Title: Things To Do

Genre: Steam Punk/Urban Fantasy

Summary: The first inkling that began Children of Darkness. My protagonist considers what it means to have a good life. It’s all in the things done, not the number of years or amount seen. That’s why he despises his own kind.

Image by aussiegall

Humans are so afraid of when they’ll die. They’re so busy worrying that the meaning of the universe slides unobtrusively by them.

Life is not about how long you live. A lifetime is such an ambiguous term. It could mean twenty years, or it could mean ninety years. It could even be captured in one, tiny moment. Either it feels like a lifetime of waiting while only a moment passes by, or your life flashes before your eyes in the moment before the cessation of that life.

There are plenty of books written in which the main character proclaims that this is not true. That all you think about in the last second of life is “Oh damn.” Or maybe “Shit.” They think that a moment is only a moment, that it couldn’t possibly stretch long enough. Time is an abstract concept that we seek to quantify, but is entirely outside of our control. It flows, it ebbs, it’s – a ball of timey-wimey stuff.

Or, they think that the human mind is not capable of thinking of in merely a moment. I’m not sure if this is true or not. The people I watch die are a bit more concerned with their own nightmare than reliving their life. The people I watch die I hope are watching their own nightmare, not reliving their life. Or, lastly, they worry that when their life flashes before their eyes, they’re become so bored that they’ll be glad to die. Or be bored to death.

Life is also not about the things you see. At the end, you won’t remember seeing the beach, or the Eiffel Tower, or whatever. Or at least, I’d feel very sorry for you if that’s what you think of. Yes, it’s seems to be very exciting to see things. But from any old book, I can see the world. I’d hardly want to remember that on my death bed. It’s the experience that goes around the seeing – the being. You’re not a human being for no particular reason, after all.

Life is about the people you care about, the things that you do. Mostly, it’s the people you do things with. I pointed this out to Nevada once, my revelation. She laughed at me. “Who hasn’t heard that?”

I looked at her, uncomfortable that she would laugh at me. My expression is always intense, though, regardless of what I’m feeling. I have to concentrate for my expression to be otherwise. She wilted under my stare.

“Well, it’s why I joined you,” she said, hopelessly trying to turn my mood. “You promised me that I could do anything I wanted to do.”

I turned away. I knew that. When I first saw her, I knew she’d be different from most people. I knew that she could be better than them. I closed my eyes.

“Most people would kill to be in my position,” she said, still trying to make up for mocking me.

“Why?”

“Well, because they get to live forever. Or, well, close to forever. And they get to go places. And do things they’d never be able to do.”

She didn’t get it. She knew it, deep down, or I wouldn’t have chosen her. But having her realize such truths was another thing. I knew it was difficult. It was so easy to slip out of my life, only observe. Watch as the centuries passed me by, pretending I was lucky. Pretending that I was living a full life.

“They shouldn’t need me,” I said after a long while. Nevada perked up next to me. She probably forgot we were holding a conversation.

“But I should?” she demanded indignantly.

“If they did what they should, you wouldn’t need me either.” If I hadn’t come to claim her, she’d have been stuck in her spot in line, still fruitlessly lashing out at the world until she was beaten into submission. A terribly harsh thing, but true.

It may seem like I’m some wise saviour, passing on knowledge and wisdom to my dutiful (or not so dutiful) students. I’m hardly that. I’m not… better. Few people think that. Some call me monster. Others sigh when my name is mentioned. They think me a snobby child. That would be my kind.

They’re the one people I’d go so far as say I’m better than. I avoid them when I can and act frostily when I cannot. I strive to give them frost bite whenever I must deal with them, but they just see it as my being a petulant child.

My kind believe that life is about how long you live. Come with me, naïve tiny child, for I will give you centuries of life. I’m better than you, your parents, or anyone else you know because I’ve lived for centuries. My kind believe that life is about what you see. How can your life be worth living when you haven’t been in Marie Antoinette’s private room? Or have never seen the Louvre? Or the 100 Years War? I shudder to think that I’d ever be so stupid to believe that because they’ve seen so much, they’ve lived so much.

Stuck on the outside, looking in. Reliving the same moments over and over again. It doesn’t matter whether they’re in France in the sixteenth century or in Japan in the twenty-first century – they always do the same thing. Over and over and over again. Never connecting to anyone. Surviving on my morsels of affection, carefully crafted over years, while thinking they’re having a feast!

I hardly want to be like them. Let them call me petulant, let them call me snob, let them call me infant – I will not be like them. Unavoidably, I am. Always, always, always. And I hate it.

What’s the point of living for millennia if you never actually live?

The End
Agree, disagree with his statements?