black coat on.
"At last!" he says, shaking his hands, as thunders disturb the silence. "Please, take a seat, both of you. Our supercomputer will reveal your past lives with an accuracy of 97%. It will only take ten minutes. Take your shoes off and uncover your abdomens!"
Without a question, they take a seat. Nick himself removes David's shoes and exposes his belly. When he comes to Julia, he does not take off her sandals. Then, Nick adds a lot of sensors to their fingers and toes, to their abdomens and puts a helmet on their heads, covering both hair and faces.
"Who is she?" asks the professor, looking at the woman occupying a seat.
"She is Alessandra, my girlfriend", says Nick. I try to heal her brain, you know her problem".
"Ah, ok", says the professor. "Are all sensors and connectors in position?"
"Yes", says Nick.
"Good. Then, turn it on!" says the professor, approaching to the two. "You will lose consciousness for ten minutes, then feel some sort of amnesia for a while. Don't worry, this machinery will extract all possible data. When I went in, I got over 500 pages of results".
"I turn it on!" says Nick, pushing a big button.
The next second, both Julia and David fall like in a deep sleep. The many screens and 3D diagrams start to show a lot of data. But, unknown to the Professor, Nick tries to steal some knowledge from the two, to help his girlfriend pass the exams. Well, this takes only ten seconds to happen and Alessandra wakes-up.
"Filtering sub-consciousness interferences on!" says Nick. "Residual knowledge blocked. Connections with universal database blocked. What we get now, should only be data from before their birth".
On a screen, data starts to appear. Each past life is counted. The computer checks with historical databases, to see if those people really existed. Data does match 95%. The last reincarnations appear on display. Many more past lives are revealed.
Suddenly, other data appears. This is from between reincarnations, from the world of souls.
"This is unbelievable!" says the professor. "These two spent more time there then anyone else! I wonder why".
"Professor, look!" says Nick, looking at other data. "They've always been together. It appears that in every life they found each other. Or if not, they never chosen anyone".
"Wow! This is the best proof that souls reincarnate in bulks!"
The list of their past lives is now visible. The computer shows name and gender.
"Surprisingly", says the professor, "most people follow a strict gender line. Men reincarnate as men, women as women. But look at this! Gender: male, gender: female, gender: female, then again, gender: male. And look at this! Gender: ERROR!"
That error was Julia's last life. Other errors appear too.
"Transgender people?" asks the professor.
"Could be", answers Nick.
"I am amazed! It is the first time when I find this! Let's try to get more data. It will take weeks to study all this".
"My PHD thesis will be brilliant!" smiles Nick, looking at all the monitors.
The process should last only 10 minutes, but after half an hour, both are still inside. The computer gathers less and less info each time. Many memories from past lives are revealed and not only.
In this time, Alessandra unties herself from the chair and gets to the door, to smoke a cigarette. Anywhere in the Solar System, including the Jupiter federation, states fight against alcohol and drugs. Since 2473, all political leaders concluded that they must leave an addiction available for people, in order to counter consumption of more dangerous drugs. So, they disabled the smoking ban, in a desperate attempts to stop consumption of other, more dangerous substances.
Alessandra listens how the professor and Nick are talking. She knows Julia, as she is in the same class. She hates Julia and all library rats.
"Look!" says the professor. "He was a graduate in Geology, one of the best students in 2000's and she graduated the railway university two years later! Two hundred years later, they were also good students! I see them in 2300's, in a protest against alcohol".
For Alessandra, this is enough. She hates good students, mostly library rats and book grinders. And more then everything, she is an alcohol addict. She hates Julia even more, since Julia is in the same class.
"Last time, you did not whisper me anything, bitch!" mumbles Alessandra. "I failed an exam because of you. Time to die, you, whore!"
The professor moves to a small screen, where he can see how all data is compressed into a big folder. Nick goes to the door to light a cigarette and says:
"Alessandra, when you see a red message on the screen, saying 'complete', push the big red button, to release these two".
"Right!" answers Alessandra, with a big smile.
In fact, she pushes the command named 'consciousness insertion'. She knows well what this does. It inserts data to the brain. This is how she copied at her exams many times, with the help of a student who went here. But, inserting too much data in a brain, in the consciousness part, can fry all synapses.
"Die, bitch!" she whispers. "Just die!"
Suddenly, David and Julia start twitching on their chairs, even moaning. And when Nick comes, he calls the professor immediately.
"Look!" Nick says. "We passed the soul firewall! Data is downloading even faster and with more accuracy then ever! Their souls are not opposing resistance at all!"
"This is impossible!", says the professor. "Somehow, their consciousness and sub-consciousness parts of the brain are now connected. I am afraid they will remember their past lives just like current life. It happened once".
"Yes, with Lisa. But she died a week later".
The computer then starts to beep an alarm. Data processing is too fast. It cannot work like this. One after another, all screens start beeping alarms.
"Stop the process!" says the professor.
Nick hurries to stop the devices. The whole supercomputer is blocked. Too much information received in a few seconds... and their souls are pumping more and more data out. Screens are displaying Cyrillic letters now. All alarms are ringing and all screens show images that were never seen. Images, memories from their lives. A lake, a mountain, a war, a kiss, all random. Nick watches scared, desperately trying to command the machinery to stop. Alessandra is out, smoking another cigarette and laughing.
Then, the main supercomputer is on fire. Screens crash, 3D screens explode and one second later the building is off power.
Nick looks scared, not knowing what to do. Alessandra leaves the building, laughing. The professor checks their necks for pulse.
"Don't look at me, call a doctor!" says the professor. "They are still alive... I hope".
While Nick hurries to the university medical center, the professor takes all sensors off, trying to release the two. He fights to carry them out of the room which is now on fire. All data was lost.
**********
Ten days later, Julia and David wake-up in the medical center. They are perfectly healthy, but not remembering anything. They feel like only a second passed.
Later, things will change and they will discover things they never imagined.
