Not The Same
One of humanity's greatest follies is its fascination with immortality.
The concept of life and death isn't very interesting, actually. You live, sometimes you make your mark on the world, and then you die. At least usually you die. And death is what gives everything meaning, because no matter what else had happened while you were alive, it /never will again/.
Living forever takes all that away, but humanity has a great many follies, and I've indulged in most of them. It's one of those things that just happens.
I have a theory. Actually, I have a lot of theories, because sometimes I find myself with stretches of years where there's nothing to do but think. So I think. I think that you only die because everybody around you is dying, whether or not they know it, and then someday, you just go 'what's the point?'. And there isn't any point, you know, not really, and so you die. But I've never thought that, and there's nobody left who can make me.
Immortality's easy.
You just have to not feel like dying.
I could blame the rune. Blame its presence on my hand and in my mind--blame the shield it places between me and the world, so I'm always an outsider looking in. Blame it because it won't let me find that someone who'll mean enough to me that, with their death, it'll be worth giving life up. But you can't really blame anything for having a sense of self-preservation.
I used to know someone who could have made me think that. But his death gave me more meaning, not less, and so did his rebirth. Or perhaps rebirth is the wrong word to use. Re-life, maybe--there isn't much you can call it, since words are used to define things, and it doesn't have a definition because it's only happened once.
I don't know how accurate that theory is, but I suppose it works. The human fascination for life and immortality is, after all, surpassed only by the human fascination for death, the afterlife, and the concepts of Heaven and Hell. I've had a long time to think about those things.
It gets boring after a while, thinking, but it passes the time. There are always other forms of cheap entertainment, of course, like gambling and drinking and sex, but those get boring, too.
So sometimes, I just take a step back and watch.
It's interesting, looking at the patterns. Concentric circles of people and their relations with other people, and so on and so forth, until it's a mess of ripples that you can't decipher unless you've been watching from the beginning.
They call those ripples 'civilization'.
The current one will last for a while, if I read it right, but it's only a matter of time until the pool calms. Until another stone gets thrown in. Because cities die, and civilizations die, and that's also what gives them meaning.
It's sort of like a canvas, you see--if you're part of a picture, you're too close to see the entire thing. But it has to be taken in a whole to actually /form/ a picture, and you can't grasp the broad strokes for all the fine lines you live with.
Isn't it sad?
You can't know how beautiful something truly is until it's gone.
That's another of my theories. Like I said, I've got a lot of them.
I met somebody at the bar the other day. It was a cheap bar, nothing special, nothing much, just people and talk and half-grade liquor.
He told me that his name was Cat. I said that it was a coincidence--so was mine.
That made him laugh.
It was a nice laugh, sort of silver-grey and falling, like shooting stars and velvet, light and throaty and familiar.
So he told me his real name, and I told him mine--my /real/ one, my first one, the one I still think of myself by, even though I've lived several hundred lifetimes with several hundred names. Maybe a little less--I keep re-using them. He thought it was a funny name. I told him it wasn't funny, just old, and after a while we ended up talking in a corner.
And then, because it was really the only way to end an evening at a bar like this, we went back to my apartment and had sex. He didn't comment on my glove like so many others had, but then again, he wasn't much a person for asking questions.
He had too many secrets of his own.
The sex was just about what one expected sex to be like, white-hot and burning, and he cried out for someone else when he came.
But that's okay, because I did too.
He left early the next morning, leaving nothing with me but his name, taking nothing with him but mine.
He was an interesting person, and he reminded me a little bit of me, though I probably won't see him again. He doesn't seem to be the sentimental type.
But that's okay, because neither am I.
It's a nice night out, today. The apartment seems a little empty. I think I'll drop by the animal shelter and get a pet--a kitten, maybe--and then I'll go down to the bar and have a drink.
Because, really, it's the only way to spend an evening. |