My Former Life

“Skip my feet,” I tell the massage therapist. They are beat up from running, and I don’t like other people touching them.

I forget to tell her about my neck.

Before my treatment, I was reading The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho. It’s a fictionalized version of the story of Elijah. Jezebel had given an order to all prophets: worship Baal or be killed.

I wondered.
I pondered.
I debated.

If an arrow was pointed at my heart, would I stand up for God? Or would I be like Peter and deny three times?

I don’t think anyone really knows until put to the test.

On my back, the massage therapist’s hands are under my hair, up my neck. I scrunch my shoulders and pop open my eyes. She is my height, except with dirty blonde hair braided down her back and blue eyes the color of ice – not cold ice, ice that twinkles like two small stars.

“I have issues with my neck,” I say.

I tell her that I was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around it. I’ve never been able to handle scarves, turtlenecks, choker necklaces, shirts with collars that poke up, and certainly not a massage therapist’s hands.

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” She wants to know.

“After death, I believe our souls go on to another life, but I don’t believe we come back to this earth.” When I say this earth I tap the cushioned table.

“You know what it means – the umbilical cord around your neck – don’t you?” she asks.

I don’t.

“In a former life you were hung.”

I break into a fit of giggles. I’m honored. “Hey, maybe I was hung because I refused to waiver from my spiritual beliefs,” I say.

My massage therapist claims she was burned at the stake. “But I wasn’t really a witch,” she says.

Good to know.