Nihil Sine Labore

When I was around 19 years of age, I went to a psychic expo and had a reading. The woman in front of me told me that I was a foot solider in an English king’s army in a past life. She never mentioned the era, but her words conjured up images of medieval times, of dull grey armour and flags of crimson. Of long marches in cold wind and deep mud. The psychic went on to tell me I had also been a well-known English female author. I recall ardently hoping she would tell me I had been Charlotte Brontë, for 'Wuthering Heights' has always been a much-loved story of mine.

When I wonder about who I was in a past life, what work I would have done, my imagination runs riot.

Perhaps I was a Celtic warrior queen, like Boudica, with flaming red hair flying in the wind? The silver torques about my neck and wrists boast my status as clearly as my bearing.

I imagine laughing with glee as I slay the Roman soldiers who seek to take what is mine. My land, my silver and gold, my livestock.

But then I imagine shrieking lamentations when they take my children from me, keening mournfully into the night like a banshee. So perhaps this is not who I was in a past life.

Rather, perhaps I was a monk in Medieval England, labouring away in dim candlelight to illustrate a chronicle for a noble patron? The roughly hewn hair shirt beneath my tunic reminds me of my lifelong vows to God.

I imagine mixing the different coloured inks I use to create the delicate blue Fleur de Lis and vivid green ivy which snake their way around the borders of my page, pages of Latin text which exhort the exploits of my master.

But then I think to myself, imagine how cold it must have been for this man, working in rooms with walls made of stone, and only a feeble fire to warm his stiff fingers by. Waking up in the night to go to prayers and snatching time here and there between his monastic duties to return to his illustrations. So perhaps this is not who I was in a past life.

Rather, perhaps I was a detective who worked for Scotland Yard when the infuriatingly elusive Jack the Ripper terrorised London in the 1880s?

I imagine walking the streets of Whitechapel, immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of the place where Saucy Jackie murdered his hapless victims. I imagine looking at every man I pass in the street, wondering if he is the madman who has propelled the city into terror and chaos. I imagine treading softly into poor, wretched Mary Kelly's room to analyse the horrific scene before me, my mind exploding because what I am seeing is actually real.

But then I think to myself, imagine how devastating it must have been for this man to come to the realisation that he would never catch the culprit, and that this depraved monster who hated women so much would never swing from the gallows for his crimes? So perhaps this is not who I was in a past life.

Perhaps I was an Indigenous person who stood on the shores of the New World, watching as the tall ships approached my ancestral lands.

I imagine the feeling of fear and confusion lurch in my stomach as these pale-skinned strangers disembark, bringing their strange customs, clothes, animals, everything, with them.

And then I imagine myself, two years into the invasion, stealing the white man's sheep and burning the crops he planted on the traditional lands of my people. I imagine my despair upon hearing that these people keep the skulls of my fallen warrior brethren and use them as bowls to store their sugar in. I imagine myself drinking myself into oblivion on them rum they gave me in exchange for my cooperation, my compliance, my silence.

Who I was in past life, I cannot say for sure. Perhaps I was all of these people, perhaps I was none of them.

All that I can be sure of is that each of these people lived, worked, and died for what they believed in, or simply to survive.

For as my high school motto goes, nihil sine labore - nothing without work.