131 You and Me

"I was another person before I was born," Hunter said--casually, matter-of-factly, as he stacked the Lego blocks. I blew it off and we finished the Lego truck. "Why do we have to build?" he asked.

"We don't," I answered. "But it's how we live. We keep making things better and bigger."

"Oh," he replied, as five-year-olds typically accept the first answer that's delivered in a serious tone of good faith.

I went to the kitchen to help my wife, Linda, with the dishes. Just as casually, she said, "Hunter said he was you in a previous life."

"Me? He told me just somebody. Me?"

"I know," she said. "Weird."

"He's five, Linda. File it away with the dinosaurs he's obsessed with."

"I suppose," she said, "but still, strange. How he knows things."

"Like what?"

"Like how you used to sell Cutco knives in college, before you met me."

"That is strange. Anything else?"

"Plenty. How your mother was killed by a drunk driver; how a drug problem got you fired from your first job. Things like that."

"Wow. He probably just heard us talking."

"I don't think so. He didn't hear about how I had to prop up my pelvis after sex because that's what the doctor said."

"Now you're scaring me."

"Don't most parents have stories like this?" she asked.

"No. Not like that, Linda."

Hunter was watching TV in the other room. I called him into the kitchen for dessert, and Linda handed him an ice cream sandwich.

"Hunter," I said. "You were me in another life?"

"Yea," he said.

"Before?"

"Before I was born--but now, too."

"You must mean someone from a long time ago," Linda clarified. "In the olden days."

"Nope," he said, "Daddy, from before and right now."

"I don't get it, Hunt. How? I'm here now, but you say you lived a previous life?"

"Yes, Daddy; I was you."

"Right, you were me. How long were you me?"

"Till you died," he answered.

"I died?" I asked.

"Not yet, Daddy. Not till right before next summer."

Linda and I went white.

"But don't worry, Daddy," he reassured. "You'll just be me. Built bigger and better? It's how we live, right?"

__________

For SciFriday, May 10, Day 131 of the Story-a-Day Challenge.

366 WORDS (without A/N)

All pictures are AI-generated, but the homunculi are not!

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