"In my next life," I hear a young boy declaring, "I'll be a Spitfire.
"Say what?"
It's his oupa asking. The two of them are sitting at a small table in a coffee shop in town. Oupa is nursing a cappuccino, which sticks to his moustache, and the youngster a pannekoek and milkshake.
"A Spitfire, Oupa," he repeats, "a fighter plane."
"It's a machine, jong. You must be a living thing."
"But Oupa, you said you'll be a bull... um... dozer?" Oupa laughs. "No, man, a bull. But you could be a dragon, you know, one spitting fire."
"Yessss!" They toast each other like conquerors.
I'm at a table close by, wondering about their unlikely topic of conversation, until I notice the bevy of beauties at another table. There's life in the oupa yet, I decide.
Nursing my own cuppa, I think to myself: it's such an intriguing thought, though, a second life. Outside, there's a cold rain sifting down onto white gables and naked oaks - winter in Stellenbosch. A forlorn-looking pigeon is trying to find shelter in the bare, rain-blackened branches of an oak.
What if there were something like a second life? Could that poor, freezing bird have been a person in a previous life? A heartless judge, perhaps, a loveless priest?
Someone like Putin, even? Hell no, he'd be a squirming worm. Better still, an earthworm, living a life in the dark, chewing dirt.
In the East they believe you return, time and again, until you've learnt to behave. It's a concept that's steadily gained traction in the West, mostly in a joking sense. Yet two-thirds of Americans these days consider themselves true believers. The late Henry Ford, founder of the iconic motor company, is one of the famous names often mentioned.
But what is the allure, I wonder. A merciful second chance before entering the Great Unknown? Comfort for the bereft left behind?
When my husband died, my life suddenly seemed pointless and void. "He isn't gone," a well-meaning friend suggested, "try to find him in the life around you. In signs, like the butterflies in your beautiful garden."
I balked. Our garden was our Eden, a reminder of an era before my world broke. But apart from that, the idea of my smart, fiercely singular husband, my rock, returning in the shape of a butterfly? Such a Barbie doll flower flopper? No.
But we don't necessarily return as animals, the Buddhists would have it. You might also return as a ghost. I've never seen one. But, more often than not, I seem to want to. Some days, at dusk, I find myself watching the murky corners in the house, hoping against hope for the slightest movement there.
And I know it's foolish, I do. And yet... I don't like to admit it, but I'll frequently think twice before swatting a wasp in the kitchen. Or instinctively reach for my slipper when there's a spider.
It's absurd, I know. And yet I hesitate. And I talk to the praying mantis that sometimes flits into my bedroom. I am less annoyed at the little Cape batis that keeps tapping at the windows, for hours on end, pecking at its mirror image and messing on the windowsills.
People used to believe that these multicoloured little birds mated for life and that when one died, the other one kept searching for it.
All nonsense, I know. But I don't shoo him away anymore.
"Oupa," the little boy says and licks the last crumbs of the cinnamon sugar from his plate, "I don't think I want to be a dragon anymore."
"Oh?"
"A dragon would want to eat you, see? So I think I'll just be a boy again."
Smart kid, I decide, your life has hardly begun.
And me, then? No way am I facing another round. But if push comes to shove, let me be a tree, please? I would be good, like trees always are. Welcoming all, serving all life - from grieving little birds to families making a picnic in my shade.
Come Christmas, chop me down for a Christmas tree and make the children happy. Or build a fire to keep warm, have a braai. My smoke would curl upwards and heavenwards. And I would linger in the clouds, returning in the rain to bless the earth. Old Putin too, there in his wormy world under the ground.
My final good deed, of healing and grace.
