[Writing Prompt] A man who can live forever loves a woman who has 1 month left.
The Young Man
A long time ago, in a valley which no longer exists, doused in darkness, enveloped by the scent of sleeping wildflowers, a young man walked at night, alone.
The young man had been banished from his tribe. He was caught stealing grain. He was savagely beaten so that creatures would smell his hot blood, and then sent into the wilderness, that he might sate the hunger of monsters and so find honor in death.
Except this was not to be the young man’s fate.
He met a traveler, old and decrepit, who carried upon his bony shoulders a clay pot lashed there with hempen rope and sealed with the wax of bees.
In the darkness of the night, the old traveler bore a torch, which the young man saw from a great distance away and, heedless of the dangers, decided to approach.
“Hark, traveler,” the old man spoke in their shared tongue, which has no name for it is lost to time, “I bear gifts upon my back if you would first hear my warning.”
The young man, face bloodied and bruised, sat on the ground before the traveler, warmed by the glow of the torch, and listened.
“Upon my back, young man, is the nectar of the Goddess. He who drinks of that nectar shall never grow old, nor weak, nor incompetent – they shall never die, as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.”
Here the traveler paused and the young man grew thirsty for the nectar, for he did not wish to perish and go to the unknown place all men went.
The traveler continued. “But know this, young man – in each blessing there is a torment – in each boon, a curse. He who drinks shall know them both as well as his own name.”
Heavily, the old traveler sat on the dusty ground and let fall there the vessel. His shoulders he did stretch and the bones there did crack as the old traveler rested his weary feet.
“Tell me then,” the old man asked, “will you drink?”
Others, more wise than he, might have heeded the old traveler’s warnings. But the youth was foolish and afraid, and to him, the future was as distant and unreachable as the full moon.
The youth drank deeply of the Goddess’s nectar until the vessel was nearly emptied, as the old man watched and smiled. Eventually, the young man picked up the vessel to retrieve the final remnants of the sweet nectar from the bottom.
When he put down the empty jug, the old man was gone, the torch cold, and the young man alone.
I met Cynthia at the opera. Classical music is one of the few performance arts I still enjoy. I find it orders my fragmented mind.
The Opera was Norma. I have seen it over one hundred times. I was there, at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and wept along with the rest of them as Norma leaped into the flames.
Cynthia was sitting beside me, an empty seat between us. She was not supposed to be alone, I would later find out. In my experience fate often uses such simple tricks to its varied ends.
She looked at me during the first Act, her face shining lightly in the afterglow from the stage, her body in shadow. I know she looked because she told me months later as we lay on the grass in Central Park.
Instincts I still cannot define made me look back at her in Act two, her delicate hands folded across her lap, tears in her eyes. I knew if I ever touched those hands I could never relinquish them.
Knowing this, I chose to say nothing and left in the dark without a word. But as I left the opera house and walked down one half of the split spiral staircase covered in red velvet, I saw her coming down the other half toward me.
We met at the intersection of the steps, Norma’s final aria playing on the tinny house speakers. We did not say a single word beyond those which passed between us in silence. We left together, hand in hand.
Our love affair was a marvel – no less because of the depth of feeling for one another than for the fact that it proved I was still capable of human feeling all. How many times can one person lose everything and still retain the seed of compassion necessary to love another? I had thought the seed lost when I found Cynthia, but there it was, hidden beneath the ashes.
My love for Cynthia was so complete I did not even consider the inevitable loss she represented. Love is transubstantiation of a part of one’s own soul into the soul of another. We do this frightening thing with great difficulty, but also with a shared understanding that as passes the one we love, so to will we follow in time, spared from suffering.
But what if no merciful death awaits the forlorn lover? What if there is only an infinity spent broken, shattered into pieces?
I allowed myself to love Cynthia unconditionally, without a thought for that future, with eyes only for the living present. For four years I have lived in a dream more precious to me than life itself.
Then the sickness came, swift and vicious, and now we wait.
I have not told Cynthia the truth. She does not know that I am the young man who drank the Goddess’s nectar. She does not know that long after she is consumed by the Earth, struck down by the errant splitting of her own cells, I will linger, longing for her for the rest of time. More than anything, I wish to tell her these things, so that she might know me more completely before the end.
And yet, it is my silence which makes me certain of my love.
I dare not tell her the truth because I cannot bear to feel the pain she would feel for me.
Her heart is my heart now; her joy, my joy; her pain, my pain.
In each blessing a torment; In each boon a curse.
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