“We Fell in Love in Five Different Lifetimes”

We Fell in Love in Five Different Lifetimes

By [Ali Rehman]

The first time I met her, the world had just begun.

At least, that’s how it felt.

Lifetime 1 — The Dawn

We were villagers by the river, living in a time with no clocks and no written names. I was a potter’s son; she was the girl who collected wildflowers for her mother’s remedies. We met when a clay pot broke in my hands, the sharp edge cutting my fingers. She rushed to me, pressed herbs on the wound, and whispered, “You have gentle hands. Don’t let pain make them hard.”

I fell in love with her before the bleeding even stopped.

But a flood came that year — the river rose without warning. I held her hand as the waters swallowed our world. We were separated by the current, and my last sight of her was the yellow flowers floating around her like a crown.

The next time I opened my eyes, centuries had passed.

Lifetime 2 — The Empire of Silk

We were nobles now, in a kingdom ruled by jewels and jealousy. She was a princess whose smile hid rebellions; I was the artist chosen to paint her portrait.

She recognized me first.

“You draw me as if you’ve known my face for a thousand years,” she said.

“Maybe I have,” I whispered.

We loved each other in shadows and silk curtains, in stolen moments behind palace pillars. But royalty never marries artists, and kingdoms do not allow love that refuses to bow.

The night before her arranged wedding, she fled with me. We rode on horseback through the whispering forest, hoping the world would be kinder this time.

It wasn’t.

We were caught at the border. They took her back, crowned her queen, and ordered my execution. As I knelt before the blade, she cried out from her balcony, “I’ll find you again!”

And I believed her.

Lifetime 3 — The Age of Steam and Smoke

Now we were strangers in a city of fog. She worked at a bookshop near the railway station; I repaired engines for the trains that shrieked like dying beasts.

One day, covered in soot, I walked into her shop looking for a map. She looked at me with a familiar softness and handed me a book titled:

“On Love That Never Dies.”

We talked until the shop closed. It felt like stepping into an old dream. She didn’t know my name, but she knew my soul.

But fate, ever cruel, had plans.

A factory explosion tore through the city. I ran toward the flames because I thought I had heard her voice inside. Smoke filled my lungs, and the world dimmed. In my final breath, I felt her hand in mine.

“I remembered,” she whispered through the fire.

“So did I,” I answered.

Lifetime 4 — The War That Wasn’t Ours

This time, we were born into a country divided by a war neither of us chose. She was a nurse; I was a soldier who never believed in violence.

I saw her in the makeshift hospital tent, her hair tied back, her eyes full of sorrow. I froze — the universe had brought her back again.

She cleaned my wounds with trembling hands.

“You came back,” she said softly.

“I always will,” I replied.

But wars do not care for love.

When the enemy advanced on the camp, I shielded her with my body. A bullet meant for her pierced my chest. As I collapsed, she held me and sobbed, “Please… not again.”

“It’s alright,” I murmured.

“We still have one lifetime left.”

Lifetime 5 — The Modern World

In this life, the memories came slowly.

We met in a coffee shop — she spilled her drink on my shirt, apologized twenty times, and laughed with that same old melody I’d loved across centuries.

We dated. We argued. We dreamed.

It was normal.

Human.

Beautiful.

But the dreams began.

I saw floods, palaces, smoke, battlefields.

I saw her dying.

I saw myself losing her again and again.

One night, she woke up crying.

“I don’t know why,” she whispered, “but every time I look at you… I feel like I’ve already grieved you.”

The memories were returning to her too.

We stood at the edge of the same river from our first life — now bridged with concrete instead of vines.

“If reincarnation is real,” she said, “why do we keep losing each other?”

I took her hands — the same hands that had healed, painted, held books, stitched wounds, and wiped tears through five worlds.

“Maybe,” I said, “we were never meant to last forever in one lifetime. Maybe our love was too big for a single world.”

A breeze rustled the water.

“Then what happens now?” she whispered.

I smiled softly.

“This time… we choose to stay.”

And as the sun dipped below the horizon, for the first time in all our lives, the world did not tear us apart. It simply watched us — two old souls finally learning how to begin again.

Moral:

Love that is true does not end — it transforms.

Across lifetimes, across losses, across worlds, love finds its way back.

But the greatest lesson is this: the present lifetime is the one that matters most — because it is the only one you can still shape with your own hands.