Pain Reincarnate

Pain Reincarnate explores the continuity of addiction across time through the reincarnated soul of William Jardine, a 19th-century opium merchant. Following his death during the collapse of the Canton trading system, the story traces his rebirths as a morphine-dependent German soldier in World War I and an American veteran trapped in the opioid crisis. The narrative links colonial drug profiteering with modern big pharma exploitation, arguing that the consequences of historical violence and commodified pain persist through psychological cycles. Reincarnation becomes a mechanism for accountability, addiction a recurring symptom of empire.