Shiva
Muthiah

2020—2021

Alone with past lives

This past year I’ve felt so alone. Suddenly everyone was framed within windows and veiled behind screens. Separated from people, I started to wonder if I was even human anymore.
Outside, everything was on fire, but I was safe behind my screen.

Lost in someone else's dreams.
Other days I lost myself in memories.

Riding a motorcycle down a quiet road in the city at midnight. Roadside trees appearing and disappearing in my headlights. Night breeze cool on my face. Life itself beating assuredly beneath me.
Some days grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me into living.

Even in those moments, I knew death was never far away.
Around us are always reminders of what we’ve lost.
I made contact with a great grandfather once through a large framed photograph with small black alphabets around it. I cupped a small tumbler on top of A, pointing finger pressed atop cold metal. It moved by itself, spelling. Maybe I was just suggestible.

Or maybe I wanted so to believe.
Once after watching a scary movie, I turned off the lights. Darkness suffused the room. In the murky corners, something squirmed, crawled and screamed. I was frozen in terror.

Until I remembered that, out there, beyond the living, would also be my mother. And with her, the little boy I was.
That little boy reminds me that there are moments like this one in the swirling miasma of realities that is life.
Death is not a choice. Rebirth is.