Melissa enjoyed her work. She found it fulfilling and genuinely meaningful helping others on their journey. The Agency did not have much funding, so her work desk was quite austere. Each Reincarnation Help Desk was made out of an ephemeral, cosmic substance that seemed almost a universe all on its own, like a sort of un-moving plaid. That being said, there were no other decorations of any kind, and each desk was lined horizontally, end to end, to facilitate smooth and quick processing of souls (customers). Each desk had dividers to make them feel like a sort of teller’s booth. Despite the dark desk conditions, there was surprisingly a lot of ambient light coming from an unknown, diffuse source that bathed the room in a warm light. Melissa could not hear or see her co-workers through the dividers, though they all did recount tales of their workday to each other during lunch in the break room.
Melissa had just started her shift when she was met with a new soul, an old human man who had passed away and was sent to her agency because of cancer.
“Hi there, welcome to the Reincarnation Agency! My name is Melissa, I’ll be your reincarnation teller. Would you like some help choosing a new life?” Melissa put on her best customer service voice.
The old man, looking a bit jarred and confused, replied, “Where am I? Is this Heaven or Hell?”
“This is neither Heaven nor Hell, sir. This is the Reincarnation Agency, but not to worry! We’ll get you squared away in no time and have you sent on your merry way to live a new life with new experiences!” Melissa had remembered her customer relations training well.
“Oh. So the Buddhists were right then? The whole reincarnation stuff is true?” The old man replied.
“Yup! But don’t feel bad if you weren’t a practicing Buddhist, your previous life’s faith or creed will have no effect on where you get matched next.”
“Wow. I really should've done some more community service then.” The old man said in a state of consternation.
“Oh, I’m sure you did just fine in your last life, sir. If you’d please give me your name, species, and birthday, I’ll bring you up in our system and see what’s available for you.” Melissa started to type on her cosmic keyboard. Each key-cap had a miniature star encased within, some even looked as vast as galaxies.
“Yes. Right. Well, then. Um, my name is -er- was, I mean, Wei Chang. I guess my species is human, and my birthday was 28 August 2025.”
Melissa entered the information into her quantum computer and immediately found the man’s Incarnation Profile, “Gotcha Mr. Chang. I’ve got your information pulled up here on my screen. Now, do you have a particular being in mind that you’d want to live as next? It’s okay if you don’t right now. I realize this is all quite overwhelming.”
“Actually, I do have something in mind. Would it be possible for me to be reincarnated as a cat? I just love them so much. I had two during my past life.”
Melissa entered “cat” into Wei Chang’s profile, but was met with an error message, “It says here that you’ve already been a cat in a previous incarnation, would you like to choose something else?”
“Ah, that explains why I liked them so much. No worries, I can try something different.” He scratched his now spiritual chin, his brow furrowing, “Hmmm, what about a bee? I’d love to get drunk off nectar all day collecting pollen from flowers and taking naps in them,” He said with a longing look, as if reminiscing on the luxuries of his recently past life.
Melissa typed into her database again, “Sorry sir, but it seems you were a bee only 3 lives ago, so quite recent. Not only that, but it says here that you were a queen bee! Talk about staying busy. Haha!”
When Wei Chang gave her only a wan smile back, she abruptly stopped with the fake laughter and looked right back at her screen, blushing from embarrassment. How did Chang not laugh at that? And how was a cosmic entity like her even able to blush? She thought her customer service instincts were as keen as any. Tough crowd, this generation of souls.
Suggestion after suggestion, Melissa kept getting the same error message. Wei Chang had lived every life there was to live. Feeling puzzled, she thought back over her time working for the Reincarnation Agency, and realized in all her time there, which was almost forever, never had she seen a soul live every life possible. She also never had heard of anything like this from her colleagues in the break room. The souls she encountered usually liked to relive the same select few lives that they enjoy, like going on a favorite roller-coaster ride over and over again.
After exhausting all possible lives in the database, Melissa suggested, with her attention still on the cosmic monitor, “Mr. Chang, I’ve never seen someone quite as adventurous as you. What an honor it is to be able to serve you! It looks like you’re finally going to have to live a life for the second time, after millennia of incarnations. Now that isn’t something you’d see every day. Would you like to start off your second go around as a cat?”
As Melissa finished speaking, she looked up from her monitor and found Wei Chang no longer in front of her. Instead, she saw a bright, pale, blueish white light emanating from a point right in front of her. It was like a miniature neutron star had suddenly appeared and took Wei Chang’s place. When it spoke, it did not have the same voice as Wei Chang, but Melissa instinctively knew it to be his soul, “Actually, that won’t be necessary, Melissa.”
Melissa’s jaw dropped. What was this soul? Who was this soul? How did it know her name? She had forgotten her ID badge at home that day. And why did it decide to shed its previous shape and show itself naked like that? Melissa stumbled over her next words, “I-I’m sorry?”
“I said that won’t be necessary, Melissa. I’ve spent too much time as a cat as it is, though I will say it’s always fun being something the humans adore. I was blessed with great human stewards during my feline tours. Regardless, I wanted to come here to see how you were doing. Is everything okay? Are the others treating you okay in the break room? No one’s stealing your lunches?” Wei Chang’s bare soul seemed to say.
Melissa’s jaw remained open as she finally put the pieces together in her head. This was no ordinary soul looking to immediately get back on the roller-coaster ride of life. No, this was someone she never thought she would meet in person, or perhaps in spirit? This was the head of the Reincarnation Agency in front of her. Some might be inclined to call the being God, as it is the closest word that captures the magnitude of their position. Others, more aptly perhaps, refer to them as the Creator.
She had heard stories of the Creator doing site visits to the living world and rumors that they checked in on the agency’s staff from time to time, but she never put much stock into them. And she most certainly did not expect a higher-up to be this pleasant to deal with in a customer service relationship. Normally, the higher up you go, the more of a nightmare it is to deal with a person face-to-face, especially when you are of lower authority or social standing.
Melissa finally closed her mouth, but quickly reopened it to give a response with an over-the-top friendly tone so as not to offend her boss’s boss, “Yes sir! Everything’s fine! I love working here, and my coworkers are great to me. No one steals my lunch in the break room, and I don’t even have to label my food with my name!”
The Creator’s starry silhouette bobbed up and down, as if nodding their head in satisfaction, “That’s great to hear, Melissa. I get worried every millennia or so about the well being of our staff, especially those on the front lines, such as you. Tell me, have you been harassed by any souls in the last one thousand years?”
Melissa replied “No sir, I’ve had nothing but kind souls bless my booth this work week, yours chief among them.” Melissa winked at the Creator, the light of a distant star system flashing in her eye as she did so.
The creator’s voice seemed to chuckle, “Now, now, no need for flattery, Melissa,” they paused for a moment in that infinite space and time, but eventually said, “I have a proposal for you. How would you like to experience being a cat yourself? I can personally recommend my previous stewards if you’re interested. I know your presence would certainly help them in their time of grief caused by my leave of absence.”
“Wait. Is that where this job leads to? You get promoted to being a living soul?” Melissa’s eyes seemed to sparkle even more with delight, on top of the vast expanses already within them.
“Yes, indeed. It’s an in-house secret, but I come around every few thousand years to add new souls into the mix. Keeps things interesting and fun. How else do you think new living beings are born? The same old souls can’t split themselves to occupy two different bodies.”
“I don’t know, I just figured…I guess I never really put too much thought into it. This job keeps my mind occupied as it is.”
“I completely understand. I was in your position once, long before your time at the agency. Now. I’d absolutely love to have you join the fray. Your composure and help with someone who you thought was an old human man was spectacular. You deserve to be rewarded for your work. Plus, we could use more people of your temperament in the mortal world.”
Melissa felt elated. Over the moon. This was her chance to find out what it was like to get her belly scratched, and to have toys to chase around, and to sleep all day and potty in a box! She had heard all these amazing, albeit sometimes terrible, stories from the customers she had helped over the years she had been with the agency. And now it was finally her turn to experience them. She felt both anxiety and joy at the thought.
“I accept,” she blurted out after a brief pause.
“Great! Let’s get you on your way. Oh, and do try to be extra friendly to the family’s child. He is a bit shaken by my passing, so please give him some time to grow accustomed to a new friend. I guarantee you he’ll come around in a second, though to him it’ll be a few years.”
"Noted, sir." Melissa responded, bracing herself.
She started to feel her form morph. That window into the daunting universe that was her body started to become unstable and wobble, and she felt her essence, her soul, concentrate. Like a star collapsing in on itself after running out of fuel, Melissa’s shape collapsed in on itself into what formed a pale, blueish white light, like a neutron star.
She then woke up in a dark room lined with many soft cushions, the voices of her new stewards greeting her from outside. The same stewards she heard so much about from the one who may have also promoted them into this world. She heard two parents cheer out loud as the cardboard box opened, bathing Melissa in light as she laid eyes on a wonderful, strong, child who had just gone through so much.
The room erupted in cheer, “Surprise Ian!!".