Page 9 of Katabasis
“Even Professor Grimes.”
“Wait their turn.”
“No exceptions.”
The more intact girl cocked her head. “Will you save him?”
At this question, all the undergraduates surged forth and flocked eagerly around Alice and Peter.
“Will you scoop him out of here?”
“Is this for yourresearch?”
“Is it for apaper?”
Alice felt a pang of sympathy. She’d always been fond of undergraduates, no matter how much she enjoyed complaining about them. In truth, Cambridge students were a pleasure to teach. Naïve, eager things. With few exceptions they were never lazy, never insolent. Quite the opposite. They were generally cheerful, unformed minds who still asked for permission to use the restroom during section, who regularly forgot the order of operations when switching from maths to logic, who stuttered from nerves during office hours and opened their papers with inane declarations like “THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY DEFINES VALIDITY AS...” and “SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME, MANKIND HAS BEEN TROUBLED BY THE PROBLEM OF RATIONALITY.” She used to see them bundling into the Pick together after lecture, pink cheeked from the cold, chattering happily over cheap beer and soggy chips. She liked to watch them chatting animatedly about their classes, hands waving about in the air, their vowels just a bit forced, their jargon heavy-handed. They made her wonder, envious, if ignorance was truly the secret to bliss.
“Shall we go in together, then?” Peter asked gently. “Isn’t it about time you lot moved on, anyways?”
This was apparently the wrong question to ask. The undergraduates shrank back into a tight, glutinous mass of psychic distress. The air suddenly sharpened with cold. Alice’s arms prickled. She made a mental note of this.Shades can affect atmosphere, if upset.
“Scared,” said the more intact girl at last.
The others nodded.
“Of what, though?” Peter asked. “You’re all such—I mean, I’m sure you have nothing much to atone for.”
Violently they shook their heads. “That’s not it.”
“No, no...”
“We are scared topass.”
“Scared to not be—”
“Scared of the Lethe—”
“Scared to forget—”
“To become—”
“Scared to be other.”
“It’s only reincarnation,” Peter said. “You won’t remember a thing.”
“Precisely. We were magicians,” said the boy with glasses. “If we go...”
“We won’t be magicians.”
“You’re joking,” said Peter, with his classic lack of tact.
Alice thought he was being a bit daft. Of course these Shades were scared. Souls often lingered in Asphodel for years—decades—before trying for reincarnation. Loss of identity was a terrifying prospect. Who were you without your memories, your background, your relationships, your station? What if your lot in the next life was far worse than the life you’d just lived? It didn’t matter that in theory souls enjoyed infinite lives, and infinite chances to experience things good and bad. From the subjective perspective of the soul, reincarnation was no different from death.
What’s more, reincarnation was always a lottery. Alice could understand not wanting to try their chances.
“You’ve barely lived,” said Peter. “There’s so much more to life—wouldn’t you like to try again?”
The undergraduates quivered.
