Just like that simple greetings and farewells were unlocked in his mind. It was an unusual feeling. Not so different from what happened when intellect or acuity increased. This was the meaning and understanding of words appearing in his mind instead of just mental capacity improving. In that way it was more specific but this knowledge was definitely something he had not had before. Weird, he thought with chagrin.

Shaking off his digression into the world of languages he refocused on what was happening below. The middle aged woman had just now finished speaking to the man in front of her and he had wandered off to what looked like stables. There were horse sized animals in there but his eyesight wasn’t good enough to see them clearly yet. It would improve, given time. But everything required an obscene amount of time and it was just a luxury he did not have. Who knew when he would bite the dust here? Life expectancy was not something he was aware of and he certainly had no idea what the average life of a Slime was. Probably not that long…how long has it been so far, 6 months, maybe 8? It’s all a bit of a blur, like a drunken haze where you remember bits and pieces but not everything and not clearly.

He could feel himself going down the rabbit hole again but was unable to make himself care, did it really matter how long he lived here? He was a Slime for crying out loud! What kind of existence was that? Not only that but there had been no clear path to becoming any kind of human again. He was circling…again…Aaarrghh! Aarav screamed in his mind to try to bring his thoughts back on track and ordered. It helped…a little.

I am here to figure out what civilization in this world looks like and how the humans live. That is going to become very important if I want to be able to blend in with them. But that is only relevant when I have some human bones…or bodies to remove bones from.

Aarav continued to nonchalantly people-watch, nothing out of the ordinary happened, the normal movement of people in a small settlement. He had been in his fair share of villages in Kenya to know what it looked like. Up in Ajao in the North towards the Ethiopian border, and incidentally where he had picked up a little Swahili. Laying low in an extremely rural place he had been the only person of Indian descent. Hmm, race, haven’t thought about that for a little while. I guess it doesn’t apply when you are made of slop….

He might have stood out like a sore thumb but no one found him there. That’s how he had liked it, a month later he had flown out and into the US and never gone back to Africa. He had wanted to, but it hadn’t been in the cards for him as he had died in one of his various exploits in the US or was it UK? He couldn’t remember the last few years of his life, not much of any of it. He recalled only the general gist like a good movie that you watched a few decades ago and now tried to recall.

What he did remember were the people in that village, all friendly and not overly enamoured of material things. They didn’t want a smart phone or a computer or a bigger house or a private jet. No, they were happy with the simple things in life. A hot meal, family, love, and they were very happy, certainly happier than he had seen in the big cities, running around fighting for next pay check and the next promotion and the next holiday. For what? Aarav still hadn’t understood the end goal but had allowed his self to get sucked into the rat race. From which he emerged…dead. Quite incredibly so in fact! No friends, no family and no money. Just debt and regrets and enemies.

These people that were milling about below, going about their incredibly simple but satisfying lives were something that he could never be, content. Content with what they got each day. Aarv had never had the pleasure of that satisfaction. Never known its glorious embrace, trapped in an ever increasing cycle of want and insatiable desire for more. That month had been excruciating for a being such as him, seeing something that he could never have and then knowing even more certainly in the depths of his soul that he was ultimately a broken thing.

He was boy or man that had been so fundamentally broken that he could never lead a normal life, a day-to-day existence that so many others enjoyed. Where the biggest problem they faced was who would drop the children off to school. A tear leaked from the side of three eyes as he continued to watch the passers-by below.

He watched a young boy no more than five walked hand-in-hand with an elderly gentleman with a stoop, chatting and laughing as the older man pointed out several shops and chatted happily to the boy. The boy in term laughed and asked questions back. Aarav could not make out the words they were too faint for his weak ears to pick up and he was not willing to let go of Piercing Eyes +1 that was allowing him to see this beautiful sight. That just caused the tears to flow even more freely.

What have I been missing out on? What did I do wrong? What went wrong for me? What is wrong with me? Why….me!? That last came out as a mental stab to his non-existent heart and he allowed himself silent tears, they flowed out of him in a torrent, losing some of his mass to the loss but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He needed this. The cathartic release was real and present. Not only for the life that he failed to live before this one but that he had died at all without realising it. He had hardened his heart and could not even remember what had caused his mental condition in the first place. That remained tantalisingly out of reach.

New life, new chance. New life, new chance. New Life, New Chance. NEw LIfe, NEw CHance. NEW LIFE, NEW CHANCE. NEW LIFE, NEW CHANCE. NEW LIFE, NEW CHANCE… he kept repeating that to himself as he watched the couple sitting in the green chatting over their picnic. The child and his grandfather walking through the street, the man in the shop door happily yelling out his wares for the people to hear. He repeated it when he saw smiles, nods and hand-shakes that were exchanged. Through it all, the tears fell and the mantra continued.

NEW LIFE, NEW CHANCE!!

Aarav lost track of time to his melancholy. An hour may have passed, then two, perhaps three. He couldn’t be sure through that haze. At some point he lost Piercing Eyes +1 to his misery and couldn’t make himself care. He couldn’t find the spare focus to get it back. All his knew what the view before him, his bone-deep sadness and his mantra. It would become his pillar, his cornerstone to a new life. And from that foundation he would build a super-structure that would eclipse all others.

NEW LIFE, NEW CHANCE!!

The volume was building in his mind, he focus continued to sharpen on this mantra. After the first few hours and as the sun reached its zenith, a shift happened, away from the melancholy and depression. Tears long since dried up his mood had shifted to something more upbeat, anticipation of a brighter future and throwing away the darkness of the past. It was his new beginning, not running from the problem, not fighting the problem and the feelings but embracing them, allowing them to wash over him and feel their fullest extent.

NEW LIFE, NEW CHANCE!!

While at first they had overwhelmed him, gradually he came to accept them for what they were, echoes and feelings of a past life. No less relevant for it but a past that he was not doomed to repeat. It was a conclusion he had come to before in this body but last time it had been a superfluous recognition, a survival instinct that he had developed during his short earthen existence. Eventually after several hours of gradually getting his emotions in check and shifting to the positive he felt the emergence of hope, tranquillity and joy. True joy, if he could feel the way he did it meant that his mind was not as broken as it had been in his previous life. He had been cursed with no social Skills at all, no understanding or the ability to interact with others.

NEW LIFE, NEW CHANCE!!