Just Cry - Long and Loud!

It was my time to go; the Voice had said it was my Ninth-Birth Day. I floated in a warm and comfortable place, the Limbo. I could vaguely make out voices somewhere, urging, welcoming. A bright light seemed to be there at the end of a dark tunnel and I felt tossed and pushed towards it.

Never go towards a bright light. I could hear that advice from some dim recess of memory. But forces greater than me were at work and I felt myself breaking through this barrier, plunged breathless into a new and startling world, the sudden blast of cold made me shiver and I cried out from the shock.

“It’s a girl, Elsie. She’s so tiny and perfect.”

“Stand back sir, we still have to cut the cord. We’ll give her to you in a minute.” Strong competent hands turned me over, went snap-snap-snick; a cloth of incredible soft snugness enclosed me and I wriggled into it, blinking my eyes.

“Oh, she has your eyes darling. Blue as the ocean depths.”

“All babies have blue eyes at birth, give her to me, Sam.”

Two eyes that were drops of deepest indigo looked down at me, I felt the purest love I had ever felt. A word welled up from within – Mom.

“Do you think she’s hungry? She just made a funny noise?”

“I did not! I just called out to Mom. Didn’t you hear?” I said it again, louder. It only made them run around clucking and fussing.

Mommy cuddled me; at least here was someone who knew how to comfort me. Sam – Dad? – was talking to me again.

“I wish you could tell us where you have been, little one, you’d have quite a tale to tell, hey?”

Mom was shushing Dad and calling him wicked, but it was a tale worth the telling, so I started.

“Well, the first I remember was as this jellyfish, I think anything before that must have been too low to register on the conscious memory. Rumour has it that one has to start at the very bottom, as a virus or a mould, ewwww! So this was at least Life Three. All I can remember is a kind of floating and intervals of eating, then, at the last there was this sudden ‘splatch’. The One Above did say something about my having to atone for having stung this other life, but if he ended mine, I think we were about even!”

It must have been the first time anybody had heard the story; they all seemed to be peering down at me.

“I think she is making some weird noises. Is she choking? Nurse, nurse, can you have a look at my daughter?”

“Mr. Rallis, your daughter is fine. She is just trying out her voice.”

“I am not ‘trying out’ anything. If you guys just listen I’ll tell you how one has to go through eight other lives to get to a human one.”

“There, that is definitely a cry! Honey, she’s hungry.”

Mommy and Daddy were arguing about who knew me better and I was getting more and more upset. Nobody was listening to the rest of the tale, it was a beaut too. Number Four was a frog; that was hopping fun, even the fly-catching bit. Catching them with your tongue, especially one hinged back to front, is really cool. Five was a chameleon, it was great fun to blend in with the background and catch unwary prey. Being a predator is more fun than being prey, although I have been on both sides of that equation. Six was short-lived, a crow’s egg, I was pushed to my untimely death by a usurping cuckoo! I was crow-colded!

My chortle at my own wit seemed to spur Daddy and Mommy to some unified opinion, it became quiet at last. I tried to get out the rest before they could begin again.

Seven was real fun; I was a guinea-pig. A real nice boy took care of me, although I had to turn this giant wheel and even resort to making ‘cute’ faces for food. But a gal’s gotta do what a guinea pig does, if she is reincarnated as one.

Eight was not quite as good as I thought it would be; don’t get me wrong, elephants are pretty high in the scale, nothing much above them. Except giraffes. Get that, giraffes? Ha-ha, I made a funny!

Well this last joke was not going down well either, Mommy had turned away and was fumbling with her gown, Daddy was rocking me up and down in violent jerks and asking Mommy to hurry up!

What is he trying to do? Kill me, throw me away? Mommy are you going to put me back in your belly? Nooooo! Mommy stop!

Here I began letting out earnest-to-goodness wails, you must have heard your own baby cry that way? Well, he, or she, was just swearing never to tell the nine-lives-story again. If only Mommy and Daddy would love him, or her, and never put them back in, *shudder*, the BELLY.

Mommy showed me how much she loved me then, warm comfort flowed into my mouth and I greedily sucked it in, my cheek was snuggled against this wonderful soft pillow, the best pillow in the world.

I am putting out this story on the Ethernet of consciousness, to tell other potential Ninth-Lifers. Guys, gals, don’t bother telling THE story. Nobody understands baby-speak. But cry soon, often, long and loud – the benefits are enormous!


Words:937

Prompt: "They" say that cats have nine lives. But are cats the only creatures with nine lives? Write a story or poem about some animal other than a cat which has, or had, nine lives.