It didn’t work. Oh, Dear.

I was granted a set of skills when I took the job, and one of them is the power to invoke the flow of memories past. It has a very technical denomination in the Otherworld, but I am a simple fellow, so I nicknamed my kind’s most unique trait as “Memory Ride.” Catchy, uh?

In my defense, that was pretty much what it was. You see, if souls hadn’t been too terrified of me to do anything other than trying to run for dear life, they might have noticed that I have a most peculiar form of heterochromia iridis. That means that my left eye is hazel and my right eye glows with a turquoise shade that, I have to say, would have been the envy of any respectable manufacturer of fantasy contact lenses.

I mentioned that eyes play a very important part in the Otherworld. Even those who were blind when they were alive walk into the afterlife with eyes wide open and more than functional. The Veil of the physical realm burns and souls get to see the Reality of the Three Realms for the first time. Ankous were granted the most powerful eyes of them all, second only to the All-Seeing Gaze of Lord Aita and Lady Ishtar.

This fancy turquoise eye of mine is open to more than Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. It allows me to dive into the memory remnant imprinted into the souls of the departed.

This Memory Ride lets me witness the entire life flow of any soul in a span of a few seconds, so I can channel the Judgment, the divine call of their final destination. I have to admit it’s exhilarating and entertaining for a deadly bored fellow, so to prevent the Ankous from snooping around more than necessary, this ability was made to be extremely energy-consuming. I can’t keep it active for more than a few seconds or I’ll start feeling dizzy and weak, and doing it for too long could consume my vital pulse and be the end of me.

Memory Rides are fundamental to judge the soul, and therefore the ability was crafted to be flawless. Perfect. Absolutely infallible.

And here I was, chanting like an idiot over and over again like an old man hitting a TV that refused to turn on. It just did not work.

What was going on? What on the Three Realms was happening? It had never failed before, not once. I began to panic. I could feel my energy being drained by the second. If I failed to activate it, I would have to stop to rest, and then I’d be late delivering a soul for the first time in my entire career.

I stared blankly at Gabriel. He was frowning severely, upset even. I noticed the strain of resistance in his grimace.

And then I understood.

“Would you kindly let me into your memories? Please?” I asked.

He hesitated for a few more torturing seconds and then relaxed. He nodded. And then I felt the energy of the Memory Ride starting to flow as usual around us.

Fascinating. Unbelievable. He had been willfully blocking me. How on Earth—

Oh, dear. Oh, my Goodness. The time.

I leaned urgently towards the young man before me, stared respectfully right into his blank eyes, and chanted one more time.

“Look at me. Look at me look at you.”

Gabriel blinked. Then blinked some more. And then his eyes were wide open, seeing for the first time since he had died.

The blur in his left eye drowned in a vibrant, clear green.

The blur in his right eye burst into a turquoise, sparkling glow that directly connected with mine.

And then I saw everything. A painful birth. A quiet, illiterate childhood and harsh, illiterate adulthood. I saw the death of the young man’s parents at an early age due to disease. I saw year after year of working the fields and winter after winter of hunger and illness until he got home one chilly afternoon with a high fever, laid down on his straw mattress to sleep it off, and never woke up again.

My enthusiasm weakened a bit. Such a common, simple story. Such a common, simple fellow.

Why on Earth was he different? Why was he behaving so oddly?

I didn’t have much time to ponder. The Judgment manifested itself in my mind.

REINCARNATION

“Very well, young man. I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get your name from your memories; I’m not familiar with this region’s dialect. So. You were too busy surviving to be good or bad, weren’t you?”

I blinked twice and cut the connection between our eyes. Gabriel’s pupils disappeared again behind a darkened, blurred cloud. He noticed and frowned.

I turned and started whispering to myself like a maniac. Now that I had spoken out loud again after so many years, I felt unable to stop.

“So, a neutral life. Not good, not evil. His first round, undoubtedly. That means the reincarnation Judgment is correct, absolutely, no question there. The thing is, how is he so collected? It’s highly unusual. His behavior is most peculiar, to say the least. I should report it. But they’ll lock him up to have the Artisans fix him if I do so. And after all, what’s there to fix? He doesn’t deserve to be manhandled after so harsh a beginning, maybe I—No, absolutely not. I must report anomalies. I—”

I felt a slight pull on my right sleeve and looked down. Gabriel was staring at me with his blurred eyes and that intrigued, alert expression that was beginning to look familiar to me.

Gabriel opened his mouth and seemed once again puzzled when no sound came out. He hesitated. He cleared his throat, tried again, and simply gave up when he failed.

He looked up and with the most serious expression, he pulsed his thoughts into my mind.

Where?

I was completely baffled for what it seemed the 100th time that night.

“I—I beg your pardon?”

Gabriel looked up and then looked down in an exaggerated motion.

Where?

Most extraordinary. How? I honestly had no idea of the religious status of that particular Irish region, but I guessed the locals might have had a rough idea of Heaven and Hell. Maybe that young man had heard something about it and was, well, on the spot about my unfortunate role in that hot mess.

I hesitated once again. Death has no will; it just does what it has to. Death doesn’t make decisions. Death doesn’t make mistakes.

But, technically, I wasn’t Death, was I now?

“Reincarnation,” I blurted. I noticed my voice came out louder, probably warming up after being forgotten for so long. Gabriel moved back, startled. “I mean…this is your first life. I’ll take you to your second. You’ll understand when we are there. Probably. But first—”

I walked back hastily to the straw mattress and cut the silver string that tied the soul to the body with a swift motion of my fingers, as I always did. Gabriel watched the whole process intently. I felt his gaze following my every move.

“Very well, it’s done. Now, follow me.”

I started walking, but Gabriel didn’t follow. He was solemnly staring at his corpse, probably saying his last goodbyes to everything he had known during his whole, brief life.

I swear I would have loved to give him as much time as he needed, but we were most dangerously on time to depart. If I was late for the first time after 200 years of impeccable punctuality, some high-ranked officials were bound to raise an eyebrow, and that was dangerous. For Gabriel and me both.

I strode back to him and offered him a rather shaky hand.

“Come on, young man. We can’t afford to be tardy. Please.”

Gabriel nodded in silence and slowly placed his hand, as rough and calloused in death as it had been in life, on my own palm. I felt an unusual warmth, or at least a sudden energy flow that reminded me of what warmth should have been.

I smiled widely one more time, and this time it was authentic. I was excited. And rather scared, I must confess.

With my free hand, I drew a half arch on the air and reality opened like an invisible door before us. Gabriel gasped and squeezed my fingers. I could feel he just knew I was guiding him to the Otherworld.

Without another word, we both dived in.