The bass line of "Take on Me" by a-ha rattled through the tinny speakers of my aging '02 Ford Taurus, the kind of hollow buzz you only get when the cones are half-blown and the treble is dialed too high. Boise's evening traffic rolled around me in fits and starts, brake lights glinting red against a sky bleeding into bruised purples and tired oranges. It was that cheap-gas-station kind of sunset—garish but familiar—the same palette I used to chase down Route 30 in my beat-up Camaro back in '86.
God, 1986. Big hair. Bigger dreams. And the even bigger lie that you could be anything if you just wanted it enough.
Now it was 2025, and the only thing big was the knot sitting in my chest. My marriage to Susan had fizzled out like a dud Fourth-of-July firework—quiet, awkward, and leaving behind only a mess to sweep up. My career at Peterson & Sons was less "Wall Street" and more "watching beige paint dry on a cloudy day." Rockstar aspirations? Long buried. My legendary air-guitar solos—performed for an audience of one in my high school bedroom—were now just a punchline I told myself when the office coffee tasted especially burnt.
And, of course, there was the height thing. Five-foot-four. A lifetime of looking up at everyone, both literally and metaphorically. I'd made my peace with it, or at least learned to drown it in self-deprecating humor. Still, it nagged like a pebble in my shoe that never quite went away.
The synth melody carried me down Main Street's crawl of headlights and potholes. I drummed my fingers against the cracked steering wheel cover, humming along with Morten Harket's falsetto. For a second, I let myself slip back. Seventeen again. Windows down. Aqua Net and Marlboros in the air. A Members Only jacket sticking to my arms in July heat. That sweet, stupid feeling that the future wasn't something to survive, but something to conquer.
Then—headlights.
Blinding. Filling my windshield, bleaching the road in white. Coming fast. Too fast.
My gut dropped like a stone. Drunk driver. Had to be.
The black SUV swerved once, then again, crossing the yellow line as if the rules of physics were optional. Chrome flashing. Tinted windows hiding faces I didn't want to see. Teenagers. Of course. Full of cheap adrenaline and that invincible kind of stupid you only get when your brain hasn't fully finished baking.
Time slowed. My hands yanked the wheel hard right. Tires screamed. The car fishtailed, fighting me. A single, frantic thought punched through the fog: I'm not ready. Not like this.
Impact.
Metal sheared and glass exploded in my ears. A hot knife of pain tore through my chest. Airbags slammed me sideways. And then—
Nothing.
A deep, endless void. No sound, no weight, no body. Just the faintest impression that I'd stopped existing.
But then… light.
It started as a pinprick and swelled into something warm, hazy, and alive. Shapes emerged—shapeless at first, then coalescing into drifting figures that barely looked like people. A waiting room carved from radiance. The air was still, so still it almost hummed. Somewhere in the distance, a faint clicking sound ticked like an impatient metronome.
And then I saw her.
A woman—no, something more than a woman—standing a few feet away. Auburn hair spilling like liquid copper down her shoulders, eyes the color of a storm at sea. Her gown shimmered in a fabric that didn't exist on Earth, and in her hands she held a glowing clipboard that pulsed softly. Her face, though divine, wore an expression I recognized all too well: bone-deep exhaustion.
She didn't even glance up when she spoke, voice crisp, matter-of-fact, and tinged with boredom.
"Soul designation B749-Alpha-Gamma-7-epsilon-9-delta. Brian Wilson. Deceased in vehicular collision. Age fifty-three. Processing for Reincarnation Cycle 7.4. Initiate wish allocation sequence."
My jaw dropped. Or, it would have, if I still had one. "Wait—what? Reincarnation? Wishes?"
The woman sighed and finally looked up, her stormy eyes scanning me like I was a line item she regretted having to process. "Yes. Try to keep up. We're on a tight schedule. You're the ten trillionth soul in this cycle. Congratulations, I suppose."
"Ten… trillionth?" I muttered.
"Which means," she continued, stylus clicking against the clipboard, "you get three wishes for your next life. Make them quickly. I have other souls to attend."
Most people, I guess, would freeze up. Try to ask big, philosophical questions. But me? I laughed. The kind of laugh that bubbles up when the universe blindsides you so completely that fear doesn't even know where to land.
"Like—actual genie wishes?" I asked.
Her left eye twitched. "Not genie wishes. Think… custom parameters for your reincarnation."
"Right. Got it. Parameters. So, uh… what's your name, Goddess?"
"Lyra," she said flatly. "Goddess of Reincarnation. Your wishes. Now."
"Okay, first wish." No hesitation. The one thing I'd hated since middle school. "I want to be exactly one-ninety-seven centimeters tall. And… unfairly good-looking. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. The whole 'stop-traffic' thing."
Lyra scribbled with a faint smirk. "Height and attractiveness. Noted. Second wish?"
I didn't even pause. "I want to be insanely athletic. Strength, reflexes, stamina—natural talent in anything physical. No more wheezing after a flight of stairs."
Another scribble, another faint sigh. "Exceptional physical ability. Noted. Third wish?"
The big one. The fun one. My brain darted to all the roads I'd missed, all the wasted years. Then it landed on something weirdly specific: Cobra Kai. The Valley. Dojos and rivalries and crane kicks under the California sun.
"I want to be born as Braeden Love," I said, excitement buzzing through me, "into a wealthy family in the world of the Netflix show Cobra Kai. Two years after Daniel LaRusso's daughter is born. I want to hit the first season around thirteen."
For the first time, Lyra actually blinked. "You… want to be reborn inside a television narrative?"
"Feels real enough to me." I grinned.
She tapped her stylus again, murmuring under her breath as she wrote: "Braeden Love. Wealthy family. Cobra Kai continuity. Entrance age thirteen. Height one-ninety-seven. Abnormally attractive. Exceptional athleticism." Her stormy gaze flicked back to me, faintly amused now. "Unorthodox. But approved."
A wave of warmth swept through me, pulling me downward like gravity made of honey. The light dissolved. The figures faded. Lyra's eyes met mine one last time, and—was that the ghost of a smile?
"Enjoy your… show," she said.
The void vanished.
Pressure. Warmth. A muffled rush of sound. My lungs spasmed, then flared with the first shocking gasp of air. Antiseptic filled my nose. Blinding white light stabbed my eyes.
"He's beautiful!" a woman's voice cooed. "Look at all that blonde hair!"
"He's a big one, too," a deeper voice chuckled. "Just like his old man."
It had worked. Every bit of it.
A wave of pure, giddy joy hit me, almost too big for my newborn body. Braeden Love. That was me now. The Valley was out there, waiting. This time, I'd live life the way it was meant to be lived.
This time, I wasn't just looking up at the world.
This time, the world was going to look up at me.