The Satori Chore by Selia Ascrala (books to read for 12 year olds TXT) 📕

♕ Chapter 1: To find enlightenment …!

 

Everything happened so fast.

 

I didn’t even know what was happening, didn’t have enough time to process the situation and react in time.

 

I had fought with my parents. I remember how they always butt into everything, always controlled where I went and always gave me a time limit when I went out. I just wanted to be free. Wished they were parents who worried less about me. I was a university student; I knew what I was doing. I wanted so much, but was only allowed so little. Always tried to please them, and they were still never satisfied.

 

I had enough of it. I ran out of the house. Other times I locked myself away in my room, sinking into my world of books. Learning, reading, writing. I was such an introvert. I always wanted to learn to dance; I've always wanted to learn to play the piano. To possess a single-lens reflex camera, but I only had a video camera. Wanted a piano, but they bought me a keyboard which already was over 10 years old. I was disappointed with my life. And when I gave up on all of this, and started to spend more time with carefully chosen friends, they butt in again. I would stray from my path, they said. I should be in my room and learning, they said. Novels and friends would only distract me, they said.

 

I was tired.

 

Every time they told me that we already had everything we needed. We would need nothing more. I should put myself in their shoes; try to understand them. That's what I always did. I understood very well. In that, I had always been good; showing understanding. But inside I was seething. No matter how much I convinced myself that they were right.

 

All I wanted was just a little freedom.

 

Even my younger brother was allowed more than I was. ‘I had enough freedom ... for a girl.’ Everything lead to me being a girl. The oldest of the siblings at that. All their hopes and expectations weighed on my shoulders.

 

Eventually, I couldn’t hold the weight anymore. It crushed me.

 

It crushed me just like the car that appeared out of nowhere.

 

"We’re losing her!"

"The pulse decreases dangerously!"

"Defibrillator!"

 

I heard something snapping- no several things. My eyes flew open, seeing doctors and medical assistants standing around me with dejected faces.

 

"Time of death 8:04 o’clock."

 

'No, no, that can’t be. This can’t be happening! My family ... ,' I thought, but my thoughts trailed off, as I perceived the continuous beeping of the ECG device.

 

I wanted to cry and if I could, I would. Instead of that only my bottom lip trembled. The words, that I was awake and alive and sat in front of them caught in my throat when I looked down at my pale, pale face; on its front gaped a huge wound.

 

I was born on 08/04 and died at 8:04 clock. The numbers, of which I had always thought as my lucky numbers, sealed my fate with death.

 

I was dead.

 

Suddenly my fingers twitched. Confused, I looked at them and there it was again. My index finger and ring finger of the left hand twitched. No, it was more a pull I felt on them. And then I saw it. Two red bands that seemed endlessly long led trough the door, if not further. On my other fingers also I saw a kind of red band, but they were … torn?

 

Once again there was tis pull. This time more violently. Involuntarily I stood up, confused as to what this was. I shook my head and walked out of the sinister operation room where my end had been determined.

 

I ran down the hall, looking after my family. ‘You must be here somewhere,' I asked myself, until I ran around a corner and saw them sitting there. They cried and held each other in the arms. I wanted to go and be by their side. Didn’t want to leave them alone. Wanted to cry with them. But this time the red threads pulled so hard that I was dragged in the other direction. Panicking, I tried to counterweigh with all my might against it, but they pulled me firmly and constantly in the direction of the open window.

 

"No!" I shouted. "I want to go back to my family!" At least I wanted to say goodbye properly. But not even this last wish was granted to me. I was mercilessly pulled by the strings through the window and fell.

I fell several storeys until a portal appeared finally under me, which I fell straight into it.

 

The next moment I was floating in some kind of universe. I couldn’t suppress my sobs … but still no tears rolled. I’d never see my family again.

 

"Hello, I'm Yue, the god of marriage and love."

 

Taken by surprise, I turned around and saw an old man before me, sitting on the … moon?

 

"You died, your body and mind now torn apart and with them your red threads of fate. But do not worry, little star. It is not yet your time to go."

 

Unsure, I took a step back. But I just died...? "What do you mean, it is not my time to go?"

 

"To find enlightenment and thus pass into paradise, you need to be in accordance with your own soul. In this you can only succeed when your love is completely pure."

 

I could feel the despair growing in me. Love? I had no idea of love, apart from the love that was mentioned in books. But that was always way too unrealistic, as I felt. Pure love? How on earth should I find something like that, if it didn’t even exist? 'I have a feeling that my karma cannot stand me,’ it flashed through my mind.

 

"Currently you only seem to be an extinct white dwarf, but the time will come when you will wake up like a phoenix and glow as bright as the sun on the brightest summer day."

 

I didn’t understand a word of what he was saying. White dwarf? Phoenix? Awakening? I didn’t want to be anything. I wanted to see my family. Wanted one last chance to apologize to them. Sorrowfully I let my eyes wander to my feet.

What was this all about? This didn’t look like paradise. It didn’t look like hell. Was it something like the "in-between"?

When I looked up again, the wise man was smiling.

 

"One final note yet, little star. Nothing hurt you and your high sense of fairness as much as distrust, deceit and dishonesty. Maybe that's why you'll be frequently confronted with these unpleasant situations in your life. Then you should justify yourself patiently till the others have grasped your reasons for action.

Except you should control your particular way of thinking, because you may desire for revenge and inflict great damage to you and your fellow in this way. Therefore you ought to make your life a main task in the practice from tolerance, even against the wrongdoers."

 

Shocked, I looked up at him. How did he know so much? I should be frequently confronted with unpleasant things? I just wanted to ask him all these questions but again these tapes pulled, which he referred to as threads of fate, not allowing my fingers any kind of resistance. "Wait! I still have questions!" Something rang in the back of my mind, a memory that I had put away. 'Red threads of fate. They rip after death. Because then you have no connection to the material world anymore,’ I thought frantically. 'But why do I have...?'

 

It was too late; a portal once again consumed me.

 

"Good luck on your Satori Path. The Path of knowledge about the universal nature of existence."

 

 

* * *

 

It was dark. And warm. I felt comfortable. It felt like I was waking up from a long nightmare but I didn’t want to open my eyes yet.

But the moment didn’t last long, because as the serene seconds passed by something horrible happened.

 

Ripping me out from the comfort, something pushed me into cold air - I was practically helpless and unable to move. I knew what it was like to feel helpless. I was used to that feeling.

I did not cry.

 

I was scared, yes, but only of what was going on. I tried not to fight, took short, shallow breaths as I tried to get a sense of my surroundings.

Rubbed off, dried and wrapped in a soft blanket, two huge arms embraces me ... I froze.

A terrible feeling of uneasiness came over me. A cold feeling that my fear could be true.

I felt how I was moved and eventually placed in another pair of arms.

 

"Congratulations, it's a girl!"

 

My bottom lip began to tremble again. I was so shocked by the new knowledge, and that my fears turned out to be right ... I sobbed.

 

And then I sobbed again.

 

It wasn't just a dream. I was a flipping baby again.

 

This time I did cry.

♕ Chapter 2: Frozen

 

It took some time before I actually realized that I really was a baby again. Or it was rather the case that I was denying it, and had to admit to it at some point.It was almost insulting; to be stuck with an adults mind in a child's body, let alone a baby's body. At first I thought it was all just a stupid joke my brain was playing me. Maybe I was sleeping? Maybe I was actually in a coma?

 

No one just reincarnated again. It just didn't happen.

 

But as time went on, the more I doubted my theories the more the recent events before my apparent rebirth began to sink in.

 

I had died. I would never see my family ever again. And I was a baby.

 

Could my life be any more fantastic?

But it wasn't even like I had no family now. Someone that I could call family, must have pressed me out of their vulva. And that what I had declared as warm and pleasant had been, in fact, the uterus of that woman.

 

"Your name shall be Kihomi."

Kihomi, the woman named me.

 

I'd prefer the ground opening and swallowing me, but since I was still a flipping baby, this wasn't an available option for me. Not that it would have ever been technically possible. You get what I mean. No, instead I resorted to the only thing that babies could do.

 

I cried. I screamed. I cried even more.

 

It was hard for me to accept them as family. I wanted mine back. But weeks passed, and at some point I realized that my weeping wouldn't help anyone. It only exhausted this small, weak body, until I finally fell asleep, whimpering.

Besides, it worried the family pretty much. I couldn't help that I was reborn in the body of her child. In that respect I felt bad for her.

 

As a few weeks went by and my sense of hearing evolved, I noticed how the woman, the mother, was talking to someone on the phone. She didn't understand why I'd always cried so much. But now she was worrying about the fact that I never said or did anything. I only stared into space.

 

My new … mother ... had often tried to get me