When I was born for the twelfth time, I thought I had progressed
All that happened was regression
Nothing had changed and I felt the weight and trauma of the last eleven tries bear down on me
It dropped me to my knees and from my lips escaped a long and guttural scream
One of pain that encompassed rage, envy, loss, regret and a hint of madness over all things I tried to accomplish in my time
Somewhere in the distance, sort of hidden under the sound of my wailing scream I heard whistling
A cadence so calm and serene that it literally pulled me out of my gut wrenching, banshee like wail
Somewhere, someone close had been relaxed enough to just whistle on in the dark of night and it was both soothing and infuriating
Yet, I could not ignore the fact that it did snap me out of whatever happened at the end of the eleventh life that enraged me so
I stood up, proceeded to hunt for the whistling and as I stumbled around in this dark and unlit place, I felt frustration set in
The whistling continued and picked up in tempo and fervor
It was becoming like a staccato stab like someone playing jazz piano in a smoky club but in this odd and completely dark place
The more I shuffled about aimlessly trying to pinpoint the whistling with my hands outstretched, looking for anything to grasp I just keep on moving, never feeling anything around me
I felt like I was getting closer to the source of this whistling that picked up again in pace and intensity but still it eluded me
Until, suddenly I was face to face with someone else in this darkness
The outline of another human being or something humanoid in shape was directly in front of me and that much was sure
The whistling was now in front of me with this rough and hard to see outline of this other, here in the dark
The silhouette was approximately the same size as myself, as far as I could tell
Something did not feel right as the whistling continued I struggled to form words to ask a question
Any question really
Something to ask that would tell me where I ended up and why I suddenly could remember the amount of times I had lived and "failed"
But words did not come as if I had forgotten how to speak
The thoughts were there, but no words were able to be produced by my vocal cords, tongue and lips
Instead, I too began to whistle and much to my surprise at that
Funnily and frighteningly my whistling matched the pace, tempo and the now blistering cadence of the silhouette in front of me
I started to become more and more afraid and puzzled since I felt like I knew nothing about any of this yet knew the tune
How could I know this tune?
It was nothing I had ever heard before and I searched my memories for anything that might even resemble this now tandem whistling "duel"
It continued on like this for what seemed like eternity but could have been mere minutes for all I knew
Then, as if a lightning bolt had struck me, I could feel the silhouette reaching out towards me and I towards it
Once we touched each other by putting our left hands on one another's right shoulder everything became clear and illuminated
It was me and I was him
The most interesting thing was it was a version of me that was old beyond the years of any of my previous lives
Tired looking, haggard and worn down by whatever had brought them, rather me, to this place
As I stared into the eyes of this other version of myself, I could see the sorrow and pain of my own mind but he had weathered it somehow
The look in his eyes had the added feel of acceptance whereas my mind had no acceptance of this situation or myself
The whistling continued on and on
I could not understand how this was happening as we never took a breath or stopped, not even for the briefest of moments
Then, the sky lit up with the intensity of a million suns
It blinded me briefly and yet my hand and my "others" hand never moved and the whistling continued
That was, until the temporary blindness wore off
Then, I saw "me" for the first time and the place we had been in all along
A vast and never ending space
Full of the bones of others, or were they other versions of us?
At this point, the other me stopped whistling and I did the same in the exact same moment
It was eerie and somehow expected although I could not understand how I knew that
Then, the grin appeared
It sprawled across his face and I realized in that moment that this was final
There wasn't a "twelfth" life and I had not been reborn as my mind had seen eleven other lives before this time
No, I was to remain here with my other, locked into a purgatory that only he and I resided in
Every once in a while, more bones would pile up around us
I wondered if those were the "other" lives beyond the eleventh one that I had remembered upon arriving
Were they the other failed attempts at escaping the loop of time or had they lived happily and content?
The curse of reliving the anguish of a million little deaths only to end up in this "place" for lack of a better descriptor?
What was clear was that I wasn't ever leaving and neither was my other
His grin widened even more, in an impossible way
Stretched across his lower face like some bizarre mask with jagged and sharp teeth
His eyes were blood red and wild, filled with a seething hate and amusement all at once
Like he had been here for so much longer than I, and somehow knew one day an "other" would appear
He asked me something suddenly and I was taken aback when I heard words for the first time since ending up here
He asked, if I was the "other" sent here for all of time
Puzzled, I asked him what he meant by "the other"
He then told me that he was the first version, the trial run as it were
The one whom had made all the mistakes that cascaded into all of the other eleven lives I could remember
He suddenly was imprinted in my mind as the first of the eleven I could remember
I saw it all
The anger, the sorrow, the judgment, the rage, the cruelty, the abuse of self and the loathing of the human experience
He, had been the architect of all of my ends to this point, the reason that in life, I never felt contentment
The cyclical pattern was clear
His decisions had molded every other one of "us" from him to myself
Then he cackled loudly as his hand slapped up and down on my shoulder as if we had accomplished some great feat
I asked what possibly could be "great" about this place and our situation and why was it so amusing to him?
He told me that as he was the worst of "us" I transversely was the "best" of us and there was a balance to be kept, for the others
Yet, he said he was also the "best" of us and I was equally the "worst" of us
As more and more bones piled up over what were seemingly eons, I stood there in a daze as I realized he was correct
We had been bound to this hellish nothing, to witness each failure or success until death of the many other versions of "us"
It began to rain as the light from the millions of suns started to fade and I saw that this rain was red like shed blood
Then as the light faded for good, we began to both laugh hysterically as I lost myself to this existence, resigned to my now inescapable fate
Soon, the laughter died off and we began whistling that same staccato, stabbing tune
The tune of madness
Held aloft by the worst of "us" and the best of "us" and the now visible daggers made crudely out of bone sticking out of one another's chests
Together forever in the dark of this void
Awaiting whatever may come and end this while also knowing that nothing would ever come to end this, that this was eternal
Bound for all of time
To preserve the "others"
To preserve the balance of someone that I and he, the "we" that we never were
A mixture of the polar opposites
A mixture that was comprised of gray and neither one of us could permeate fully
That was the agreement that I never knew I signed up for
I suspect, he never agreed to this either but had awaited my arrival for what must have been such a long time
I had no choice but to comply and continue whistling this maddening tune forever
To hold the ideal of what a truly balanced version of "us" could be without ever knowing if this could be attained
Tethered by the crude bone knives stuck into one another
So those versions still out there could have a chance at a life we never had due to our unwavering ideals that were so diametrically opposed
It was forever
It was the twelfth life for another version of "us"
Neither me, nor him yet somehow, both of us stuck in this whistling and comfortless embrace of violence toward one another
The anchors for an unknown quantity of others that were "us"
Forgotten by them but always somehow lingering in the back of their minds
Some would become more like me, and some more like him
Their futures were unclear but ours, were now set in unbreakable and undying stone
Etched for all time with a pact that neither wanted but, had to uphold
I soon felt the edges of my mouth curling into the beginnings of the same bizarre grin he had displayed in that brief lighted moment
