“Before you begin…” or What happens to Maya Joy before Chapter 1

She folded like a flower whose water supply has been suddenly cut off. “There was nothing or no one to live for,” she thought and decided to cut her life short at the roots. Her mind, despite the fact that she had just attempted to muddle it with 50 pills, was clear. This unexpected clarity scared her: She’d rather not know what her last day would look like. She’d rather fall into a deep, undisturbed, eternal sleep. Still, her mind refused to budge under the weight of the pills even if her hands felt a little heavy. Her mind was like the mirror of her soul and it wanted, it insisted on her to peer in, even if for the last time, into its depths.

Maya Joy’s life stood before her: bare and devoid of judgments or emotions. She saw her parents, her sister, Emma, her husband, Mike, their kids, scores of her students she had been teaching over many years, and some random people, long forgotten: a kind teacher, a nasty teacher, someone she had a crush on, someone she wanted to date, someone she befriended and unfriended. What did all these people want from her now? Didn’t she tell them, in no uncertain terms, and not just in words but in actions, that she was not interested in them anymore? Couldn’t they respect her last minutes or hours on this planet, or in this lifetime, if she allowed herself to consider reincarnation as a possibility? “Go away! All of you!,” She shouted into…