@kat_i_am
Immortal
I should not be alive. I have been alive for 2808 years. I competed in the first Olympics, and, after living a life full of love and family and friends, I was ready to die. I had already outlived my wife, and I had no children. But I never died. I should have known something was wrong. I had always seemed ageless, beyond the reach of time. I permanently looked as if I was in my thirties. So, realizing that I couldn’t die, I sought out those considered masters of knowledge, around the world. I studied under Confucius, then returned to Greece to study under Socrates, then Plato, then Aristotle. I have seen kingdoms built over decades, generations, centuries, then watched them fall in a single day. I have fought in wars, too many to count, some not even named. They’ve all blended together, over time though. Every war is the same. They’re fought over land or power, by men who will be gone in just a few years. And what is a few years when you have the rest of time to live?
I was there when Rome took over Greece, and I watched my first people fall. Not just my family, whom I loved, and mourned for centuries, but far too many of my people, seemingly all of them, crushed under the Roman fist, then my Gods perverted, almost all turned into war-gods like Ares. But soon after, I lost my faith. If the Gods of my childhood, and of my life so far, were real, then why would they let their chosen people fall? Why would they let their images be perverted, with no retribution or punishment laid upon the heads of the Romans?
I watched a new star appear in the sky, so bright, the night the one they call Jesus of Nazareth was born. I watched this child grow up, always kind, always reaching out to those who were rejected by society. Watching him love everyone, from the woman at the well to the sinners the Pharisees brought unto him, I almost could believe that maybe, just maybe, there was a God. Not multiple gods, who were content to watch mortal lives from afar, only interfering to cause pain and suffering, but a God. One who loved His children. I watched the Romans kill Jesus the Christ, I saw Him suffer on the Cross. Disgusted by the Romans, who killed not only humans who had done little wrong, but Gods and Children of Gods as well, I left Jerusalem that day. I hear that Christ returned and visited the faithful, but I can never be sure. I wasn’t faithful enough to merit a visitation.
I traveled Europe, Asia, and Africa, learning of the cultures of all these people. I never stayed in one place for too long, and avoided wars at all costs. It hurts too much to form relationships, to love people, only to have them die of old age or to be killed by some warrior who believed they held the moral and cultural high ground.
Eventually what you call classical history ended, and we entered the middle ages. There were more wars and more petty arguments for men, more scholars learning things they thought were new but really those things had existed for forever, but they had been too blind to see it before.
I don’t remember much of what happened in the Middle Ages. I had been alive for 1196 years, and I was too busy trying to die. I had learned so much, from so many people, and all these people, trapped in their little self-made worlds in their own countries, barely knew anything in comparison. What more could there be for me to learn? I lost my love of philosophy, carefully cultivated by Socrates and his greatest student, and instead of focusing on the human condition (which didn’t even apply to me- I wasn’t human, and hadn’t been for centuries), I focused on finding a way to die. Nothing worked. I tried to die for another 1100 years or so. Almost half of my life at this point. And I grew tired of trying to die too. Even as I tried to kill myself, I had met people, some of whom found me as I was about to jump off a cliff into the sea, or as I tried to find some rare poisonous plant, or to run myself through with a sword. They were just trying to be kind. No, they were too kind. It was the human part of them. Humanity was too kind, and sometimes, it could not bear to lose one part of itself, no matter how large or how small.And I bonded with these people, many without really trying. I couldn’t stop myself sometimes. The human part of me, no matter how I tried to squelch it, yearned to form bonds and for human closeness. It made living so long unbearable. Humans were not supposed to live forever.
I accidentally fell in love, too, far too many times over my life so far at this point. I had too many families, though several centuries separated each one. It was too painful. And every time, I thought it would be less painful. I was wrong.
One day, I realized that I could no longer remember all the faces of my loved ones over my two or so millennium. Some of my friends, I couldn’t even remember their names. Just that I knew them, that I had had a friend in that war, or that I had been friends with the man who sat next to me as Plato first presented his Allegory of the Cave. I pushed those thoughts aside, though. They were too painful. I tortured myself, physically and mentally, angry that I couldn’t remember who I loved.
And then the Italian Renaissance. I was about 2300 at the beginning of the 16th century, but the years had blended together, and I wasn’t totally certain of my age. Though the Renaissance was centered where the Roman empire once stood, I was able to ignore that, even forget it some days, as I talked with the Renaissance men that are still remembered today, da Vinci, Michelangelo. Finally, I rediscovered a love of learning, and not just of philosophy and the theatre, but also of painting and science. I realized that my attitude during the Middle Ages, of scorn to the few who cared to learn, was wrong. Even though things had always existed, just waiting to be discovered, discovering them still brought joy. Throughout the Renaissance, I learned more than I thought anyone could ever learn. I wish I could say I remember it all, but like the faces of my families, much of what I’ve learned has faded from memory.
The 17th Century was even more remarkable. After the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance (though both were still prominent gossip circle topics among the intellectuals of the days), the Scientific Revolution was another century rich with knowledge. My favorite topic became the heavens, as scholars learned that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system as we knew it then. And as I learned that the Earth was not the center of everything (which was propositioned by Copernicus in the 1500s sometime, but advocated by Galileo in the 1700s), I was forced to consider that perhaps, I was not the center of everything either. My years… oh, too many to count at this point. Maybe 2400? My centuries and millennia of solitude had been rife with depression and bitterness, and I became too focused on myself. I saw humans as pitiful- at one point, I fancied myself a god. But as rationality became the standard of the day, I became rational as well. No one, not even me, is important enough to the universe that the heavens and the earth would move to rotate around them. Though this jumps a few centuries, a man named Stephen Crane conveyed this same sentiment in a poem.
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
Between the Scientific Revolution and Stephen Crane’s poem, much happened. America, the land of the free (but to whom it is free is sometimes unclear), was founded, and there was a surge of imperialism by Europe on the African continent. Still, after all my years, men have not learned that they can never really own anything. Rather, their possessions, and their strivings to get, often seem to trap them, mentally and physically. They don’t know how little it requires to be happy.
Happiness. So elusive to so many. What an idea to consider. I see many things in your beautifully short human lives to be happy about, not the least of which is the length thereof. But, of course, I cannot ignore my own life, else I be called a hypocrite. I have had many opportunities, and met and studied under or with some the greatest minds known to history, not to mention all those who were lost to history, whose names even I can barely remember. So I supposed, that despite all the suffering that plagues our existence, no matter how transient or interminable, there is happiness, both in brilliantly bright but brief bursts and longer (albeit dimmer) stretches.
The 1900s saw worldwide wars that devastated several countries, but humanity, ever rash, didn’t learn from the first, and had another. People were especially horrified at the events of the second, as one man spread his gospel of hatred and the inferiority of certain peoples, which resulted in the deaths of over six million Jews, not to mention the other “undesirables,” such as homosexuals, people with mental or physical disabilities, and others considered non-Aryan. For the first time, the cruelty of humans was highlighted, though the trans-Atlantic slave trade was even more deadly. Funny how humans can be selectively blind like that. And then, even after fighting abroad for freedom and minority groups, America struggled with the same issues at home, and still does (I should know- I live here now, though you won’t be able to tell that I’m 2808 years old by looking at me).
At this point, after so much reflection, I must ask of myself: what have I become? I am covered with scars and injuries, many of which should never have healed. I have learned and forgotten more than any man in history. I have loved and hated, though I’ve finally learned that hate is a waste of time.
What else is of import? I have spoken of gods and sciences and arts and wars… the foolishness of men and the brilliance and the kindness and the cruelty. What more can I say? A warning? The writer, Mark Twain, is believed to have said “History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.” I have seen this. No two events are exactly the same, but they echo one another and copy one another and reflect one another. Stop making bad rhymes.
Be kind, help people. Don’t let anyone, whether they be friend, foe, or stranger, try to end their life- talk to them. Learn their story. Tell them things get better. Tell them that life is hard. Tell them that life is good. All are true.
And if you should ever come across another Immortal, like me, send them my way. But before you do, invite them to sit down for a cup of tea or maybe even dinner. Listen to what they say. If they are anything like me, all they have learned over their centuries bleeds out of every pore and every action and every word. They are broken and they are bitter, but they are also wise and they are kind. We all can learn so much from each other.
At this point, after so much reflection, I must ask of myself: what have I become? I am covered with scars and injuries, many of which should never have healed. I have learned and forgotten more than any man in history. I have loved and hated, though I’ve finally learned that hate is a waste of time. I am broken, and I am bitter. I am wise, and I am kind. I have learned much, but I still have more to learn. I am only 2808, after all.
Yes, that's it so far.
It's in progress. I still want to add an "oof/umph" line at the end of each paragraph, a line that is like, this heavy realization in italics.
But I wanted some feedback/thoughts?
