Whether it is the first cringe of morning or the final yawn of twilight, I have no clue. My methods of time-telling have long since been lost. It’s possible that all ties to time fell through humanity’s cracks, evidently they didn’t last long after I rested my head.

I’d figured as much, waiting in that place was a sign sure as any that it was merging closer and closer to what I had known before.

Physical existence, sensation, senses; perception as I and all other living things understood it were soft and broken there, but not gone. As I stood in the cold, feeling it for the first time in who knew how long- I relished in it.

Cold. To feel cold was to have blood, blood in veins and layers to cover them- a delivery system is useless without a place to receive, isn’t it? I blinked my eyes open- I have eyes again. I looked down at my body- it was there, again.

Memories of what was rushed back to me, a tsunami of lives lived over centuries; passing from body to body with little concern for planning them out. I didn’t care; I’d never cared about that. I only wanted what humans experienced; to feel. And now I had it again- only this time it was different- very different. I remember being born a hundred times, no, a thousand times or more. The experience is always much the same- apart from an occasional caeserean. It’s nothing like this, it’s not digging with your own bones out of the soil compacted over the earth.

I looked back at my gravestone, it was taller than I figured it would be. I stared at the inscription for a time, but evidently I’d forgotten how to read. Goodness, I wonder if I can remember how I died..?

No.

The memories that had just a moment ago been so vivid and present, were now fading away from me. Like they hadn’t been real at all. Could I have been born that many times? Oh, it’s happening- my mind and body are affixing themselves together. Of course- soon I won’t remember…

Where am I?