He was a grandfather lying in his bed, surrounded by loved ones. His body bore the scars of time. His face carved with lines from some cosmic sculptor. His body broken. Each breath building towards his last one. His family was with him. He knew it was coming but didn’t want them to know, and right before the last gulp of air, he smiled.

He was a million people and one.

He was a painter. His shirt covered in oil paint stains, his jeans threadbare. He didn’t wear shoes much of the time. Some times because he couldn’t afford them and sometimes because of his hippie disposition. His beard and hair sometimes had paint in them too and he always carried a paintbrush in his pocket, much to the consternation of his wife.

He was a million people and one.

He was a country singer. He spent his summers in sweaty little tents at small-town fairs. He ate fried food every day, and everything smelled like a barnyard. He sang for sometimes a hundred people and sometimes one. He sang about being poor, about his wife leaving. He sang about the dirt, and the town he grew up in, but mostly he sung about singing in little towns. He would get no record deal and he was long since caring.

He was a million people and one.

He was traveling with his new boyfriend. They were on their way to the next National Park, and they had just bought a new van and were going to live like the minimalists. They already had their Instagram account. They woke up in new places every day and half the time they’d wake up with the van door’s open with a mountain view.

He was a million people and one.

He was a small-town baker. He hustled every day to make ends meet. he woke every day at three in the morning and every other day he went to bed at midnight. He kept his doors open. He fed people. He fed his family. He had little money left over and his back hurt, but he could look himself in the mirror and it made it all worth it.

He was a million people and one.

And so it began and so it ended. He would close his eyes one second and it would end, Sometimes in the brittle elderly body. Sometimes in a youthful one meeting a tragic end. And he would open his eyes again screaming into the world often looking at the doctor and a smiling dad.

He was a million people and one.

She was a titan. A CEO. She looked down the table at the people in the boardroom. People nodding. Taking her cues. She brought the business back from the brink. As problems came up she handled them. She rode the wave after wave after success until success finally ended on a yacht in the ocean.

A million people and one.

He was a minor English Lord. He didn’t have much to do. He walked around his estate. He played games. He corresponded with other members of the gentry. He wanted for nothing. He spent his days worrying about an heir so the family name could live on.

A million people and one.

She was a science teacher. She spent day after day trying to keep students in line and so that maybe they’d be a little smarter at the end of the day than the beginning. She graded papers. She drove her kids to soccer practice. She missed her husband dearly.

A million people and one.

And so on and so forth.

It kept going and going.

A governess. A surgeon. A golf player. A coal miner.

A million people and one.

He was the first man. He walked upright, most of the time. He stretched to see over the tall grass. There was in danger every day. He found food. He found water. He lived, and so did many others.

It went like this. Eyes closing and eyes opening. Again and again. Sometimes he would even meet some of his past lives though they’d never know it at the time.

And in the microseconds in between, he’d see the others. The other ones flitting about from beginning to the next and then his eyes would open.

And it happened over and over again.

A million times.

A million people.

And one.