Immortality

An immortal boy reflects on immortality, and his relationship with a mortal girl... Done for English class. Better than it sounds.

        “You could change the world, you know.”

            I ignored her comment; I now purposefully avoided the discussion we used to have at least once a week. I didn’t like thinking about that aspect of my life. My girlfriend was constantly assuming that just because I was immortal, I could somehow affect the world. I was of a different perspective, though. When one has lived through the Holocaust and heard stories of the Crusades, things like the genocide in Darfur and the Boxer Rebellions were insignificant.

            More than being smaller in size, though, events liked that proved that humans would never change. Humanity was like one slideshow put on repeat, with each turn going through in varying intensities. Whenever it seemed like there was a true change – for better or for worse – it always ended up back on track before long. And eventually, that “change” was just another part of the circulation. Why change something when that change would just become another part of its circulation anyway?

            I’d tried to explain to her, I really had. My parents had, too. It just hadn’t sunken in for her. She was still naïve enough to think that change was always possible, always effective, and always good. Megan just… Didn’t get it.

            And that was why I was ending it with her.

            My race was immortal. Perfected immune systems that built up defenses for diseases whether they were exposed to them or not, thicker layers of skin that shed faster and never wrinkled, the increased amount of white- and red-blood cells, the slowdown of all organ except the heart, and all for the price of an increased intake of food. It was perfect at first glance.

            Until you realized that you were, you know, facing eternity.

            Immortality and reproduction don’t go together very well. So we were infertile. I was an accident, and thus, over half a century younger than my species, and half a century older than my sister species (humans). And being humanoid, we still need companionship. I had opted to be a seventeen year old boy for the past two hundred years in the hopes of the increased hormone level letting me find a potential mate. I’d found several candidates before – felt the rush of blood, the embarrassment, the speechlessness, et cetera – but no one had ever felt it back for me. Then I’d found Megan.

            So beautiful. So smart. So understanding. So thoughtful. So… Gorgeous. What man in his right mind wouldn’t love her? Sadly, until now, I hadn’t realized that those emotions didn’t add up to love. They added up to lust.

            And quite frankly, her constant daydreaming and wishful thinking was getting slightly annoying. Not only because I thought it was worthless, but because it made me feel bad about not wanting to do something myself.

            The freshness of the human mind consistently amazed me. Sometimes, I wished I could die and start over. Sometimes I wished I could have those dreams of honestly changing the world. Sometimes I wanted to be able to look at something and think why without already knowing the explanation. I didn’t want to look at black ghettos and know that it was at least partially the fault of white’s ancestors. I didn’t want to look at nuclear plants and know that that same energy had fueled the destruction of parts of Japan. I didn’t like knowing those things. I didn’t like saying I’d been there.

            For some reason, people were always convinced that they’d love to see war, or the downfall of the Roman Empire, or live in the feudal system, or be a king, without understanding the death and destruction that accompanied all of those things. Even in the 21^st century, humans still wanted the same things: To be on the front lines of everything, to be able to tell the coolest story, to witness destruction as long as it didn’t affect them personally. And yet, they still dreamed of being a positive influence on the world. It had always seemed slightly backwards to me.

            But that was exactly why I was dumping her. I was too young and immature for my species; too old and apathetic for humans. It would never work. Humans weren’t good for me, and I wasn’t good for them. They scared me too much, and I scared them. I would die alone.

            Or, live alone.

            I would never die, never end, never rest. I would exist forever. And to avoid insanity, I would just… Never think about it, as my parents had advised. Not ever. I would avoid thinking about the topic of me being alone just as I avoided talking about the possibility of me changing the world. I wouldn’t question it. I would accept it, leave Megan, leave humans, and move on. Where I was going wouldn’t matter. I would just go. I would distract myself. And I would be better off because of it.

            Wouldn’t I?

            “We need to talk.” Those were the four fatal words in a relationship. Except, it wasn’t me who said it; it was her.

            Humans have this amazing ability to end something once it becomes a burden to them. My race holds on to our burdens for eternity. Humans shed them like an unneeded layer of skin. I guess I was that burden now.

            It was yet another thing for me to not think about.

            And it was something I’d have eternity to live with.

Author's Note

It didn't really seem to fit in romance, so I put it in short stories.

It was made to relate to the themes of Slaughterhouse-5 (Kurt Vonnegut), Waiting For Godot (Samuel Beckett), The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak), A Separate Peace (John Knowles) and Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)

Reviews

[amber culpepper]

I loved it....are you writing more??????