Schrödinger's Cat;

Or, A Study in Reincarnation

By: sweet osmanthus

Inspired by and dedicated to the awesome SI/OC authors in this fandom.

The thing is this –

it's nothing like anything you've read or seen the movies. Most things aren't. Neither memory nor the brain works that way. So the idea that you would be aware of being born or know you've been reincarnated immediately is scientifically impossible. You recognize this. Then again, reincarnation is also theoretically impossible; and look where you are now.

You feel slightly cheated. But also you're not sure you haven't imagined all of this.

(A desire to become absorbed in an imaginary world - to the point of avoiding the real world? Some part of your brain races through hypothesis. Depression? Avoidant Personality? Are you crazy? You ask yourself this over and over and over and over-)

It starts like this -

distant feelings of awareness, strange and uncomfortable feelings of deja vu. A familiar but unfamiliar name on your tongue. Missing someone you can't quite place or recall. It is an itch beneath your skin, an eerie wrongness infecting you down to your last atom. It leaves you nauseous, a battle you do not win often. You cry frequently. Your beloved mother and father worry over you.

(Is this your mother? Or not-mother? Is this your father? Or not-father? Is there something wrong with you that you can't tell?)

You love your family. They are the center of your world.

(As a child you always wanted a twin, someone whom with you could share your soul and deepest secrets. Your siblings were all far younger than you, eventually always a pack of children underfoot anywhere you tried to walk. You get the urge to shout, unfamiliar words and terms. You don't understand. Your words turn to ash on your tongue.

A forgotten woe poisons you. Something inside of you bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. You idly hope you are no longer anemic.)

Your sole sibling, your twin, cuddles you incessantly.

It helps.

At least, somewhat.

(Oh how you had wished and wished for a younger brother or sister. You spent little time in your home, too often at the library reading or at eating dinner at your friends' houses, in part a choice and in part a result of two working parents.

You started bringing the books home when your mother's pregnancy announcement went out and she quit her job).

You and your twin are always together, often holding hands or sleeves.

(In the dark of your shared room, as she slumbers, sometimes you wonder if you are afraid she will disappear if you let go.)

Your parents dress you in matching but not identical clothes. Clan colored, of course. You are part of a large clan. There are always uncles and aunts around. Even if there are not many cousins your age, you have no time to be lonely. If your parents aren't around, you are under the supervision of an aunt, uncle, older cousin, or even an allied clan. You never complain when your parents leave for missions. It's always – you love them and will miss them and please come back safe.

(You don't want to let go.)

The children of your clan often nap together. But it isn't uncommon for them to play games like ninja tag, missions, shadow says, or train. You don't always play with them.

Sometimes you and your twin sit with the adults instead of playing with the other children.

Sometimes you share secret imagination games with your twin. Your favorite is noble prize where you research and discover things and win prizes. She prefers crime scene investigation, particularly when it ends in a game of ninja tag. Sometimes some of the other clan children play your games with you. Sometimes you pet cats, dogs, and deer.

(Sometimes you dream of warm libraries and labs filled with microscopes. Sometimes you dream of ancient forests and watching wildlife. Sometimes you dream of seeing unique buildings and those carved in ancient stone. Smiling as you ruffle the hair of the youngest, you laugh at their awe. You see pretty colored rocks in buildings and old artifacts of a time long past. You dream about meeting beautiful brown eyes and your heart pounds. And pounds and pounds.

You awake silently crying, dream contents just out of reach but unable to shake the feeling of great loss and a broken heart.).

Your twin sings a victory song as she solves the mystery of who ate the last cracker –a cracker that you were supposed to feed to the deer. You parents laugh when you immediately claim you remember it both ways.

(After all, memory is mutable. People are constantly making new memories, and the brain saves, maintains, updates, and removes memories in equal measures. Short-term and long-term both are from one perspective. Memory is not about the truth. It's about feelings and impressions.

Three people could experience the same event and remember it three different ways.

Memory is not accurate. It changes with time. It changes with distance. It changes, always.

You get flashes too fast to keep, too fast to understand. But that doesn't mean you don't feel those emotions strongly.)

No one gets in trouble; your parents are amused by both of your precociousness.

These are golden days; so full, you wonder if the love in your heart will begin to spill out.

(Are these memories? Do you want them to be? Do you even remember what you think you might be remembering? Is this your imagination?)

You are called creative by adults. So original and imaginative, they tell your twin as she recounts the Space Explorers game you played earlier, how delightful to play such a game. How did you come up with it? Your twin looks at you and you shrug.

You don't know.

(You hear the adults talk about the two of you.

They praise your parents for their parenting. Always completing their chores or entertaining each other with their silly imagination games. So smart, so mature, so filial, so dutiful. The twins are so close - my children never stop fighting. How do you do it? My child is always complaining about how troublesome everything is that I have to yell at him to get him to do anything – any advice?)

You are not as athletic as your twin. She does morning exercises without much bullying. You require more prodding than her.

Sometimes when you run, you clutch your chest.

(So afraid your lungs will burn. How do you remember to breathe? Are you burning?)

You hear her giggle, and you look up. She's smiling as she reaches out a hand to you. You grab it. The two of you begin your laps. Your twin is a balm on your open wounds, she soothes you so easily.

You cannot imagine life without her.

(You don't want to imagine life without her.

But sometimes you forget she's there. You try to call other names – not hers- names you don't quite know, of people you don't quite recall. It makes your skin crawl and your hair stand on end. You feel haunted by ghosts you can't perceive. You feel hunted by hidden monsters that call your name under the wind.

Sometimes you forget you're here. Sometimes you are lost - not sure where you are or who you are or who anyone is.

If you're not here but you're not there - and you aren't and she isn't and they aren't - is this even real? Are you real?)

This is how it is –

flashes and feelings and panic and calmness and fear and lack of fear and grief and love and apathy and dreams and awakenings and remembering and forgetting and emptiness and fullness and knowing and not-knowing. It is cycles of things you should know but don't and things you know but shouldn't. Sometimes you catch yourself thinking now and sometimes you catch yourself thinking before. Sometimes you feel the thoughts of before leaving. You don't know whether to chase the before or to run away from the before.

This is how it is –

No escape from the simultaneous feeling of wrongness and rightness. You are locked in, and there is no escape.

(Is this reality? You want to scream. You want to laugh. You want to cry. You want to ask. You don't know who to ask. How can you ask this? Are you crazy? Are you? Do you even want to know?

Sometimes you think you do; but most of the time, you think you would rather not.)

Like all children of clans, you are trained and taught. Your childhood is full of learning. Learning is fun and easy and hard and boring and interesting. You equal parts love it and hate it – no different from the other children of your clan. Your clan prides themselves on intelligence. You are smart but all of the children of the clan are smart.

(You used to get perfect grades. You used to study and to try your best. Or did you? You can no longer tell if you are studious or lazy.

Grades are inconsequential.)

In a clan of intelligent children, you are no smarter than them.

You are not less either.

(You ask so many questions but there are so many more you do not voice.

Is there a before? If before was true, would it even matter? Subjects were different, methods were different, and overall cultural mentality was different. Is anything the same in the now in comparison with the before? Does it even matter if it is? You sometimes wonder if the other children are like you. You are too afraid to ask. Is everyone afraid to ask?

You wonder if they can see what's poisoning you. Can they tell? Does it radiate from somewhere within you? Do they know what can heal you? You are too afraid to know.

There are a lot of things you cannot ask.)

Like any good child of the clan, you examine evidence, you hypothesis, you analyze, you experiment, you conclude. The questions you pose yourself never end. There is not enough data. It's not observable, repeatable, testable, or falsifiable.

You cannot reach an acceptable conclusion.

You are not sure there is an acceptable conclusion.

(Overactive imagination? You want to believe. Reincarnation? Not a conclusion easily accepted. Or are you awake? Are you crazy? Is this a dream? A dream is a possibility. But are you a child dreaming of a being a man? Or a man dreaming of being a child? All are possible, you think, none can be proved or disproved. Perhaps, then, all are true until observed otherwise.

But does it matter in the end? Sometimes you wonder if it might but mostly you wonder if it doesn't.)

What matters is this –

you are six. You live with your parents and your twin sister. You love your parents and twin. You love your family, your clan, your village. They are your whole world. One day you will grow up and be a ninja.

(Are you crazy? You ask yourself again and again. You never answer. It is your poison and your mantra.)

What matters is this –

by the time you are thirteen, you have heard so many jokes about being an old man in a young man's body and you being thirteen going on thirty. In a way, they're probably more right than they know. In a way, they're probably more wrong than they know. By the time you are thirteen, you don't care either way. By the time you are thirteen, you have accepted that you will never know. By the time you are thirteen, the only dream that matters is protecting your precious people and your village. And you are willing to use anything you know or might have known to achieve your dream.

They are what matters.

(And that is your acceptable conclusion).