---

Gods and Spirits Our Witnesses

by S. C. Mills

We met in a public-access data booth at night, during yet another tropical storm, long after the angry god of the sea had gorged himself fat on Earth’s old icecaps. Rain hammered the booth’s cracked plastic walls with such brutality that I didn’t hear you walk in. I was staring down the chart of jacked-up daily data rates when you sidled into the tiny booth with me, half-lit by a stuttering streetlight. Close enough to touch, in a space meant only for one. You squinted at me, like you were calculating whether I was friend or foe.

You were scrawny, soaked to the bone, no doubt seeking any shelter from the sea god’s rage. Only a year or two younger than me, maybe, but your slim shoulders made you seem half my size. And the way your pretty wet eyelashes clumped together ’round your storm-gray eyes sent my blood rushing and my chest swelling with an ancient kind of pride. Like I was born to do nothing but give you all I had.

So, I pretended I was there to buy some add-on data, not because I was broke and needed a roof for a rainy night. I held my implant site against the scanner, grinding the heel of my hand on the wet metal plate. I let my eyes unfocus and roam, as if I were doing something on my heads-up display. In truth, all I was doing was fighting tears.

“Who you calling?” Your high voice piped up between thunderclaps.

“Cops,” I said, “to pick your vagrant ass up.”

Wary eye contact, like you were thinking about running.

“I wouldn’t.” I’d only meant a joke. I couldn’t stand to see you afraid, least of all of me. “Look at me. I’m a drifter, too. They’d book me just as quick.”

You smiled and slid down the wall to sit on the dirty concrete. You hugged your knobby knees to your chest, covering the cracked sunflowers printed on your too-big hoodie. “You ordering food?” Hope sparked in your shadowed eyes. “We could split something, maybe?”

Oh, how I would’ve loved to buy you a meal.

I pressed my fist on the scanner again. The zeros on my bank balance blinked back at me, each empty circle a separate symbol of my shortcomings. The bank’s logo—an animated bear—reared up on her hind legs and swiped me away.

“I would,” I mumbled, “but delivery drones are all grounded. ’Cause of the storm.” And maybe they were, who knew? I couldn’t afford the data to check. I blinked hard to dismiss my heads-up display, leaving only the downpour and grimy plastic to fill my vision. I sat down facing you and pulled my knees up, too. Your sopping, holey sneakers nearly touched mine in the narrow booth.

“Can’t do anything about the weather, I guess.” You shrugged, but you were eyeing me. My pointless lie sank through the thick air between us and settled in. A butcher’s knife jammed into a bleeding joint, needing only a hand to pull it free.
But it wouldn’t be mine. I kept my mouth shut. I had nothing to offer you. Shame felt like sinking endlessly to the bottom of the sea. Crushed by all the world’s water, yet denied the mercy of drowning.

Your smile wavered, but didn’t flee. “Least it’s drier in here.” You offered me your empty palm, heel turned up. I could just see the subdermal graphite smear of your implant in the flickering streetlight. “You could link with me while we wait. Show me some memories, maybe. Local connection’s free.”

So sweet. My teeth ached from you, for you. Like my mouth knew you already.

Pride still made me hesitate. My memories were nothing worth sharing. I had nothing that could impress you.

“Got a movie instead?” I asked.

“Nah. But I saw a mama bear, once. Real one.”

“You didn’t.”

“Did so.” You again offered your thin brown hand. “Wanna see?” You lowered your voice to a trusting whisper, tapped your skull. “High-def, full immersion. I got a prototype mem-capture installed last year.”

That explained your sweetness. You’d only recently tumbled down the social ladder to land here on this wet concrete, with me. Or you’d been a paid test subject for some tech corp, maybe, out of deep desperation.

You wiggled your fingers at me again. You’d offered your hand thrice now. I had to take it. Though the only thing I expected to see on my heads-up was maybe—outside chance—some grainy memory of raggedy-ass museum taxidermy of a bygone species, duplicated in translucent pixels.

Your sweaty palm met mine and stuck. Like two protons fused into helium, rising high, high, higher, ’til they lift away from the world. Gone.

---

Some vision, false memory, high-def movie or second-sight slapped me across the brainstem. Harsher than any gale-force winds, it left me staggering for mental footing.

I was a middle-aged woman. I was up in a high-rise, ringed by floor-to-ceiling windows. Wispy clouds framed the golden morning sun. Brilliant. Mesmerizing. Nothing like the filthy orange-gray haze I’d always known. The awe leadening my limbs showed me at last why so many were called to worship that mighty burning god.

I stood at a desk in a sea of desks. Archaic boxy exo-computers decorated each one. Cold filtered air raised gooseflesh on my arms beneath my sky-blue button-up. I shoved framed pictures, a paperweight shaped like a shaggy bear, and a little sun god’s shrine into a cardboard box. Anger throbbed through me with every heartbeat, with nowhere to turn but back onto myself. Even the paperweight bear glared an accusation with its beady glass eyes.

Another middle-aged woman stepped out of the boss’s office. Our eyes met. You. Somehow, I knew she was you, though you looked nothing alike. And I knew you’d lost your job, too.

Minutes later, we were both in the women’s room. I locked the stall behind us and pressed your body between mine and the wall. Your heels made you my height. You buried your face in my neck and shook with the smallest sob. Your hair smelled like sea salt and cheap floral shampoo.

“This is my fault,” I said. “I should’ve worked more overtime. Should’ve—”

“Our whole team is gone,” you murmured. “It’s a recession.”

Didn’t seem relevant to me.

“Maybe we can split a place?” Hope slipped into your voice. “One of those micro studios, maybe, to save money?”

The swollen-up pride in my chest wrapped around my brimming heart and squeezed.

“No micro studio,” I said. “Just move into my place. I’ll cover us, love. I’ll find another job.”

You pulled away from me, just far enough back to see into my eyes. Your lower lids twitched a question, but a smile bled through your trembling lips.

“I’ll cover us.” What I meant was, I must find a way.

---

ERROR. DISCONNECTION.

“What?” The word fell out of my mouth, loud enough to make you jump. Red text blinked on my heads-up, throbbing in time with a fresh migraine.

I was myself again—a young man, not a middle-aged woman. You were a stranger near my age whose gender I hadn’t asked. I sat across from you on damp concrete, stomach growling, in a plastic public-access data booth at night in a storm. A fishbowl, turned inside out.

“Did you see what I saw?” I asked. “A big sunny room, an office, the—”

“—lay-offs.” That professional word sounded wrong in your mouth. You frowned. We stared at each other, watching the wheels turn behind each other’s eyes.

“What’d you mean, ‘prototype’ mem-capture?” I kept my voice low. Some might saw open a kid’s skull for tech like that.

“It’s weird. It shows me stuff without asking, sometimes.” You swallowed. “I don’t always like it. But it’s never shown somebody else a memory without asking. And I’ve definitely never seen some old person’s memory.”

I shook my aching head. “You saw what I saw? Those exo-computers?”

You nodded. “Seen ’em in museums. Like the bear.”

“Yeah. In museums. Because that was ancient history. Nobody had mem-captures back then.” I’d learned that in school, years ago.

“Oh.” Your stunned tone told me you hadn’t.

We looked at our hands. I hadn’t noticed who’d pulled away, breaking the connection, but surely it’d been me.

It was you who reached out again.

RECONNECTED.

---

You were a man in this time, in this memory. I was a woman again. We were husband and wife, and I held you in my arms while you cried. Again.

We stood on a white-sand beach littered only with seashells. Clear skies above, waters like shimmering blue glass all around. An island, with a vibrant green rainforest and our village. Pink coral wavered beneath the ocean’s surface. A blazing red sun kissed the horizon.

Our village was building a fire on the beach.

Not a fire. A pyre. A funeral rite, a prayer of surrender to the god of death. We’d lost our infant to a disease we didn’t understand. Friends and family stood with us, wailing and grieving. Your sweaty skin clung to mine. A slow, deep drumbeat shook the air. Fire spirits in the form of smoke whirled a departed soul up away into the sky, and beyond.

At the jerky, non-linear pace of thoughts, dreams, memories—the funeral passed.

I couldn’t sleep that night. You pulled me away from our abode, where our living children and cousins and whole sprawling family slept on soft rushes under a thatched roof. Safe and healthy, all. Life goes on and on and on.

You curled up with me on a woven blanket where the forest met the beach. A smear of stars overhead, our only twinkling light. You wove flowers into my hair and made me admit they were still beautiful. Even now.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I brought this on us. I didn’t pray enough while I was with child. I didn’t do all I might’ve done.” I cooed my refrain in your ear, my solace-song against all the gods’ cruelties. “This was my fault. Next time, I’ll—”

You pressed a thumb across my lips. So gentle. “You did nothing wrong.”

“It was my womb that carried—”

“It takes two to make a child,” you insisted. “And we must trust the spirits have reasons for every terrible thing.”
A constellation in the shape of a bear wheeled across the sky, watching us with hard and shining eyes. So I fell silent, because acceptance brought you comfort, though it gave me less than none.

---

ERROR. DISCONNECTION.

Lightning illuminated the glass-and-metal high-rises around us. The street was flooded, rushing waters inches deep, urban rapids banked by crumbling concrete. Our hands hovered midair, inches apart. Tears cut a path through the grime on your face.

“I lived and died on that island.” Your stricken expression clashed with the wonder in your tone. “You did, too.”

My bones trembled in resonance with your words. An impossibility, yet it rang through me as a holy truth.

“It’s AI slop,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t feel. “It’s rendering one memory from multiple—No. It’s rendering what some real high-def movie looks like from two different—”

“No. It’s not a movie. It’s not slop. It’s our memories.” You leaned back against the wall, eyes wide, but calm. As confident as I was, at least, or maybe more. “It’s pulling up your memory through the link, too. That was us.”

“No.” I shoved down a sob, fighting panic I didn’t understand. “Just ’cause it feels real doesn’t mean it is real. That tech is fucked up. I’m not letting it do that to me again. I’m done. I—”

Thunder followed the lightning, drowning my words. We waited through the rumble. The streetlight blinked off. The roar of the storm and the starless night and the thick humid air all conspired to blanket my senses. Like we were the only souls in the world.

Your trembling fingers sought mine in the dark. Curling and tangling together. An invitation. A plea.

I was wrong. I wasn’t done. I couldn’t let you face something so fearsome alone, without your protector. Me.

I clutched your fever-hot hand tight in mine.

RECONNECTED.

---

Back and back, all the way back, to the very first time.

You were a boy—a teenage boy, nearly a man. So was I. We ran on callused feet through a forest of ferns taller than we were. Faeries hid behind every frond; perhaps they were watching the first time our lips met.

The world was young and dangerous, and we hadn’t learned fear. We had our manhood to prove. We cut our palms and pressed them together and called ourselves blood-bonded, stuck together for all our life and any lives beyond, all gods and spirits our witnesses.

I was a touch older than you, just enough to want to shoulder all your burdens. I swore to protect you, always. In answer, you promised to forever bring me joy.

In that age, the veil was thinner; the natural world, closer, and still brimming with every kind of life. Fae spirits yet lived in the forest and the sea, in the beach and sky and the lands we were born to. The gods who shaped the world still played with humans like parents play with children: to delight in their creations, but also to teach lessons.

And one of them heard us.

While our blood still mingled and dripped down our wrists, a faerie came upon us, wearing the form of a mama bear. She reared back on her powerful hind legs, towering above us, roaring a warning that shook my skull—

Before thought, beyond spoken promises, out of nothing but young love and even younger pride, I covered you with all I had: my body.

No, not a warning. A test.

I would’ve sworn she smiled at me with those hard, glassy eyes. She retreated, leaving us unharmed. I knew her then to be a spirit of protection, one to whom I could offer all my worship. And so could you, for she was a spirit of joy, too. Flowers bloomed beneath her great paws. She was well-fed, content, never far from her cub. Never alone.

She offered us a deal: she’d make our love everlasting. We’d always be together, over and over again, so long as we kept our vows of protection and joy. So long as we embodied her spirit, our two souls would never be apart for long.

But every fae bargain has a catch. In exchange, suffering and misfortune would follow us in every lifetime. Pain would find us, instead of finding her, our patron.
You didn’t hesitate.

It was the easiest decision I ever made.

---

We recalled a thousand lifetimes that night, jamming old souls into young bodies. Never before had we known all our pasts at once. We clung together in that booth ’til the sea god stayed his wrathful hand, though he lingered in puddles to see if our stubborn, ancient hearts had yet grown beyond our natural temperaments. When a hazy gray sunrise again scattered off the skyscrapers’ windows, our fae patron peeked out through those great towering mirrors, out of her realm and into ours, checking whether we were holding up our end of the bargain.

“And I’m not,” I said to you. “I’m failing again.”

Hours ago, you’d crept across the filthy cement and into my arms. My tongue had again tasted the familiar sea salt of your lips. We huddled together still, you curled against my chest, our hands clasped tight. The plastic booth’s wall bowed out from the weight of our weary bodies. I could feel your stomach rumbling, in time with my own.

“I’ve failed you, and I keep failing you. Over and over.” I wrestled with a sob in my pride-swollen chest. Down the street, a car door slammed. A uniformed man climbed out, scanning the streets. Just existing on claimed Earth was a crime, now, in this crowded age.

You hadn’t seen our newest misfortune, not yet. Your wet lashes and wide gray eyes were steady on me. “You can’t protect me from everything,” you said. “Our patron has to understand. It’s her curse we’re carrying.”

I hardly heard you. Now that I knew to look, I saw the mama bear spirit everywhere, from the constellations above down to the faded sunflowers on your ratty hoodie. She was always with us. Always watching.

Watching me.

“She could take back her blessing.” Fear throbbed in my stiff limbs. “We might not meet in our next life, and it would be all my fault. Not yours. You’ve never let me down once. Not in any lifetime. You always bring me joy.”

My heads-up display flickered alive unbidden, and my bank’s bear-shaped logo lumbered across my view. The faerie reared up on her holographic hind legs, ready to swipe me away from you.

“But you bring me joy, too,” you said, from behind her. “You always see the bright spots, even if I have to show you first.”

I wanted to say it didn’t matter. That was your side of the bargain, not mine. But on my heads-up, pastel flowers caught my eye, blooming from beneath the mama bear’s fearsome paws.

I dipped a finger in the dirty stormwater trickling past the booth. I called up memories of clear mountain streams, of bygone waterfalls in cool forests, yet untouched by scorching summer fires. I breathed in polluted air, threaded with a hint of sweet petrichor. Bright spots. How you loved to show them to me. The weight of a thousand lifetimes of accumulated wisdom was at last enough to bow my pride. I blinked hard and breathed out my fears, blowing away our pixelated patron like those old dandelion flowers.

Because if I had ever brought you a moment of joy, even once, maybe you could—

“I’m broke.” A truth that cost every ounce of my ego to admit. “We’re about to get kicked out of here, and I can’t even fill our stomachs. But you offered to split food with me when we first met. Met this time, I mean. So you must have a few credits. Could you—”

“I’ll cover us, love,” you said. You smiled, and though it was you who was nestled in my arms, I was held.

---

Host Commentary

Once again, that was “Gods and Spirits Our Witnesses” by S. C. Mills.

The author had this to say about the story:
I wrote this after reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I wondered how much more I might be able to learn and grow, if I could meet my spouse in every lifetime.

Reincarnation manifests in a lot of interesting ways in fiction, and brushes up against related concepts like time loops and multiple realities and isekai. It allows us to explore a person’s different lives, to see what core components of their personality and character remain similar when other things change, creating continuity from past to present. Reincarnation is frequently about growth, improvement, finding ways to iterate and break negative cycles that the characters may not even be aware of if they can’t remember their previous lives. Reincarnation also often contains a romantic component, like the belief in fated mates, threads of destiny tying people together in this world and the next and the next after that. Hoping that someday you might become your best self can mean hoping you have someone to share that journey with you, someone who supports you and who you can support right back. Love is a force multiplier, making us many times stronger together than we are individually, so we can do and be more even when our lives are difficult. Love is a lighthouse and a safe harbor, a shelter in a storm no matter how hard it rains, in this life or the next.

Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. Please do share it.

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Our opening and closing music is by daikaiju at daikaiju.org.

And our closing quotation this week is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who said:

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Thanks for joining us, and may your escape pod be fully stocked with stories.