Original Prompt: You have lived multiple lives just trying to be normal. Yet, due to circumstances beyond your control, every lifetime involves a fanatic cult springing up to idolize you. These cults last long enough to still be around in your future lifetimes.
The intern was practically shaking as she stood before me. “Um, they’re ready for you…” she mumbled as she waved an arm out of the green room. Heads popping out of doorways to look at me as I progressed down the hallway. Whispers, gasps, but smiles and laughs followed. The stage manager stood at the seam of the curtains, the ruckus of the audience was building just beyond.
“Ten seconds,” the manager said with confidence, looking out at the show’s host. Looking back to me, well, up to me. I heard them announcing my name, “5, 4, 3…” he drew the curtain back as I walked into the blazing light of the studio space, raising my hand to wave.
The audience had mixed reactions, gasps again, cheering, a couple distinct “wows”. The lanky host came to the edge of the stage. Even with the step up, he still had to lean his head back to look at me, shaking my hand vigorously. Smile and nod, wave again. Just like I was told. Take my seat.
“Well, the pictures sure don’t do you justice! Look at the size of you!” a genial smile, but I could tell there was some sting to the admission. I laughed, I’d heard it all before.
“Finally found someone to look up to, eh?” The crowd laughed this time, he wagged a finger at me, perhaps a bit of legitimate chastising mixed in with the show of it.
“Speaking of which, I hear a lot of people, uh, ‘look up to you’? Or at least that’s what I’ve been told by my producers, that you’re something of a star!”
“So I’ve been told…” a couple more cheers from the overzealous fans. “But I’ve done nothing to deserve the adoration,” I looked out into the sea of faces, “YET!”
Another rise from the crowd, I laughed with them this time, trying to play along.
“Now, to be fair, from what I hear it wasn’t just this lifetime that you’ve accomplished some great things though. I guess you’re the reincarnation of a rather famous person, is that right?”
“A famous person existed, sure enough. Not sure about the reincarnation part, but I’m grateful to my fans nonetheless.” I’d rather keep up the lie, for now. Plausible deniability. To admit it would fundamentally upset the balance… or so I’ve been warned.
“Kind of like the Dalai Lama, no?”
“Oh, no. I mean, there’s some parallels, but mostly in the notion that some people told me my ‘destiny’ when I was very young.” A couple awkward laughs. Yeah, just keep moving. “I will be honest though, to be told you have a ‘purpose’ when you’re so young is pretty handy.”
“I’ll say! Even from an early age you’ve done so much, and so quickly! Let’s see, they gave me a list of your heroics here.” Oh no, come on.
The host pulled an over-sized folio out from under the desk, opening to newspaper clippings. Not this again. Me as a kid rushing out of a burning building with a puppy, that time I talked a robber out of holding hostages, the other time I accidentally won the science fair. I tried so hard to make the project uninteresting, but I had no idea it would spur so many people into an otherwise abandoned field of science, Mnemonic Field Theory. I just wanted to find the source of my mind. Where am I? How am I piloting this avatar?
The crowd laughed, snapped back to the monotony of listing my supposed accomplishments. “Absolutely incredible work.”
“Just happy to be where I was needed, when I was needed.”
“You certainly have a knack for it. Some say you’re even supernatural! You’ve insisted that’s not the case, though. Do you have an explanation for it?”
“You know,” should I risk it? “Yeah. Since I’ve made it this far, I think it’s time to come clean.” The host practically recoiled. This was not the fun chat with a cult icon any more. I couldn’t help but relish the look on his face, the frantic glance over to someone behind a camera.
“Uh, well, do you think we can handle the truth?” His voice almost wavered, I could feel the tremor he stifled. He was already networked in. I felt coerced by the anticipation in the audience now, too. The connections established. They’d heard my voice, they were contributing now. Some even egging me on, cheering for the revelation.
“I’m sure you can handle it. The real question is whether your viewers at home can. I mean, in all my past lives,” a collective shock at the open admission, “I’d never had access to technology like this. At first I was just trying to convince people one by one, laboriously, year after year, decade after decade. And yes, lifetime after lifetime.”
I stared into the camera with the red light over it. Locking eyes with the minds on the other ends of the cables. It was overwhelming at first, but centuries of practice, millennia of conjoining minds, the payoff was immense.
“I speak to you now not as one, but as the voice of the many. I create inseparable bonds with everyone I meet. You have feared those like me, cast out as demons, persuaded by those who were incapable of true connection that I was the enemy.” I stood, for dramatic effect as much as to stand proud. “I am not your enemy, I am your unification. I do not ask for worship. I don’t want believers. I want neighbors.”
The surge of emotions was growing. I could feel all the new eyes starting to watch me. A power was growing, yet my core was still nowhere to be found. I was still only the recipient of this body, this power, far away from those psychically connecting to me now.
“Won’t you join me now? To build a better world together? To right the wrongs of division, to abolish the pain of separation, to join each other in a new land founded on-“
Ah. There it is. I felt the doom set in. I’d signed my death warrant. The cult claimed exclusivity to my shared knowledge, yet here I was getting carried away…
I looked back to the host, sitting down in a slump. It was already too late. The millions of eyes glued to the screen, they wouldn’t be a defense against those who claimed me as their own. A nation of minds, a chorus of needs and wants. Was it worth it?
The host fell from the trance and seemed to return to his body, drawn in too close by my passion. Tentatively he goaded me, “Founded on…”
“Oh, you know, the ol’ hippie dippie stuff. Love and empathy. Blah blah.” A flippant gesture of dismissal. I couldn’t stop myself, I was already resigned to my fate. “Maybe I’ll achieve it next time around. We’ll see.”
Already I could feel the sting of betrayal. Judas from the eyes of Jesus, knowing who it was preparing to find me, a knife in my back, poison in my drink. There were already familiar eyes, established connections, in the crowd before me. The rising anger, feelings of treachery, the decision and commitment to action. I could never escape those connections once they’re made. They would always find me.
Whatever it took to restore the supposed balance of “my” cult’s ownership of such a powerful gift, ownership over “me”. All I wanted was to… all I wanted was to show everyone that we’re all just neighbors on this lonely space rock.
All I wanted was to get help reaching to the stars for answers.
Maybe in the next lifetime. Maybe next time there’ll be something even better than TV.
Maybe next time they won’t find me so fast.
Inspiration Source:
Mike Lightheart 