by Huskyteer
Even knowing that he and Mischa had been through the process of death and rebirth dozens of times before, Jared didn’t find it any less wrong and terrible to hear the young coyote—only just twenty-four years old—speaking about death in such a blasé fashion. A body was just a body, something that was always discarded with time as it wore out so that the soul could continue to reside comfortably. True, Mischa would move on, and then he’d just be someone else, but, well, that was the problem: he wouldn’t be ‘Mischa’ anymore.
“It’s not dying that I’m worried about,” Jared said. He’d cried enough in private that he was able to keep from crying in front of his lover now, but the pressure behind his eyes was there. “I’m still going to lose you.”
“Yeah, but look on the bright side,” the coyote said, and now his eyes began to regain some of their liveliness. “You’re still young; you’ll have plenty of time to meet new people before it’s time to move on again.”
Jared shook his head. “But I don’t want to meet new people,” he said. He leaned in to kiss the coyote on the cheek. Mischa gave him an affectionate lick in return. “I mean, I’ve got you. Why would I want anyone else?”
With each new lifetime, a soul touched many other lives. In the span of just one lifetime, a wolf like Jared might never get to appreciate the menagerie of society; staying with his fellow wolves would be the ‘safe’ way to live a life, but when the world itself made a point to paint people in so many different colors, to give them so many different forms, it was as if the universe itself was sending the message to one and all to experience that, to take the chance and take the risk to intersect with all those differences. If he didn’t learn enough in his lifetime as Jared, he’d likely come back as a wolf once or even twice more before coming back as a badger, his next step along the cycle that would eventually bring him back around to wolf all over again.
Mischa closed his eyes for a moment as he let out a cough, but then he smiled again. “Aw, that’s sweet,” he said. “But trust me, you don’t want me sticking around like this. Hell, this body of mine ain’t any good, anyway, right? Maybe the universe thinks I’ve gotten all I can get out of being a coyote this time around, and wants to bump me over to wolf.”
Part of a smile formed on Jared’s muzzle. “It’s still not fair,” the wolf said, a leftover chuckle accidentally slipping into his voice.
“Eh, it happens,” the coyote replied, waving his other paw. “With any luck, my next body will be better, a little longer-lasting.”
Jared choked on his fading chuckle and shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean,” he said. “It’s not fair that I’ve got to lose you and never find you again.”
“You might still find me,” Mischa pointed out cheerfully. “I just won’t be Mischa. Actually, if you think about it, I might already be out there again by now.” The coyote turned to look out the window. “That always kind of trips me out think about: that your soul might be in two places at once, and you just don’t know it. You figure you’d feel it, right? Time’s just funny like that, I guess.”
“Don’t say that,” Jared insisted quietly. “Your soul is right here,” he said, resting a paw on the coyote’s chest. “And maybe you’re not going to be reborn again for a long, long time.”
Mischa kept looking out the window for several moments longer, then turned back toward the wolf. “Jared,” he said quietly. “Please. We both know that I’ll be lucky if I’m still around a month and a half from now.”
“We’ll be lucky,” Jared said.
The coyote smirked weakly. “We’ll be lucky,” he agreed. “And we’ve been lucky to have known each other. Let’s just enjoy the time we’ve got left and not worry about when it runs out, yeah?”
“I’m trying,” Jared said. He hung his head and squeezed Mischa’s paw gently. “It’s just… It’s hard. You’ll get to move on, but I’m going to be left behind without you.”
“Not if you have some sort of hereditary defect that you just don’t know about.” The wolf knew Mischa had meant it as a joke, but he couldn’t help flashing the coyote an angry look. “Sorry. I know that’s not funny.”
With a heavy sigh, Jared slumped forward, trying his best to keep his mind off of the inevitable. Still, each one of Mischa’s slightly-labored breaths, every weak shuffle of his feet—it all just pulled reality to the forefront, and Jared didn’t know how his lover expected him to just ignore all of that.
“Would it make you feel any better if I told you that I don’t want to lose you, either?” Mischa finally said.
Jared raised his head and looked back at the coyote. “Yes.”
“Well, what if we don’t have to lose each other?”
“But you just said—”
Mischa clicked his tongue. “Oh, not for this life, no,” he said. “This life is a wash.”
The coyote’s implication made Jared feel as if his heart had stopped for a second or two. “You…you mean…reattachment?” the wolf asked as if he were afraid of the very words.
“Sure. Why not?” the coyote asked.
“Because people just…people don’t do that,” Jared said. “It’s not good for the soul, lives are supposed to have new experiences, and all that.”
“There’s that, sure,” Mischa said. “But aren’t you basically telling me that you feel like we’re being cheated out of an experience right now?”
Jared gazed into his lover’s eyes. There was something in them that was similar to mischief, but which wasn’t quite. “Well, yes,” the wolf admitted.
Mischa smiled. “If that’s the case, then the universe will probably forgive us. All we’d really be doing is getting our fair share of what we’re already owed.”
More than anything, Jared wanted to believe that such were possible: that they could both flaunt the mores of society and the rules that governed reincarnation itself. It was such a tempting prospect, and if it meant getting to share his life with Mischa—not this, but the next—then how could he honestly pass that up?
If this most recent life had taught Jared anything, though, it was that wanting something bad enough didn’t change reality. “That’d be something, huh?” the wolf said wistfully. “I really do wish it worked that way.”
“And why can’t it?”
“Because,” Jared said, and he found his next words so difficult and painful to say that he had to stop and start over. “Because you’re dying.” Mischa seemed just an unconcerned as he ever had, though, and so Jared continued. “You’re dying, now, and I’m probably going to live a lot longer. By the time I die, you’ll be in the prime of your life, and we’ll… We’ll fall out of sync, and won’t catch up with each other.”
Mischa reached up and tapped a blunt claw on Jared’s chin. “Not necessarily,” he said. “Remember, time is like a river. Maybe you’ll get caught up in one of its eddies and end up coming back early enough to find me.”
“And what makes you think that’ll happen?” Jared was torn halfway between smiling and crying, now.
“The universe owes us, remember?” the coyote said. “And hey, even if that doesn’t happen, maybe in my next life, I’ll end up passing on early, too, and that’ll set us back on track.” He looked down at himself, then, and snorted out a little chuckle. “Though I really don’t fancy the idea of making a habit of bailing out of life while I’m still young.”
Even if things did luck out that way, and the two of them did manage to line back up temporally for their next respective lives, there were still so many other things that needed to go right: they needed to come into lives that’d both intersect, where they’d end up in the same place at the same time, and even then they’d need to both recognize each other and then hope that their new selves even liked one another, assuming that neither of them hadn’t already found someone else or…or…
While Jared had been spacing out, Mischa had leaned back up and taken hold of the wolf’s paw again, squeezing it hard in both his own. “Look, the point is just that any
thing could happen, right?” the coyote said. “We’ve still got some time left, so let’s enjoy that, and hopefully, just maybe, that time doesn’t have to be the end of it.”
Jared blinked away the beginnings of some tears, and then nodded back to Mischa. “Yeah,” he said. “I like that idea.”
That’s how it would go, then: Mischa would die, and he’d come back. Maybe he’d still be a coyote, or maybe it was time to move on to wolf. Was Mischa a young soul or an old soul? Was this his first time through the cycle, or had he already ventured through it before? He’d never asked Mischa that before, and it wouldn’t ever really be appropriate to ask him now.
In a way, though, it was fun to wonder whether Mischa had only just begun as a fox, as Jared knew the coyote had been two lifetimes ago, or whether he’d already been a wolf before, discovering how to appreciate one’s place in society. This would mean that he’d also then been a badger, enjoying the quiet repose of a life lived in reflection on what had been learned in previous lifetimes, before then moving on to the solitary existence of a feline, redefining individuality before beginning the cycle anew with the curiosity of a fox.
If nothing else, Mischa definitely had the self-confidence of a practiced coyote, exerting his will and his wiles on the world around him. It was hard to imagine that he’d never been a coyote before, though it was amusing to think that his spirit had a natural knack for all the mischief and perspicacity that coyotes pulled off so well.
Mischa braced his paws on Jared’s hips, then, and started to swivel sideways. The wolf hurriedly tried to stop him, but the coyote shook him off and said, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He swung his legs off the end of the bed and scooted up to the edge.
“You know you’re not supposed to be out of bed,” Jared said. He’d imagined his words coming out in a chiding manner, but when he spoke them, they just sounded like an empty statement.
“There’s a lot of things I’m not supposed to do,” Mischa said, letting his feet touch the floor, straining as he slowly stood up. “It’s never stopped me before, though. Besides, I’m sure you’ve known plenty of coyotes over the course of your lives, and I’ll bet it was impossible to tell them not to do something they wanted.” His tail wagged like a pup’s when he said that. “And anyhow, I’m sick of the scenery in here. It’s a lovely day outside, and I don’t want to waste that.”
Jared knew that a day out of bed would take a huge toll on Mischa’s strength, but try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to insist that the coyote lie back down. Instead, he just sniffled once, then took Mischa by the paw. “You want to maybe walk down to the park?” the wolf asked.
“I’d like that, yeah,” Mischa replied, flicking his tail to recapture his balance. “Can we stop by and get coffee on the way back?”
“You’re not…” Jared wanted to say, ‘You’re not supposed to drink coffee,’ but he remembered the coyote’s prior statement, and then just smiled. “Sure. Coffee. And maybe even some dessert.”
“You’re buying,” Mischa said, playfully nudging Jared in the ribs with his elbow before walking over to grab his coat.
Jared turned and looked out the window. It really was a beautiful day outside. He and Mischa wouldn’t have too many of these days left, now, and it was perhaps more important than anything else that they enjoyed them to their fullest while they could.
* * * *
The aroma of coffee coming from the corner coffee shop made those memories tangible for just a moment. As it had turned out, that had been the last day that Mischa had ever been well enough to leave the house. It had been worth it, though. Following that, Mischa held on, remaining pleasant and upbeat, even when confined to their apartment, until at last, just under a month later, the time came for the coyote to move on.
It was probably well past time, the wolf thought, for Jared to move on, as well.
“Rachel!” Jared called out, trotting after the vixen before she could round the corner and slip out of view. “Hey, hold on a second.”
While she didn’t look as startled as she had when Jared had first approached her, the fox did look more wary and nervous, now, albeit guardedly so. “What is it?” she asked. Trails of steam were still rising from the small opening in the lid of her coffee cup.
“Can we… I mean, do you have a few minutes? Before you go back to the office, I mean.”
“I really should get going.” Rachel was reluctant to make eye contact.
“Just for a few minutes,” Jared insisted. “Let me go inside, grab a cup of coffee, and we can just sit and talk. I promise I won’t try to convince you that you’re someone you’re not.”
The expression on Rachel’s face told Jared that she probably wanted nothing more than to just politely decline and get back to work. Despite that, though, she lingered a few moments longer and then said, “One cup of coffee. And then I really do need to get back to work.”
Inside, Rachel claimed a table while Jared waited in line. If this actually counted as a a date, then it was officially the weirdest date Jared had been on in any of his lifetimes. Perhaps for that very reason, the wolf suspected that Mischa would have approved wholeheartedly.
Even if the smell of coffee recalled some memories, this was still nothing like the coffee shop he’d taken Mischa to that one final time. That place had been a hole-in-the-wall family-run place owned by a pack of wolves; this place was a corporate deal, and the barista was a badger.
Once he’d gotten his coffee, Jared sat down with Rachel. The fox was looking at him with an oddly wistful expression, one that disappeared as soon as he sat down. She straightened herself up and then removed the lid from her own cup of coffee, allowing some heat to escape. “So, tell me about Mischa,” she asked, blowing across the surface of the coffee to cool it further.
“Really?” Jared asked. It was pretty tacky to spend a first date talking about one’s former lovers; when said lover was dead, though, did that make it bad form or just awkward? In all fairness, though, it wasn’t as if Rachel had anything else to ask about.
“You said he was your boyfriend,” Rachel said. She looked a bit deeper into Jared’s face. “He must have been very young,” she added sympathetically.
Jared nodded. “It was five years ago, now,” he said. “He had a blood disease. Congenital, not contagious, but…well, when we got together, he didn’t know he had it, and it…” The wolf’s voice trailed off, then, and the vixen didn’t press.
“Tell me what he was like,” Rachel said. She calmly sipped at her coffee, even though it was obviously still too hot.
The wolf smiled. “Oh, he was adorable,” he said. “Before he got sick, he was always getting up to no good, dragging me along to be part of his harebrained schemes. I guess that’s part of why I fell for him in the first place.” He smiled at the fox. “But he was always so kind and loving, and even when he was…when things were getting nearer the end, he was never unhappy, and he never complained.”
Perhaps it was just the waves of heat rising from the coffee cup, but for a moment, Jared thought he saw Rachel’s eyes waver. “Sounds like you were quite fond of him,” she said. “Makes me wonder why you thought I was him,” she added with a small chuckle.
“It was your laugh,” Jared admitted. It sounded so stupid when he said it out loud. “I heard you from across the street, and for just a moment, you sounded exactly like him.”
“You said that he was a coyote, though,” Rachel said. “He was already past fox.” Her face radiated curiosity.
“Oh, no, he was a coyote,” Jared replied. “Very much a coyote.”
Rachel hummed. “So why’d you think I was him?” she asked.
“Well, I mean, what if the cycle goes wonky sometimes?” Jared said. “Sometimes—rarely, I know, but sometimes—people get stuck in the same species for four or five lifetimes before they kicked back along the cycle, they say. They say that usually happens when you’re going from either feline to fox or from fox to coyote.”
“
Yeah, but a coyote coming back as a fox?” Rachel asked. “I’ve heard of the cycle getting hung up before, but I’ve never heard of it going backwards.”
“I know, I know, it’s stupid,” Jared said. He knew his ears were flushed red, now. “It’s funny, in a way: Mischa’s been dead for more than twice as long as we were even together, and even so, every time I see a coyote, I need to check just to make sure it isn’t him.” The wolf peered down into his coffee. “And so when I heard you laughing, and I saw that you weren’t a coyote or a wolf, I guess I just thought… I dunno, I guess I thought that it was the universe’s way of making sure I had to notice.”
Rachel had a bittersweet smile on her pretty muzzle. She looked as if she might reach out with one coffee-warmed paw and consolingly pat Jared on the cheek, but instead, she remained still and silent. “Or maybe,” Jared ventured, lifting his head back up, “maybe it was the universe’s way of telling me that I need to stop looking for Mischa.”
At that, Rachel’s eyes definitely wavered, and the shimmer of tears showed in the light for half a second before she blinked them away. After two false starts, she managed to say, “I’m engaged.”
Jared didn’t even have time to apologize for being such a fool before Rachel continued. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I mean, you do seem like you’re probably a very nice guy and all, but I…” She reached out, clasped a paw over Jared’s, and to Jared’s own surprise, he didn’t yank his paw away. “I appreciate the sentiment, and I’m very flattered,” the vixen said.
“It’s okay,” Jared said. He thought he might start to cry, too, but he’d embarrassed himself in front of poor Rachel too many times in one day to do it again. “I’m sure that your fiancé is a very lucky fox.”
“You know the saying: ‘Common is the fox who is quick to remind others how lucky he is to be a fox.’” Rachel’s tail wagged into view from underneath the table for just one moment. “But no, he tells me that he is,” she added more seriously, and her eyes teared up a tiny bit more as she smiled. “But you might still end up someone else’s very lucky wolf. You’re still young. And maybe you’re right: maybe this is the universe’s way of telling you that you need to stop looking for Mischa.”
