The curveball didn't kill him. It was the Ford F-150 running a red light on Fourth Avenue that did the job.
It was a Tuesday night in Seattle, October 2001. The rain was coming down in sheets, turning the asphalt into a mirror of neon signs and brake lights. Chuck Thomas didn't mind the rain. He didn't mind much of anything these days.
At twenty-three, Chuck was on top of the world. He was the Mariners' starting shortstop, a Golden Glove winner, and the proud owner of a Silver Slugger award. In his sophomore season, he had slashed .310 with 35 home runs, stealing thirty bases just for the hell of it. He was fast, he was violent at the plate, and he was rich.
He revved the engine of his custom Harley, feeling the vibration rattle his teeth. He had come from nothing, a foster kid bounced between six homes in ten years, and now, the city screamed his name when he walked up to the plate.
The light turned green. Chuck twisted the throttle.
He never saw the truck.
There was a flash of headlights in his peripheral vision, too bright and too close. There was the sickening sound of chrome crumpling like aluminum foil, the snap of bones that had swung ash bats with terrifying speed, and then… flight.
For a split second, Chuck was airborne, tumbling through the wet Seattle air.
I'm going to miss Spring Training, was his final, absurd thought.
Then he hit the pavement. And the lights went out.
There was no tunnel of light. There were no pearly gates or harps.
There was just a low, hum. It sounded like the buzz of a fluorescent light bulb in an empty office hallway.
Chuck stood, or floated, he couldn't tell, in a grey void. He looked down at his hands. They were translucent, shimmering like heat haze.
"Name?" a voice asked. It didn't boom from the heavens. It sounded like it was coming from a speaker behind a glass partition.
"Chuck," he said. His voice echoed strangely. "Chuck Thomas."
"Status: Terminated. Cause: Blunt Force Trauma. Timestamp: 23:42." Papers shuffled in the void. "Wait. There is a flag on the play."
"A flag?" Chuck asked, looking around. "Am I dead?"
"Technically, yes. Procedurally? No." The voice sighed, sounding incredibly bored. "Administrative Error 8940. The truck driver was supposed to sneeze and hit the brakes. He didn't sneeze. You were unscheduled, Mr. Thomas. You had forty-four years left on your clock. You were supposed to break the home run record in 2009."
Chuck felt a surge of anger. "I was going to beat Bonds?"
"You were going to beat everyone. But, well... spilt milk." The grey void shifted, coalescing into a giant, spinning wheel that hung suspended in the nothingness. It glowed with shifting neon colors. "Department policy dictates compensation for premature termination. Since we cannot return you to your previous vessel, it is currently being scraped off the intersection. we offer Reincarnation with Perks."
"Reincarnation?" Chuck drifted closer to the wheel. "I get to go back?"
"Different time. Different place. But you get to spin the Wheel of Attributes. Two spins. Standard compensation package."
"I want to play baseball," Chuck said firmly. "Just put me back in the draft."
"Spin the wheel, Mr. Thomas."
Chuck reached out with his ghostly hand and shoved the wheel. It blurred, a kaleidoscope of options whirring past—Wealth, Royalty, Genius, Strength...
Click. Click. Click... tick.
It stopped on a symbol of a golden ear.
"Result One: Linguistic Osmosis," the Voice droned. "The subject shall possess the ability to rapidly absorb, comprehend, and integrate any language heard, achieving native fluency at an accelerated rate. Useful for tourism."
"Great," Chuck muttered. "I can order a beer in Paris. One more spin?"
"One more."
Chuck spun it harder this time. He visualized a bat. He visualized the sweet spot. Give me Ruth. Give me Mantle.
The wheel spun for what felt like an eternity. Finally, it slowed.
Tick... tick... clack.
It landed on a silhouette. It wasn't a baseball player. It was a man wearing a baggy green cap, holding a bat that looked flat, like a paddle.
"Result Two: The Bradman Template."
Chuck frowned. "Who? I wanted DiMaggio."
The Voice actually sounded impressed for the first time. "The Don. The Outlier. A statistical anomaly so profound it broke the game. Batting average 99.94. You have drawn the highest tier of kinetic aptitude."
"Is he a designated hitter?"
"He is... the greatest," the Voice said cryptically. "The template will not be instant. The human mind cannot handle that level of hand-eye coordination immediately. It will be a gradual integration. A whisper in the nerves."
"I don't know who that is," Chuck argued. "I want a re-spin."
"No re-spins. File closed. transport initiating."
"Wait!" Chuck screamed as the floor of the universe dropped out from under him. "Where are you sending me?"
"Good luck, Subject 8940."
January 01, 1971. Bangalore, State of Mysore.
The sensation of death had been numb. The sensation of birth was violence.
It was a crushing pressure, a blinding transition from warmth to freezing cold. Then came the assault on the senses.
Light. Searing, unfiltered light tore at eyes that weren't ready for it.
Noise. A cacophony of sounds. Not the sirens of Seattle, but something else. A rhythmic, clacking beat—thrum-clack, thrum-clack, like a mechanical heartbeat. Voices shouting in a language that sounded sharp, rolling, and utterly alien.
Chuck tried to speak, to ask for a doctor, to ask if he'd been traded.
"Waaaaaah!"
The sound ripped from his throat, a thin, reedy cry that humiliated him instantly. He tried to move his arms, but they flailed uselessly, weak and uncoordinated.
What is wrong with me? panic set in. I can't feel my legs. I can't see.
He felt rough hands handle him. He was wiped down with a coarse cloth. The smell hit him nex, not antiseptic hospital smells, but the scent of turmeric, burning oil, damp earth, and rain.
"Gandu," a female voice whispered, exhausted but thick with affection. "Nanna kandu."
Chuck froze.
He didn't know the words. He had never heard them before in his life. But as the sound waves hit his ears, the First Gift, Linguistic Osmosis, fired like a synapse.
The sounds unraveled in his brain. The syntax rearranged itself.
Gandu. Boy.
Nanna kandu. My child.
Kannada. The language labeled itself in his mind, though he had no context for what "Kannada" was or where it was spoken.
He was lifted up. His vision was a blur of shadows and light, but he made out a face. Brown skin, dark eyes swimming with tears, a red dot on the forehead.
"Lakshmi," a deep male voice said from nearby. "Is it...?"
"A boy, Srinivas," the woman whispered. "We have a son."
Chuck Thomas, the Silver Slugger, the orphan who trusted no one, felt himself being pressed against a warm chest. He felt the vibration of the woman's humming.
"We will name him Varun," the man said softly. "Varun Reddy."
Chuck tried to protest. He tried to say, My name is Chuck, and I have a game on Friday.
But all that came out was a gurgle.
The rhythmic thrum-clack of the loom in the corner continued, indifferent to his confusion.
He was tiny. He was helpless. And he was a very, very long way from Seattle.
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