Column:

It's the Black Death — again

By Dan Friesen

Published Feb. 21, 2006

I have a long history of not humoring nonsense. I can be lied to pretty easily, I think, but I make quick work of dismissing ridiculous concepts. I remember an ex-girlfriend telling me about an exercise in past-life regression. Turns out she was Cleopatra and Mary, Queen of Scots. What kind of bullshit artist told her this? Further, how could she accept it? What does it say about me that I am with her? I guess it is empowering to believe your soul used to be incarnated in historically important figures but so is believing you are the only person in the world with feelings.

Well, suffice it to say, my naysaying led to a sizable fight, which then led to me agreeing to meet with this past-life regressionist myself. Ladies, compromise is my middle name.

So, the next Thursday, I had a meeting with my then-girlfriend's psychic. I expected incense and beaded doorways. What I got was second-hand smoke, bad fluorescent light and reassurance that, no matter how bad things got, I'm doing OK. I know you are all curious, so without further ado, my past lives:

1) I was spontaneously aborted twice: once in Ethiopia, once in Indonesia.

2) I died in infancy of a mild fever. I was a Native American, Choctaw to be precise. The shaman attempted to save me through a chant, dance and by catching running water in my hands. None of this worked.

3) I was a little boy born in thriving Constantinople in 526 AD. I was awkward and gangly. I preferred to be alone, but it's not like I had a choice. At 15, I was given a job unloading grain at the docks. A few months in, a load from Egypt arrived that was infected with the Bubonic Plague. I caught it and died, as did all my family and friends.

4) I was a young girl living in Germany in 1348. I was 16 years old, and things were changing inside me. I was blossoming into my own womanhood. My father was abusive and afraid of my emerging adulthood. He locked me in our house's cellar. The only light in my life was my dog, Brandywine. One day, in a fit of drunken rage, my father chased Brandywine away with a stick. Two days later, Brandywine came back to me, but something wasn't the same. He had fleas. I caught the fleas that were infected with the Bubonic Plague. My father found my body two days later.

5) I was born in Moscow on Nov. 23, 1935, to loving parents. I was christened Vladislav Volkov. As a child, I would look up to the stars and dream what it would be like to be up there in space. In the 1960s, Mother Russia's space program was heating up. I knew I had to sign up. It was hard work, starting at the bottom and working my way up, but it was all worth it. I flew the Soyuz 11 mission to the space station Salyut 1. I spent 22 days getting wasted on Stoli in zero gravity. On our return to Earth, everything appeared to go well, but the entire crew was dead on arrival. The public story is that the shuttle didn't maintain pressure, but the psychic assures me we were victims of a weaponized strain of Martian Bubonic Plague.

As I left her "office," the psychic made a bunch of cryptic warnings about bird flu. I think she said to avoid poultry of all kinds. Should I heed her advice and avoid my predestined epidemic-related death? Hell no. I had had quite enough of this woman and told her so in no uncertain terms. Wafer-thin sliced DiLusso cracked pepper turkey is so fucking delicious. Give that up because some fruity old cooze in a muumuu told me to? Please.

Oh, yeah, my girlfriend broke up with me shortly after. I think the psychic had something to do with it.