I Was Here Before I Was Born : Son of The Priest

That night, I could not sleep. The wind outside my window moved softly through the trees, but inside my mind something far older was stirring. My mother had not spoken much after our conversation. She finished washing the clothes in silence. She did not look at me the same way again. She behaved as if a question had entered her mind. Questions that she did not want to ask. But the question had already entered mine. If I had truly been somewhere before this life, why could I remember only fragments? Why not everything? I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling while the moonlight slipped through the wooden shutters. Slowly, sleep took me. But it was not the kind of sleep most people know. It was the kind that feels like falling into a deeper place. Suddenly the world was gone. No room. No bed. No body. I was somewhere else again. It was the same vast silence from before the physical beginning. Except now it was clearer. The space was endless. It wasn’t empty. It was alive. Light moved like breathing air. And the shadows were there again. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. They moved slowly through the brightness like drifting lanterns. And just as before, they were speaking. Not with voices. With understanding. One shadow passed close to me. I felt its thought touch mine. Where will you go? I did not know how to answer. Another shadow moved closer. Have you chosen yet? Chosen what? Before I could ask, something appeared in the distance. A vast opening in the light. Inside it, I could see something impossible. Earth! Not the Earth as people see it from airplanes or satellites. This was different. I could see lives unfolding like moving rivers of light. Children being born. People laughing. People crying. Wars. Weddings. Funerals. Every moment of human life flowing together like an ocean of stories. The shadows were watching. Waiting. Some moved toward the opening and disappeared into the streams of light. Others drifted away. And then the silence changed again. The same presence from before. Everything stopped. Even the flowing rivers of human life seemed to pause. The voice returned. Ancient. Calm. Unmistakable. “Another journey begins.” A shadow beside me moved forward and dissolved into light. Then another. Then another. Each one entering the river of life below. I felt something inside me pulling toward the opening. As if a path had already been chosen. Then the voice spoke again. This time directly to me. “Do you remember why you are going?” I tried to answer. But the truth was strange. “I… do not remember.” For a moment there was only silence. Then the voice replied. “You will remember when the time is right.” The opening grew larger. The rivers of human life began pulling me closer. I felt something new. Something I had never felt before. Fear! “What if I forget everything?” I asked. The voice answered gently. “Most do.” “Then how will I know why I came?” Another long silence followed. Then the voice spoke the words that would echo through my life forever. “You will hear the truth again, when the breath returns.” I did not understand. But before I could ask another question, the voice spoke once more. The same words I had heard before. “Son of the Priest, it is time.” And once again, I began to fall. I woke suddenly. The morning sun flooded the room. My heart raced, but the strange thing was not the dream itself—it was the feeling that it had not been a dream at all. It had been a memory. The village had gathered for Sunday service. Children played outside while the adults spoke quietly beneath the tall trees. The church bell had just finished ringing when it happened. Father Matteo stepped outside the church doors. He was a tall man with kind eyes and a tired face, a servant of the village for many years. People respected him, and more than that, they trusted him. But that morning something unusual happened. I was sitting on the stone wall near the courtyard watching the clouds move across the sky. Father Matteo walked past me. He stopped suddenly. For a moment he stared at me with a strange expression. Almost like recognition. Then I said something I did not plan to say. Something that slipped out before I could stop it. “Hello, Father.” He smiled politely. “Hello, my son.” But then I asked a question. A question that silenced the entire courtyard. “Were you there before we were born?” The priest froze. “What do you mean?” I pointed toward the sky. “There were many of us.” People nearby began listening. “You spoke to us,” I continued. “You told us it was time.” Father Matteo’s face turned pale. “I never said that.” I shook my head slowly. “Yes you did.” The courtyard was now completely silent. Then I said the words that changed everything. “You called me the Son of the Priest.” A woman gasped. Another whispered something. And in that moment the rumour was born. Someone said it quietly. But loudly enough for others to hear. “The boy must be his.” Another voice answered. “That would explain everything.” Within minutes the whisper had spread through the crowd. People looked from me to Father Matteo. From Father Matteo back to me. Suspicion moved through the village like fire through dry grass. Father Matteo turned and walked back inside the church without saying a word. But the damage was done. That day the village stopped seeing me as a strange child. They began seeing me as something far more dangerous. A secret!