Reincarnation Is a Choice
The first thing Arjun remembered was dying. Not the pain. Not the moment. Just the certainty that it had happened.
He woke up screaming in a hospital crib, lungs burning, hands too small to be his. Nurses called it a strong baby. His mother cried with relief.
No one noticed the way he stared. Watching. Counting. By the time he was five, he knew things he shouldn’t.
He knew how it felt to drive a car. He knew the taste of office coffee at 2 a.m. He knew the sound of a man begging behind a locked door.
The memories didn’t arrive like visions. They arrived like facts. Solid. Unquestionable.
At seven, he stopped sleeping through the night.
Every night at 2:07 a.m., he woke up. Lights off. Heart steady. Mind clear. He would sit up in bed and wait for the feeling.
The pressure.
The knowledge that somewhere nearby, someone was awake and pretending not to hear something they should.
At ten, he learned the word reincarnation.
His teacher said it gently, like a comfort. “Some people believe we’re born again to learn lessons we didn’t finish.”
Arjun felt sick.
That night, he asked his mother, “What happens if you already know the lesson but still fail?”
She laughed. “Then you try again in the next life.”
Arjun didn’t laugh. Because he remembered trying.
He remembered the office. The chairs facing his desk. The calm voices. The relief of not having to decide anymore.
Most of all, he remembered the man in the washroom. Not his face. Just the sound.
At sixteen, Arjun passed the office building on a school trip.
He felt it immediately. Same floors. Same windows. Same quiet. He vomited in the bus toilet and told no one why.
At twenty-three, he got a job there.
Different company. Same building. Same third floor. On his first night shift, the lights turned off at 2:07 a.m.
Then on again.
His coworkers joked. Old wiring. Sensors. Arjun didn’t joke. He stayed late. Like he always did. Like he had before.
At 2:09 a.m., the elevator dinged.
Empty.
At 2:11, someone screamed.
From the washroom.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just human.
Arjun froze.
His body knew exactly what to do.
Sit down.
Don’t move.
Let it pass.
That’s when he understood the truth they never tell you. Reincarnation isn’t punishment. It’s efficiency. The world doesn’t recycle good people. It recycles useful ones. People who already know how to look away.
At 2:16 a.m., Arjun stood up.
Calm. Familiar. He walked toward the washroom. Not to help. To make sure it ended. Because somewhere, years later, a child would wake up screaming in a hospital crib.
Already remembering everything. Already learning nothing.