The Immortal

Life. It’s strange how such a small and simple word can mean so much, sometimes everything. Fore some it’s filled with happiness. Sometimes joy, or even love for the lucky ones. But for most it is far from that. Life for most is full of hardships, problems, and pain.

For this reason I question why people choose to live at all. Why choose to live in a world filled with trouble and turmoil? Why would anyone choose to live a life of pain? These are the questions I ask myself every single day. Why? For one simple reason. I don’t have that choice.

People are born into this world with a great gift. A gift that most people take for granted and don’t grasp the power behind it. That gift, is free will. Such a powerful thing, free will. The power to choose, to give life up, to escape. Escape from the wretched world God so kindly created.

That is another question that haunts me. Why would God, if there really is a creator or higher being of that name, create such a world to live in? Surely he didn’t intend to fill it with the horrors this world possesses, but what if he did? What if life here on Earth is a test God created? To distinguish between the strong, the weak, or the unworthy. Free will then, would be God’s one gift to humanity. He gave them a way out. But that gift was never meant for someone like me, an immortal.

Neither God, nor angel, demon, nor human. Of course to anyone on the street I would seem human enough. But that is far from what I am. Humans don’t understand just how lucky they are. They are born, they grow, and when it is time, they eventually die. That is the end for them. But for me it’s different. There is no end for me, because in truth, there never really was a beginning. I was simply here. I had no parents, no family, and no friends to speak of. I just woke up one day. And from that day on, my existence on Earth began.

I remember everything form that day. Everything from the old musty smell of the dirty alleyway I was in, to the ragged state of the black suit I was wearing. I even remembered the young blonde police officer who had found me. He had asked me my name, where I lived, and what had happened to me. All of the things I couldn’t possibly answer. Dismissing my lack of knowledge as nothing more serious than a simple case of amnesia, he led me to the police station down the street.

I was informed that I was in London England, and that the date was the ninth of April nineteen hundred and two. Hoping to somehow jog my nonexistent memory, he continued asking me questions as he led me down the street like how old I was, what I was doing in London, and if I had any family here. To his questions the only thing I could answer was that I didn’t know. He assumed from my state of clothing that I had been mugged and left in the alleyway where he had found me. This would explain why I didn’t possess a wallet or any money.

Once in the police station, the officer wrote up a report on me and checked all of the missing persons lists. Of course no one on the lists matched my description, tall, dark-haired, hazel eyes, and seemingly around the age of twenty-five, who would put a missing person’s report out on someone that doesn’t exist? And so the officer had his another road block. With no way of finding out who I was or where I had come from, he was forced to let me go.

When he had informed me that I was free to go, I wasn’t quite sure what to do at first. I had nowhere to go and no money with me for that matter. Seeing the uncertain expression on my face, the officer patted my shoulder and told me that it was best to start over. When I had asked him where, he handed me some money and answered,

“Anywhere you want.”

And so I did. I started over. I found I had somewhat of a talent for art and I started traveling around as an artist. By the year nineteen-twelve, ten years later, I had traveled and lived in almost every major city in Great Britain. It was in that spring, April to be exact, that I learned of my immortality. Of course I had noticed that in the ten years I had lived on Earth that my body had not aged at all. But I disregarded this as just a simple fluke, or maybe I was just blessed with the ability to age gracefully. At that time I was living in the town of Southampton when I purchased my ticket from White Star Line to travel aboard the Titanic to America.

Of course the fated ship never made it to America, along with one thousand five hundred and seventeen of it’s passengers. That number should have been one thousand five hundred and eighteen. I went into the sea when the Titanic had sunk. I wasn’t fortunate enough to find a lifeboat in time. But once in the water, I discovered something. The ice cold Atlantic water I had prepared to endure had no effect on me. Instead, it was relatively warm, like being inside of an of an oversized bathtub. I was able to stay afloat on a cabin door just long enough for that one lifeboat to come back and save me.

Six others were saved from the water, including a red-haired woman I had met aboard the ship at an Irish party. I distinctly remembered thinking it strange that a first class girl like her would be down at a third class party which is most likely why I remembered her. Rose was her name I believe.

I didn’t stay long in New York after we had arrived aboard the Carpathia, but then again I never stayed long in one place ever. I was fortunate in my travels to meet one friend, a blind man by the name of Thakery Walker. He always went by Thatch for short though.
Thatch and I had met in the year nineteen thirty seven, twenty-five years after I had moved to America. At the time, I had been living as an artist in San Diego doing drawings on the beach for anyone that wanted them. Thatch had been sitting on a wooden bench near the ocean beside me looking out at the water when he had asked me what I was drawing.

“The ocean.” I had replied. “It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He sighed, causing me to drop my pencil and look up at him.

I understood almost immediately what he had meant by that remark. His grey eyes were glazed over as he continued to look out towards the water. It was then that I realized that he was blind.

“How did you know that I was drawing?” I asked.

He smiled warmly. “I can hear it.” He said as he extended a hand to me. “I’m Thatch by the way.”

I shook it gently and looked out at the ocean again.

“Don’t you have a name?” He asked.

I thought about my answer for a moment before responding.

“Gerard.” I said, giving the false name I had been using at the time.

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Gerard.” He said.

Thatch and I were friends from that day on. He told me about himself, how he grew up, and in turn asked me about myself. I told him of my travels, though never mentioning when or how long I had stayed in some of the towns I had lived in. He had just assumed that I traveled a lot because of my art and I lived wherever I wanted. I was a bit sketchy though when it came to the details of my family though. I told him that I was an only child and that my parents had died when I was very young.

Years went by, almost ten and that was when I had decided it was time for me to leave San Diego. I couldn’t very well stay in a place where I was supposed to be in my late thirties but still looked not a day older than twenty-five. I had promised Thatch that I’d come back again some day but it would not be for quite a while. I had to be sure to stay away long enough from San Diego for most of the people there to forget about me.

“Alright Tumbleweed.” He had said, putting a hand on my shoulder. That was his name for me because I traveled so often. “See you again some day.”

From San Diego I had moved to Seattle, to St. Louis, to Chicago, and finally Miami before going back to see Thatch once again. Ten years had gone by since the last time I was in San Diego. The date was then March of nineteen fifty-seven and Thatch was nearing his sixtieth birthday. Contrary to my belief, he hadn’t forgotten me in the time I was away. He didn’t change much in ten years. True his brown hair was almost completely grey and the wrinkles around his face were now more prominent, but he was still the same old Thatch.

I had hoped that in the ten years of my absence that most of the people I had seen, and or talked to, would have forgotten all about me but I was none too fortunate in that. More than once I would pass someone on the street that seemed to recognize me, but they would always just shake their head and continue walking past as if trying to convince themselves that I couldn’t possibly be the same man they had met all those years ago.

With Thatch it wasn’t an issue though. Because of his blindness I didn’t have to hide how young I still looked. Though I was cheating the inevitable. Sooner or later someone would get wise to me, and before that could happen, I decided it was time to leave again.

“Come visit me again some time.” Thatch had said when I told him it was time for me to leave. “Sooner than ten years this time yeah?”

I smiled even though I knew he couldn’t see it, and promised him we’d meet again some day. Though I was never to see Thatch again. He had died due to a heart failure that following year.

In the summer of sixty-five I was drafted into the U.S. army to fight in Vietnam. I was enlisted under the name Gerard Smith at that time and was a private under the command of Lieutenant Daniel Taylor. But he always went by Lieutenant Dan for short.

I did exceptionally well in the army, but perhaps not being able to die had something to do with that fact. After the third or fourth shot you take, the initial pain dulls down to barely even a bee sting. Though pulling the bullets out did become a bit of a pain in the ass. Not because it hurt, I had gotten used to pain, but because I had to do it when no one could see me doing it. I couldn’t very well extract a bullet from my chest in front of the other men in my platoon without coming up with some explanation as to how I was still alive. But most of the other men I fought with weren’t so lucky as I was. Even Private Gump, probably the fastest man I ever met, couldn’t outrun one of the enemy’s bullets. He lived though. That one in a million shot saved his life.

Nothing much had changed for me after the war, but then again, nothing ever changed for me. I went back to traveling around as an artist, always staying in cities and towns near the ocean. I always liked the water. Though nothing about me had changed, the world around me certainly did. In the years since coming to America, I had lived in each of the fifty states at least once, seen the World Trade Centers rise, and fall, and watched my only friend grow old before my very eyes and die. That’s al I did anymore was watch. Watch the world, and everything in it change while I stayed the same.

It’s been one hundred and six years since my existence on Earth began and not a day goes by that I don’t envy the people of Earth. They can die, so why can’t I? What makes them so special? It may sound rather suicidal to some, but when you’ve lived for as long as I have suicidal doesn’t even come close. But the initial thoughts of suicide I once had, had long since expired. What would the point be? I’d just end up hurting myself and have to deal with having any sorts of wounds heal. I am one-hundred and thirty-one years old as of today, April ninth two thousand and eight. Still, and forever frozen in time at the age of twenty-five.