Isadore sat in the grass, feeling the cold Russian wind blow his hair. In one hand he held a telescope, the other a dagger. He stared up at the stars, they were the one thing that remained truly consistent throughout his many life times. Isadore had many lives, and unlike many others he remember them all. At this point his early lifetimes where faded memories, such as the memories once has about their childhood. In his dozens of lifetimes, Isadore had been many things, sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, sometimes rich or poor; he’d held many positions, some of power, some destined to never be remembered. In this life, he was an author of a just published book about a person who could remember their many lives, in the hopes that someone would find it and know it was real, so he would find someone life him. It was greeted positively by the critics, winning several awards, but as far as Isadore knew, it remained fiction to everyone he knew.

Isadore still feared death, not because he had anything to fear about dying, he’d just come back again, grow up again, and die again. I It was the pain of seeing people from past lives, the smile of his old lover in a taxi driver, or the touch of his second mother in the man sitting next to him during one of the few times he attended a church service. It was knowing that none of those people who he had loved so deeply would know why he started crying when he saw them, why he welcomed himself into their lives, why he’d come off too strong and then the rejection. The pain of not being recognized by the people he had admired, loved and looked up to. That’s why Isadore chose a new name, ran away to the Russian countryside, and refused to talk to anyone but his publisher.

Isadore sat in solitude, staring at the stars. He remembered when the named them, when people built their lives around them, when they disappeared in the city for the first time. Yet, alone without any lights to block them out, they remained the same as he had stared up at the night sky for the first time. It was comforting to be around something so consistent, which is why he chose to die here.

Isadore was done with this particular life. The loneliness, the isolation, but he knew no one he would fall back on so the best he could do was start over again and play the game so that he could have at least a little more enjoyment in the next life.

Isadore took one last at the constellations, planets and lone stars, and put his telescope down, and lifted his dagger to his heart. It wasn’t his first suicide attempt, but it he still was afraid. Isadore clamped his eyes shut, the light of the stars still clamped in his memory.

Before the dagger could even touch his skin, it was pulled out of his hands. Surprised, he looked up and saw a man smile down at him.

“Sorry it took me so long to find you, your book wasn’t specific as to where in Russia you’d be. I’m glad I caught you in this lifetime!”

Isadore didn’t say anything. He just grinned sheepishly at his new star, his new constant.