I had never believed in reincarnation. I thought it to be a form of cowardly escapism. If it really worked, a vast majority of people would have spent its previous lives as one of the major animal species, numerically speaking. This ruled out large mammals, such as cows, cats, Egyptian slaves or medieval princesses. If reincarnation did work, it was very unlikely that you'd have a spine in your next life, not to mention a real brain. In all probability, every living entity on the planet was spending most of its reincarnations as a no-see-?um recycling rotten material at the bottom layer of the Amazonian rain forest. In all probability, your species wouldn't even have been discovered and given a name. In all probability, being reborn as a tapeworm in a celebrity's intestine would be the epitome of your career. It was a matter of luck.
I was extremely lucky. When I opened my multifaceted eyes, still a little nauseous from the sugary stuff I had been fed for days, I immediately recognised the place, which was frantically buzzing. I barely had the time to stretch my legs and dry my wings, and here I was, out in the bright blue sky, looking for flowers, my pollen baskets already aching from being empty.
If you think that life is short, what about a 3-week life span? Bees don't have much time. The second was now my one and only unit. Sip nectar, load pollen, next flower, and so on. Days were not unpleasant but not exactly climactic either. Nights were dreamless, lost in the warm droning of the hive. I thought that I'd be happy to leave this life and proceed to the next, so I half-waited for some brat to try to swat me so that I could play kamikaze on him and die in full airborne glory.
Then, at the end of a particularly long gathering mission, and as I felt more than ever the weight of my pollen-laden legs, I decided to rest for a few minutes, to sip the condensation dew from the cool aluminium frame of a garden folding chair. No one would miss me at work, and no one would care. I could afford to be late. I had only a few hours left in this life anyhow. I already thought about the next one.
I recognised her instantly. How, that's impossible to say. Bees all look alike. And my ridiculously tiny brain came up with her name, kept intact through several reincarnation cycles. I made some absurd buzzing sounds, and, to my great surprise, she