Past Lives: Blücher Part 1

Reincarnation and World War II

And so Glaucoun, that is the Myth of Er. For you see, it is the lottery that awaits us in the life-after, not heaven. And so we shall choose from the lottery and then go forth and drink from the waters of forgetfulness to become reborn once more."

Who is in control of their past lives I ask? Who has the power to really determine where they are going, and in effect, where they have been.

"You look like a really tanned white guy." explained Patrick Lafferty.

"I told Gabriel, ‘I think Kevin was a Nazi in his past life.’" exclaimed Troy gleefully

***

The colored beads parted open and the silhouette of a tall daunting figure walked through them. The aroma of multiple incents were strong and thick in the air, and the swirling smoke that lifted from them danced in exotic patterns.

"What can I do for you young man?" spoke a voice with a Persian accent.

"Oh, just looking, thank you." The young man’s voice lacked confidence. A sucker thought the medium. She trailed behind him and as he browsed around and gleaned at all the funny looking objects on the shelf. His stride showing the perceptiveness in his thought. 

"Is there anything I can do for you today?" asked the medium invitingly. 

"I was curious to know if you had anything about past lives?" his unconfident voice spoke form the bottom of his throat. His broad shouldered figure gave him the impression that he was taller than he really was. His outfit was working class, although one could tell from his hands that his ethics didn't live up to his attire. He wore a pair of blue jeans and a blue button down flannel shirt. The button down shirt was parted mid-way through the chest which exposed a plane white shirt underneath. His face gave the impression of a thug, but after years of experience, the Medium could spot a mama's boy when she saw one.

"Ah yes, come here, come here!" Jumped the medium. “Sit right here and let us see what we can find.” She grabbed the man by his hands and had him sit in the opposite direction of her at table. 

"What is your name?" Asked the medium.

"Kevin" replied the man

"Kevin what?" pressed the medium

"Kevin Sood"

"Ahhh, you are from Hindi?" 

The man blushed. There was no other possible way she could have butchered two corresponding views of nationality and language so elegantly.

"My family is from eerran?" explained the medium

"Oh, okay, Iran." reassured the man.

"Yes! Yes! Goot Goot"

The man blushed again

"Let me see your hand" asked the medium. The young man reached out his hands and placed it into the palms of the medium. She twisted them up and began to inspect the many lines on its surface.

"OHHoooo wow" very interesting she exclaimed. The young man observed with curiosity, but with patience. He made a cautious note not to make it seem if as though anything of real tangibility was going on and refrained from asking questions.

"Oh wow, you have a very interesting past. Twenty dollars!" 

The young man pulled his hands back gently but assertively. "I really don't have the money for that" he exclaimed." and began to stand up.

"Wait!" shouted the medium. "If I can show you something goot, will you pay?" Times were tough. Gone were the days where a decent medium didn't have to use any real skill to con a sucker into forking up some cash. 

"I don't have any real money to spend." exclaimed the man. If there was one thing the medium knew, it was the demeanor of a “Hindi,”and his money: always had money, just had nothing really important to spend it on. "Sit sit," she demanded. The man sat down. She extended her arms and shook them in a gesture for him to give her his. "I don't have money to pay for this" exclaimed the young man again. "It is okay. Free of charge." She shook her hands again once more. The young man extended his arms and placed his huge hands in her cold clammy palms. 

"Hmmm, let’s see" thought the medium. Back in her training days, she had learned more on how to fool someone into believing anything, but the real talent, that she had saved that for special occasions. It had been a while since she had tried something like this, but she decided to give it a shot.

The medium gave off a soft hum,"hmmmmm". "Close your eyes." she whispered. The young man winced them shut.  

"hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

At that moment the room around him began to blur, and his vision began to vibrate with the sound of the medium’s voice. 

The smell and taste of the ocean immersed all of Kevin's senses. The cool current with its ever moving flow sent every iota of his nerves at ease. He opened his eyes; he was under water. Then slowly his view began to rise to the surface. His ears caught the soft sound of an engine humming, and the chopping sound of propeller blades parting the sea in their wake. 

As his vision hit the surface and broke over the water, the overwhelming brightness of morning light blinded him immensely. He wanted to squint, but it was though he had no body or forum; just a shapeless void rising over the water. Through the light he could make out the hull of a huge ship, sailing on past in the fore ground. He could hear the loud chugging sounds she made as she moved through the glinting sea. Then blackness overcame all of Kevin’s senses.

Kevin awoke to find himself in a room light by only a red tint. He looked around and saw a bunch of men standing around in uniforms. One was looking though a periscope while another was standing behind him with a clip board. The soft whisper of the Lord’s Prayer was being spoken behind him. As he turned around to see who it was, he laid eyes on the figure of a man sitting in a fetal position on the back wall, holding a cross. The red tint of the room distorting his features except for his snow white beard. 

Kevin stood up and stretched out his joints. For some reason, he felt no discomfort of being in a strange place. He knew he was in a strange place; he just wasn't alarmed by it. 

He got up and headed for the huge steel door in the front of the room. The man staring though the periscope broke his concentration for second to witness Kevin grab hold of the latch. As Kevin grabbed the handle, a twist in the wrist sent out the sound of a loud creak followed by a blasting ray of light through the entrance’s crack. The dazzling light was too much for Kevin and he quickly raised his hand over his brows to shield his adjusting eyes. 

When his eyes did finally adjust, the sight ahead of him looked to be as if the bow of a ship. He walked out into the sunlight, and the cold arctic air along with the heat from the sun’s rays made his body cringe from the inconsistent fluctuation. 

He paced up and down the walk-ways for a while trying to find a domestic feeling.  Just than a familiar habit over took Kevin as he began to grind his teeth from overwhelming stress.  For some reason, even in calm situations, he always found himself grinding his teeth as if recovering from the backlash of having been a war zone.  At that moment he tried to take in a few deep breaths of the morning air which filled his lungs and sent an overwhelming peace coursing throughout his body. He soon collected his thoughts and moved over to the railings of the ship. He leant forward over its cold metal bars and stared out into the ocean that was covered with a sheet of gold from the morning sun. Just then, the periphery of his eye caught the glimpse of a large white mass bouncing up and down along the waves. He turned his head to see what it was and saw that it was a floating iceberg gently riding the unsteady tide. "This is weird," thought Kevin, but then another thought raced through his mind as if it wasn’t. For some reason, Kevin was taking in the thoughts of two completely different people at once. One who was shocked of being in a totally alien environment, another expecting to be here.    

Soon the feeling of being on an unknown vessel strangely felt like home to Kevin as leant over the railing and smiled. With the bright morning sun illuminating a path in the water in front of him, the thought of being in the most unstoppable force on earth filled his body with a sense of patriotisms. All these thoughts ran though Kevin’s mind as if they were not his own. Or wait, maybe they were his own. How could he tell? For a split second he caught the site of his hands griping the cold steel railings of the ship. Both knuckles a mixture of red and pink contrary to the Indian brown he was used to seeing. For some odd reason he thought nothing of them and turned around to make out the rest of the ship.

Than there it was, right in front of his face. Waving like at the top of the flag pole like the slithering torso of a snake, blood red with black lines running down the width and length, stopping at the borders of a white disk in the center. As the flag whipped the rest of itself into view, a black swastika presented itself like fierce roman salute at the center of the white disk.

Kevin’s reaction to the image was met with cool observation followed with a nerve wrenching shock. Where was he?