The title to my blog is probably the shortest I’ve ever written in my entire life. Crossings a word until now for which I haven’t given much importance or can’t remember using it much either.
Books to me have always been close to my heart since I was a child. We were visiting one of our friends and just before leaving like I'd done before, I stopped by to take a quick look at the pile of books stacked up on the shelves. I knew we had to rush and pick up a book in a jiffy. My hands and eyes were all over and then, like I always say - books have a calling. Simply put, I feel books have to talk to me before I decide to read them. Lo and behold, Crossings was a book I picked. The book cover had a single eye in the middle. After quickly reading the short preview, I knew I had stumbled upon my next favorite. I can somehow always tell.
Books definitely take you to a different world indeed. And the plethora of information and knowledge that comes out of it is incredible. Here’s a book that talks about ‘Crossing’s’ - literally switching into another person’s body by merely looking into their eyes. Since it’s a work of fiction, I will simply refer to this as a practice of the ancient island people. They supposedly did so to understand each other, retain their culture and traditions, to pass on this for generations to come.
The two characters in the book live on for almost a century, having lost each other through a wrong doing and improper crossing. By the time I finished the book, I lost track of time and place, worse, who had switched into whose body - especially the male protagonist. But I simply marveled at how the idea weaved around the plot and how the writer brought them together. I felt like I had traveled to places and people I’d not known nor met.
Metempsychosis is the term used for a soul passing into another’s body after death. But the fictitious tradition defied it all by ‘Crossing’ while still being alive and with different possibilities. Strange is this world now with all the things that are imagined, created or even thought of. For almost a day now, I have been trying to put down the chronological order of the characters from start to end, not to forget researching if this was really a thing now.
Nevertheless, the very thought of ‘crossings’ to me is a very frightening prospect. Who’d to want to switch places now and figure out what’s going on in the other person’s mind. Why bother collecting their memories and understanding their experiences? Isn’t one body, soul and life not enough? What with all that we have to deal with, I’d give it a pass even if it was for fun.
On a serious note, if this was an acquired talent, what could the world have become by now? Humans today seem to have lost sanity and a sense of direction, at least some of them. What a disaster it could be ‘Crossing’ happened for real. Misuse of power would have then been the greatest tragedy to befall.
I’m now going to go back to piecing the characters together just to make peace with myself. Truth or fiction, this book will now be one of the greatest reads ever and one of my favorite too.
I think most cultures have some kind of metaphysical beliefs or legends. Possession of one's body, mind or soul by some outside entity is a very frightening concept.
ReplyDeleteIMO the reality is possession is in the mind of the one supposedly being possessed. Your mentioning of island people reminded me of the ancient (but still often used) Hawaiian personal greeting between two people of touching noses and breathing in the other person's "mana" or life spirit through their breath. Another belief was that a person could be "prayed to death". One requirement was to obtain something belonging to the intended victim, either a personal item or some hair for example and pray at it. The key though was the victim had to also be aware that they were being prayed to death. That is where the possession came into play. The victim's own mind would often manifest a fear that eventually became an illness possbly leading to death.
A fictional example that comes to mind is an episode of the old TV show "The Twilight Zone". A man was passing a newsstand and bought a morning paper. He tossed a quarter into the coin box and it stood on its edge. Almost immediately he began to hear the thoughts of passersby. He enjoyed knowing what was going on in other people's minds and used his ability to influence events and control others to his advantage during the day. Eventually he had dozens and dozens of thoughts intruding on his own mind which he couldn't shut off. It was so overwhelming that he decided to go home, lock the door and try to be alone with his own thoughts. On the way he stopped to buy an evening newspaper at the same newsstand. When he tossed his quarter into the box it knocked over the one from the morning. His mind was once again his own. So, I guess being able to enter someone elses mind (or soul) could be one moral of "Crossings".