Foolish Flame

"I miss my bed." The words escaped me as soon as I sat down on my office, how long has it been since I went home? I set the record in the hospital with two consecutive 12 hour operations but the beeping on my table reminded me that my work was still not over. At times I wonder why is it that I am not allowed to go home when unskilled surgeons could, why it is the curse of the talented to be continually be used for their talents. I pushed my self off of my office chair and from the desk drawer took out a bottle of pills. It contained a plethora of random energy pills and supplements: my dirty secret. It ran my body to the ground but at least this way I could keep my performance. Rest is only for those without the ability to save lives, Rest comes at the expense of innocent lives. No, I must remain strong, I was gifted! I am a genius! I cannot rest...

That was the last thought I had before I suddenly felt a sharp tightness in y chest. I gasped for air but it was as if my lungs closed up. I fell down still unable to breathe...my expert opinion? Angina, clogging of the artery...Most likely cause? My own stupidity....On my next life I'll take it easy....

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My experience of death was a bit underwhelming to be honest, I didn't spasm, I didn't see my life flash before my eyes (not that I lived a life outside my work to be honest), it was simply dark. The sinking feeling you get before you fall asleep except perpetual. You fall and you fall and you fall. Nothing to see but darkness, nothing to hear but silence. Until the falling feeling stops and you get pulled out...and then you wake up.

Here's a question, what do you do if you are suddenly reincarnated in a fantasy world? I bet upon the several options of adventure and mystery the idea of living like a middle ages peasant never came to mind but that is exactly what I did.

I acquired my past memories the moment I began to develop an awareness of self which was when I was about 7 years old...its hard to tell exactly what my age was because I was the ninth child of a peasant family and thus there were never really any celebrations of birthdays and which each day exactly like the other, you began to lose track of the passing of days as well.

I liked my poor new family however, my father was a decent farmer who barely spoke but always provided meals for us, my mother was a patient teacher who spent all her spare time with her children. And my older siblings were nice too, they didn't bully me or at least not too badly. I was particularly close to my eldest brother Alherran. He was tall and muscular but he was too much our mother's son and you could see the gentleness emenating from his gentle smile.

I remember one particular day as I was playing in the forest, trying to figure out the auras from all around that oddly enough only I could see. They were wisps, little magic orbs of different colors and although tiny I could tell early on that these creatures were both powerful and wise, however they were also playful and as I tried to chase them out of childish impishness they would slip from my fingers. Some were like balls of water that simply flowed outside of my fingers fluidly, others were like flames in a candle that would put out the moment you tried to hold them only to come back when you let go, and then there were the purple flaming orbs, they were few and can never be seen with the others and once you tried to touch them they would pulsate in a menacing manner and begin to grow bigger and their flames unlike those of the other orbs would start to get increasingly hot.

The first time I in my naivety tried to play with a purple wisp, I got burned badly and would have died if not for Alherran. He noticed the purple flames from afar and quickly ran towards it. Among all of us siblings, Alherran was the strongest both in terms of physical strength and magic, that day with the purple wisp was the first time I saw his true power. Surrounding his whole body with magic, he began emanating a dark fog around him and matching the wisp's flames the fog got wider and wider. Then centering all the fog towards his hands he made a cross punch and massive amounts of magic burst forward blowing away the flames. At first the wisp tried to fight back, but within a second it realized how powerful Alherran was and it backed away. A powerful wisp of the forest backed away from my brother, that was when I realized that even among mages, Alherran was special, almost heroic.

"Caspian you fool, how many times must we tell you to never go beyond the meadows! The wisps are immortal magic creatures, and they're strong! They feed from the magic provided by the forest and so long as the wisps remain in the forest they will never run out of magic. You even tried to touch a Purple Wisp! They are the worst of them all, purple is the color of evil and even in the wisps they are of no exception!" My brother explained as he bandaged my scortched right arm which I used to try to touch the wisp. I could not believe that I was an adult in my mind and yet was whimpering now like a child falling off his bike. I guess even when my soul was old, my body was not and still I had these tendencies to act my age...in this world I mean...

When I got home that day and Father saw my bandaged hand, he looked at me with his penetrating dark eyes and asked "Are you okay?" I meekly nodded and he went his way not even inquiring about how I got my injury. Mother was different though, she asked me everything and just as quickly as I finished scolded me for everything, even going as far as to call Alherran who was back to working at the fields just to scold him too. He took it stoicly and gave me a piercing look...in the way siblings can communicate without needing words I knew that I had owed him one and he would one day collect and punish me for getting him in trouble.

"Mother, what are wisps?" I asked her a few days later as she was heating me a cup of hot chocolate after noticing that I was still awake. My past life as a medical student had forever changed my circadian rhythm and even in this world would remain wide awake in the middle of the night.

Seeing my curiosity she began to tell me a story. Long ago there was a man who Death came for. He was a foolish man who drank his life away and it was not long after that his life ran out. Death sat next to the man and seeing him out conscious from drunkeness decided to finish his half empty mug of ale, the man then opened his eyes and told Death, "Alas you have drank my ale now you must pay for half of it." Death realizing how rude he had been turned into a coin so that he could pay for the ale but instead of handing it to the bartender, the man put Death in his pocket where hid a turtle shell. Death despised turtles which is why he gave them such long lives so there would be less of them in the underworld and so, so long as the shell was inside, Death could not turn back.

It was in this way that the man escaped Death but one day the man saw a sick beggar and pitying him he dug in his pockets to give the beggar something. The man found a coin inside and as he handed it to the sick beggar the coin suddenly turned into Death and took away the man's soul. Death however was furious at the man and refused him entrance to the Underworld. It was in this way that the lost soul remained on this world without a body and sustained only by the burning passion of his spirit to remain. "This was the way wisps came to be." Mother said, "The true name of the wisp is Ignis Fatuus, the Foolish Flame. For like the man, wisps are fools who tried to cheat death not realizing that death is a natural thing that comes for us all."

I always had an unexplainable connection with wisps perhaps this was the reason. The way I saw it the man was a fool not because he tried to cheat Death, he was a fool because he lost his life out of kindness. In that way I was like the wisps, a fool refused an afterlife and thus forced to stay alive by the fire in my soul and the will to survive. Perhaps that's why back in Earth they were called Will-o-wisp.