My Past Lives

Weird fiction piece by Clark Humphrey

11/21/90

In my past lives, I was:

• A cop who spoke out against bashing union organizers, and who received as his reward the chance to die as a “hero” in a “failed ambush” on a well-connected gangster.
• An anonymous subscription-fulfillment clerk at Time-Life in Chicago, who had two kids, raised prebred cocker spaniels, and died at age 55.
• The last survivor of the battle at Fort McHenry.
• Bing Crosby’s piano player’s piano tuner.
• A starlet who fucked five studio executives but only got as far as a bit part as a murder victim.
• The mother of twins who had a fatal heart attack upon learning that one had become pregnant by the other’s husband.
• The grand prize winner of a berth on the first postwar cruise to Europe.
• Goya’s mistress.
• A nurse who treated 17 malaria victims in one day, and heard of at least three of them surviving.
• An English society matron who successfully bid on the last hat made with the feathers of the last bird of a species that had become extinct due to the making of these hats.