from
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr
a graphic novel by
Ram V
illustrated by Filipe Andrade

“Maybe it’s easy to miss it when you’re a god. But when you’re mortal, there’s always a moment.

“Amid the pain and despair and all the indignities of a dying body, there is a moment of grace.”

“They burn the body because the soul is immortal. But it is reincarnated into another cycle.

“The only think that marks each lifetime then are the memories that are left behind.

“To be witnessed by someone else and to be remembered when you are gone. These are the things that belong to mortals.”

“This is what I have learned in all my years, Laila Starr.

“We are strong, all mortal things. We live because we truly desire to. Do you understand?

“Each heartbeat, every breath~~is a rejection of death.”

“I realize I spent my whole life chasing a miracle.”

“But this is it, isn’t it?

“This is the miracle. This place, the sand, the sky, the sea beyond. No grand magic, just a quiet breath taken to yourself.”

Who is to say exactly how things end? If there is one thing we have learned, it is that life’s endings are bereft of answers.

Perhaps it is enough to remember at story’s end the miracle that it was simply to have lived.