Small Boy Ponders the Big Questions

"Do you believe in Re-in-kar-nat-shun, Mum?" Small Boy asks.
I retract my head from the fridge and say, "No."
I am trying to decide what to make for tea out of the contents of a mostly empty fridge. I am toying with the idea of introducing the children to the concept of a risotto. I picture the look on their faces when I serve up gloopy white rice mixed with chopped up bits of their most hated vegetable (The Courgette). Suddenly a debate on The After Life seems a more appealing way of spending the evening.
"Why?" I ask. "Are you learning about it at school?"
"No," says Small Boy. "I was just askin'."
"OK," I say, sighing and returning to the fridge.
"Only William says you can choose what you want to come back as," Small Boy persists.
I shut the fridge and turn to face Small Boy, eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, William says that he, just f'rinstance, is going to come back as Jesus."
"Oh, is he?" I say. "And I suppose he asked you who you would come back as?"
"Yes!" beams Small Boy. "And I said I would be half giraffe, half lemur."
"Great."
"What's he going on about now?" asks Daughter, slouching into the room. "And what's for tea?"
I choose to answer the first question, it being the easier to deal with at the present time.
"We are discussing reincarnation," I say, sitting down. "What do you think about it?"
Daughter rolls her eyes. "Well obviously it's a load of rubbish," she says.
I am constantly in awe of the way a teenager can push aside centuries of debate and philosophy with such bullish confidence. "Right," I say.
"Well, OK," says Small Boy, squaring up to his sister, "maybe it is, but have you ever thought about what it would be like to be able to come back and live in any point In History? Hmm?"
Daughter looks suitably impressed at this idea. "Yeah, that'd be cool," she says. "I'd come back as a Roman."
"Oh no!" howls Small Boy. "You're turning into Grandma!"
I snigger, but catch Daughter's eye and quickly stifle it.
"What about you, Mum? When would you live In History, if you had the choice?"
"She would go back to the Seventies," Daughter snorts.
"Excuse me, that was my own childhood!" I exclaim. "That hardly counts as history."
"Not for you, maybe," says Daughter.
I take a deep breath. "All right. Well, how about Tudor times?" I offer. "I'd have to come back as someone with lots of money though. And come to think of it, I think I'd have to come back as a man."
"Euw," says Daughter. "That's just weird."
"What about you?" I ask Small Boy. "When would you come back?"
He looks at me pensively and then says, "I think I'd come back to yesterday." Daughter and I laugh. "Well, yesterday is in The Past, and The Past is In History," he points out.
"Yes, but why yesterday?" I ask.
"I had a nice time yesterday," replies Small Boy.
I smile and think, not for the first time, that I envy Small Boy his lovely uncomplicated life. I decide not to ruin it by giving him courgettes for tea. I would not want today to turn into one of those days he would never want to visit again. Either literally, or in his lively imagination.