“They shall guard thee, they shall protect thee.

Reverence be to them.

Hail be to them!”

—THE ATHARVAVEDA

(Book VIII, Hymn I, Verse 14)

Revelation is coming! I feel it in my brittle bones which poke through loose flesh into the thin mattress beneath. I feel it in my sagging muscles as I raise my head and Ramanuja—as sprightly as the day we met—guides a little water to my parched lips. I feel it in my spent heart and my pained lungs. I feel it in my rheumy eyes that catch the dawn light from the room’s single, bare window, and in failing ears that still hear the traditional chant, Ram Nam Sata Hai, as the dead are laid on pyres on the bank of the Ganga outside. But most of all, I feel it inside, in my Atman, my soul, where the history of my life as man—and alien—mingles with Brahman, the universal spirit.

How I came to this land I know not. All I know is that one day I awoke and I was here, dispossessed of my body, my kind, my world; everything save for my memories.

“Get up!” The words—whose meaning I understood clearly even though they were the first I’d ever heard—were followed by a sharp stab of pain from somewhere below. The smell of cow dung, urine, rotting vegetables, and exhaust hung all around.

“Get up!” Another stab of pain. “Dirty beggar! Find another place to lie!”

I opened my eyes (for somehow I knew I had eyes and they were more useful than the light-sensitive cells of my past form) and gasped at the richness of colour and detail in the visual field, a world away from the vague impressions of light and shadow of before.

“Dirty, miserable beggar. Seeking alms on the temple steps! You will be reborn as a dung beetle!” The stabbing pain was replaced by a more diffuse pain and I saw the words were coming from an ancient, living thing who thrashed a slender, dead object against... me!

An old woman is beating me with her walking stick, I thought, and marveled at the strangely familiar concepts blossoming in my head.

She continued cursing and prodding and hitting me while I examined my new body. No longer did I have a flotilla of tentacles; instead two sturdy limbs, two less sturdy but more deft ones, and one bulbous node which seemed to hold the seat of my being. I knew the names: legs, arms, and head! Moving these appendages, I found they offered no locomotive force, and in general—my sore and red midriff a noticeable exception—they were dead to the lively world of motion and colour all around. I brought my hands up to my face and discovered the channels by which this body was made aware of the world: eyes, ears and a crooked nose. My face was thin and bearded. The gaping wound across my face leading to my innards was my mouth, and touching my tongue with my calloused, grubby fingers I found the fourth sense, taste, reflexively spitting as I did so.

“He spits on sacred ground!” The old woman appealed to a couple of passers-by in the alleyway adjoining the temple. They rolled their eyes and didn’t break step. “Nobody gives a damn anymore!” she wailed, beating me with less enthusiasm now.

Whereas I was bare, save for a ragged white loincloth, the woman was clothed in a colorful sari—a riot of cherry red and fierce orange—with a plain towel draped over her shoulder.

At that moment there was creaking noise from behind, and turning my head (I’d noticed my vision was limited to a narrow field unlike its former ubiquitous scope) I saw the temple doors swing open and a priest step out. The woman stopped beating me and turned her attention to the priest.

“O Brahmin, how can this be Benares where Heaven touches the Earth, when we have beggars soiling the steps of the Golden Temple?”

I felt a sudden shame at an action that before was a mundane, empty event and shifted my legs to hide the damp loincloth.

The priest glanced down with distaste.

“He spits on these steps, too,” the old woman went on, “I saw him just this moment.”

“Is this true?”

I felt a reply formed and ready to be given, but I kept my lips sealed.

The woman hobbled up two steps to join the priest by the doors. “He holds his tongue because he does not want to lie to a Brahmin.”

“That isn’t true,” I said, a flare of anger eclipsing the novelty of being a natural speaker. “I hold my tongue because I fear your disbelief or ridicule.”

“You did spit on the steps then.”

I nodded, looking at the cracked, dirt-caked steps.

“See! See!” The woman prodded me with her stick again. “He should be turned out-”

“Patience,” the priest said pushing her stick down. He stared at me, curious. “What is your name?”

My name -- [End of Preview.]