Draining Immortality
Life as an immortal wasn’t too terrible. It had its raw moments, such as the constant pestering from villagers that my mere existence was a blasphemy to their god, but otherwise, it was a fine jaunt through history.
It was a treasure seeing so many civilizations rise and fall, often at the hands of their own hubris. Some grew so mighty and proud only to be torn asunder by human greed, while others still claimed to be free for all while benefiting only those in control. The sheer range of human ingenuity when it came to oppression was wonderful.
But alas, there is always a limit to what one can handle, and as the curse of my immortality set in, I found myself pulling away from the cultures I had once loved watching.
You see, though my mind and soul could carry on undeterred in this world, my flesh and body could not. What had once supported me in my endeavors across the world gave way after long enough, and when the time came that I could no longer walk, I resigned myself to a peaceful fate.
It wasn’t much more than a simple rest at the bottom of a lovely, quiet pond, somewhere I could while away the rest of my immortality for days untold.
The fish and the frogs and the ducks overhead were fascinating to take in, watching as they grew and developed and spawned and grew again.
I lost track of time somewhere after the hundredth year. Not that time matters much when one will live to see it all. But in that time, I saw eclipses, I saw meteor showers and shooting stars, and the brilliance of the sun and moon dancing above it all.
I watched children swimming in the pond, their activity kicking up dirt and mud to cloud my vision. I enjoyed the festivals of lanterns which floated across the surface every so often. I reveled in the waves formed as raindrops pattered against the water.
It seemed as if every day, there was a new pattern to admire, a new paradigm ruling nature. There was no rhyme or reason, not as there was in humanity’s control of it, but rather a calm, beautiful chaos. It was a chaos I would’ve been happy to endure for a million more years.
And then some bastards came along with their loud machines and their smoke and their pipes. And the skeleton that I lay as could only watch in dismay. The fish vanished one by one from the water. The frogs hopped to safety. The ducks flew south. The rain did its best to stall the work and prolong the pond’s life, but alas, it did little to stem the outpouring.
It may have been hours only, yet those same hours seemed to stretch into an eternity longer than any other, my disappointment immeasurable. Inch by inch, the water vanished, and though the sky cleared and the sun shone brilliantly for the first time in centuries, its fire was unmatched by that of my hatred.
Not that I could say much, as dead as my body was. There was nothing there to scold with, nothing that could express the sheer agony felt at such a ruined masterpiece.
Nothing I could do but lie there and seethe as they took away what little peace I had left. And as I seethed, those bastards dared to smile. All because they’d drained my lake.
