A/N: I honestly have no idea what this is or what it wants to be. 5 a.m. writing and falling back into Middle-earth, anyone? My inspirations were all over the place, from The Awkward Adventures of Meghan Whimbles by FebruarySong to A Shot in the Dark by Silver pup. Reviews are much appreciated! Be an active reader and talk to me.
Disclaimer: Hi Tolkien. I own nothing but Maya.
"Yeah, I did it. Why not? Look, I do a lot of shit."
—Lana Del Rey, when asked if she did witchcraft against Donald Trump
chapter one: enter Maya
The first time is unnatural.
1968. Her goldfish dies. A portrait of Mother Mary looks upon the scene in quiet penance or loud judgment.
Maya's own mother, with an indistinguishable face, brings a hand down on her small shoulder, but the teen fails to feel it and makes for the door. The shoddy tank and a shovel the size of her calve are respectively under each arm as she slips busted sneakers on.
"I'll bury it in the garden. Be right back."
The woman she leaves behind almost calls her back, like the meaningless consolation offered during a funeral, not knowing there will be nothing left to grieve.
Certainly, Maya carries no remorse; the pet was only something she had won at a festival, after all. She isn't going to actually bury it in the garden either, not wanting to be reminded of how she didn't take proper care of it. The girl hadn't even bothered to give the poor creature a name, though "Ori" had been swimming around for a while.
So, the forest it is, in the dead of night among the very much alive crickets…
… and a man with the same idea, burying the body of a dead, nameless sister behind a bush. Maya stands no chance, her scream seeping into the earth like the discarded goldfish and its water, tank lolled against the base of a tree. The authorities will find her body much later, when DNA testing revolutionizes criminal prosecution.
The second time is peaceful.
2067. Stage 5 leukemia. Her hijab is coiled on the table, as her son and his wife hover over the bed. You'd think that by now, there would be a cure for this shit.
The world is white and gray and almost gone; Maya can feel it in the very bones that intend for her death, but finds little reason to struggle. She has lived a full life—one and a third, her heart whispers—Allah needs her back now.
"M-mama, don't go," (what's his name again?) sobs.
"Don't stay," Maya replies, wheezing past the cortisone in her veins and the respirator. "I… don't want you… t-to see me… like this."
The crying only gets louder then, wracking the shattered man like a torrential rain over dry canopies. She smiles one last time and points a wrinkled finger up, before melting into the sheets.
The fifth time is bullshit.
Unknown year. A student throws a SAT book over her lithe black form. Being mush has always been her dream, next to being a fucking spider. Real funny, Buddha.
The seventh time is hot.
754. It ends fairly quick and simple: she's trying to make bread and then the oven decides to cook her instead, bursting from its clay top. Hopefully she tastes good? Do they do cannibalism this gen? Maybe the pagans, huh.
The tenth time is loving.
1980. Bullets hurt like a bitch, but "he", this new Maya, laughs hysterically as they come raining down from the sky. His little brother is not far behind, as they take shelter behind a decaying brick wall, combat boots pressed into water and muck.
The opposition is closing in on the dynamic duo, but they will never shut down their spirits. Just a while ago, the siblings had taken down a base, alerting other guerillas of the conquer. In the wake of being tracked down, they wound up fleeing the scene once reinforcement arrived.
"Los hemos puesto en la persecución!" he praises. There is fire in his sweet brown eyes and golden light in the leaves. "We have put them on the pursuit!"
"Somos imparables," Maya replies, squeezing his thin arm. "We are unstoppable."
And the twenty-two year-old genuinely believes it, wiping bloody hands down his grimy green uniform. Upon noticing the way his right leg loses feeling the longer they play sitting ducks, Maya turns fully to the other boy, who has not yet turned fourteen. Farewells are in order, after all. He hears the chopper overhead and sees the red dot zipping along their heads, breaths and heartbeats synchronized. Baby brother grabs the cross around his neck as he leans in.
"Eres mi orgullo y gozo. Te amo no importa que," a hard kiss to the forehead. "You are my pride and joy. I love you no matter what."
They are shot consecutively, slumped side by side in the heart of their beloved, broken nation.
The fourteenth time is magical.
1992. What the hell, gravity. She thought you were pals, but maybe Jesus doesn't do witches.
Maya falls off her broom and sees The Boy Who Lived once in the stands before the impact. Quidditch fields don't shit around; the yellow of her uniform stains so easily. She quite liked being Indian too, how unfortunate.
The eighteenth time is traumatic.
1889. Summer fumes and iron gates. Maya is a slave to a wealthy plantation owner on the outskirts of some jungle, tilling soil and root for the bananas that would one day find their way into the bellies of the masses, at his expense.
In a moment of madness, when backs are turned, Maya steals about a dozen boxes and races towards freedom. On the carriage ride to the main city, he kisses the ginseng around his neck and prays to the spirits.
Had fucking Falco, the other slave, not snitched on Maya, sweet spring rain and new life would've welcomed the old man to his destination; but it's never a happy ending. Needless to say, he is made into an example, captured and hanged from the rafters like the tigers and bears in his master's office—heads held high, faces in a perpetual state of shock.
The twentieth time is spiteful.
Unknown year. Cylindropuntia fulgida isn't quite what people would call sentient, but when you're under the sun 24/7 and mirages start looking more like home than your own memories, no one can blame Maya for ruining one or two hikers' days. He dies once the spikes hit their clothes anyway; not alive long enough to see the wonderful pain. Hope insurance covers cacti.
The twenty-second time is cruel.
1218. She, again, wakes up some time later, in a castle by the sea, like some soap opera copy of Annabel Lee. On top of that, this is the first white life, but it goes down all the same, something like this:
Arranged marriage. The entire country attends the wedding. Long veil, red slippers, hands pressed into pale backs, a hundred eyes. Etiquette classes built up to this special day, to love and be loved by this one man. She is godless, because she is trained to believe that he can replace divine power.
Broad shoulders, pretty lips. They are in love for one night, and she gives birth to the product ten months later on a gray morning, in the dim parlor room. Meanwhile, he is in his study on the third floor, pretending to be at work, and another woman wails out the back door, dress and pride undone.
A cold becomes a fever becomes pneumonia, and Maya dies still tethered, in name, to the cheating son of a bitch, daughter ripped from her cold arms; she barely had time to be the mother she never quite had.
To add insult to injury, the kingdom makes a memorial of their false love in the town square.
The twenty-fifth time is different. Well, actually, not really, but it's kind of funny at least. A little bit dumb too.
2017. Normally, when people are allergic to something they, for lack of a better phrase, get the fuck out.
If the only consequences are a small itch on the lip or flaring sinuses, some might risk the occasional shrimp or fruit. Hay fever, after all, can range from mouse-like sniffles to I-shattered-the-toilet wheezing, the latter of which can be mildly rectified by popping pills or just, y'know, not leaving the house until spring exits through the back door like a jilted lover. However, in most cases, people prefer to actually live a little; dying of asphyxiation is really not worth the peanut.
Maya belongs to neither group of allergic persons, because membership would imply having a functioning sense of caution and self-preservation, both of which she lacks when it counts the most. Perhaps these same faults are the reason why she won a Nobel Prize for being a mad chemist.
But yes, she is, for lack of a better word, stupid, and her friends say—scream—as much. This has long been pre-established, way before these people even had conceivable particles in the universe.
Anyway, spoken like true roommates, Carrie and Solam had a good run, they really did; tried to be convincing with all their buddy-buddy goodness, but Maya has better things to do than be reasonable, like wrapping her arms around her favorite oak tree and equivocating relocation with deforestation.
"Ben and I were just starting to have a symbiotic relationship," she cries, muffled by her wild hair. "I watched the fifth season of Breaking Bad in its branches. I practically lived off of this bark for finals!"
"No, you're confusing Starbucks and wood, not the same edibility," Solam reminds. "Girl, you'll get over it. I promise, we'll plant you a better tree, in a better neighborhood, with a better wifi reception. They're just moving Benjamin to the park anyway."
"Bah, the kids won't appreciate him like I do. They'll... they'll stone him to death with legos or something, or carve hearts into him!"
"She's got a point, little bro," Carrie relents. Nonchalantly, she scrolls through her phone, waiting out the tantrum with pictures of marble cakes and pugs; all the while fanning the flames. "Relationships shouldn't be set in tree."
"Don't you start supporting her psycho-babble—"
"Hop off my dick, Solami sandwich!"
"Maya," Solam breathes, clapping his hands together as if in prayer and inching towards the problem child menacingly. "Maya, light of my life, you don't even have the balls to part with a plant, so do please shut up and let the construction people do their thing. It's been two hours already."
Said men were dawdling around the site, sharing imaginary popcorn amongst themselves upon realizing that the drama over an oak tree might have been the highlight of their week; that, and cracking a cold one on the job.
Maya looks between the unimpressive crew and her friends, glasses slipping down her button nose. "What are the chances of my pride being unharmed in a compromise?"
"Over your dead body." Ah, the magic words. Don't you know it, boy. The treehugger of a college student will later reflect upon this discourse and nod in approval at just how well Solam knew her to be in that life: stubborn to a fault.
"Your words, not mine hater."
It is at this time that a bee decides to make its way back to the hive, which so happened to be in the oak tree, the oak tree held by the woman, the woman with allergies, allergies that would surely prove fatal right about now.
Mondays, right? You think you're fighting the good fight, and then nope—just nope.
Of all the people present, neglectful Carrie spots the insect first and remembers the whole spiel about avoiding that which kills you. Before she can alert Maya though, as it often goes in stories with "moral" lessons, the youth shifts to the left just enough to agitate her incoming threat. She hears rather than feels the stinging countdown in her bicep, eyes watering against her will as the witnesses scream for a different reason this time.
"Oh, that's not good," she manages to get in, before dying a rather horrible death by flower-fucker.
This is new, and by that, Maya means the afterlife. She doesn't remember ever having passed through there longer than ten fingers counting, or with an original body intact.
Hello darkness, my old friend, is her first thought. I see you smirking at me like some Babadook ripoff, you absolute bastard. Just take me already.
She hasn't slept much this week too, or any week for that matter, because those don't exist anymore and the angels, spirits—whatever the floating, glowing replicas of Gal Gadot and Natalie Portman were—don't run on naps.
And for the record, nobody warned her about how expensive-looking the waiting room would be. She can't even breathe on anything, lest she have to pay for it; that makes her miss the floor of her campus library at 6 A.M. all the more, seeing the damnable sunrise wink through the blinds and a blinking laptop screen.
There is no fun to be had when one can't even slide a rebel finger over a statue, in fear of it chipping in the slightest. Silver columns, golden arches, and crystal eaves stretch as far as the eye can see, and the woman sits alone in this wide world, twiddling her thumbs and waiting for something she can't quite picture.
It must be somewhere though; she is sick of sitting around. In the bedazzled comatose of certain doom, much like the transition into adulthood, Maya is a headless chicken running towards the horizon. (Yes, she speaks from first-hand experience.)
"I didn't know this would involve so much waiting," she mumbles to herself. "Have I reached my limit?" Over the many, many years, the ancient soul learned to appreciate the art of self-conversation, as it sometimes outdid the talks she had with other beings; that, and when you have died one too many ways, rationalizing a loose screw comes naturally.
"Reviving always comes within seconds… damn, an asshole bee took me down this time and I can't even be six feet under without re-encountering the joys of having a sleep-deprived, panic attack-inducing conscience."
"We call that being unfortunate and self-loathing," a voice calls from the darkness, startling the 'undead' from her pity party. Maya raises her head quickly, staring right into the face of… uh…
"And what do they call you, nosy?" she irritatedly echoes, shielding her eyes from the blinding light and knowing full well that this may be the top dog speaking, the ol' G-O-D.
"I am one of the Valor."
"Fancy, but where am I?"
"You are currently in the Hall of Mandos. In this realm, one need not worry about physicality." The holy one gestures to Maya, but she can't really make out hands. There is certainly a tall, graceful shape to the entity when the pupils adjust, though not enough to be distinct. "The main concern is, are you ready to endure mortality once more?"
"Wow, I'm getting a choice?" Maya lowers her arms, opting to stare up at the ceiling and its endless capacity for chandeliers. "I thought you gods were all the same, because… it's always just been waking up without a given or purpose, no prayers answered. What makes this round so different? Am I even allowed to ask that, Your Brightness?"
"They did not tell me about your silver tongue!" the figure laughs. A slender, pale complexion begins to form underneath the heavenly glow, minty locks cascading down the front of an earthen dress. "Would you believe me if I claimed compassion?"
"I'm too old for that, but I guess I could. From one oldie to another. What do they call you?"
"I am Yavanna. I would like to grant you an audience with a special someone right now, one of my dearest creations. Benjamin, please step forward."
"Benjamin... that rings a bell—I, what?!" The woman dares to focus her gaze down, meeting bemusedly the green-eyed child with skin the texture and color of a beloved oak tree. He's even got the nub of a nose to prove it. "Holy jambags, you're a real boy!"
"Right?" he grins and jumps into her arms, feeling of splinters and sap. "I can hug back now. Thank you for risking your life to keep me home."
"Problematic faves are to die-for, y'know. I should be a good person more often, I'm pretty great at it."
"I see that you recognize some good within your withered soul," Yavanna comments, a whimsical note hanging between them. Some kind of wind picks up behind her, but it seems to barely rustle her perfect countenance. "I am in need of someone for an adventure that must be rewritten."
"What's the catch?"
"A dear friend has lived a broken life. I pray that you may help him find his way the second time."
"So he's done this before," Maya observes. "I think we'd get along well then, but I'm not very good at staying alive." She wrings her hands in a show of submission, until a ridiculous notion comes to mind, because why not? The goddess seems chill. "What might help though... can I get a cheat item? Like in a RPG game? I've always wanted to emulate The Penguin from Batman."
"It will be done."
Cue a pregnant silence, a potential smile, and a peachy blackout.
Honestly, it must be the sheer, damned nature of life and death to be without warnings; why did she expect this to be any different? One moment, she's reunited with her plant friend and on-hold for her maker, and the next she's thrust into a tiny, itchy chair next to a suspiciously familiar manger, a sleek black umbrella in hand. She rises from the seat cautiously, circling around the very short people crowded around the straw bed.
22 September, TA 2890. Bilbo Baggins comes into existence with an adorable cry and rosy cheeks, and Maya doesn't think that she could love anything more than him.