Daily story, October 6, 2024

You know how it goes with immortality. First you think it’s the best thing that could ever happen to you, then you wise up and realise it’s a curse. The thing is that, so far, everyone has died in the end. They never got the chance to wise further up. You can’t just think your way into wisdom. The wise among us know that.

So if you wise up first and then become immortal second, you have a bit of a panic. You think: I’m going to watch everyone I love age and die. (It’s only our own mortality we’re supposed to be sanguine about, normally.) You think: what if I just get tired of it all? You think: what if someone sets my feet in concrete and throws me into the river?

You spend a long time thinking about the first two, and dismiss the third as a bit silly and outlandish. Of course, thinking about the first two is pointless, because you just have to live through them, the same way the mortals do. And thinking about the third is wise, because if you stick around forever, all sorts of things are going to happen to you. And when people learn you are immortal, this is the kind of idea they come up with to deal with you.

But what makes being thrown into the river with concrete shoes so horrifying is the part where you drown. The desparate struggle, when you have minutes left. I don’t have minutes. I have forever. I watch fish. I watch what floats past. I see the riverbed shift and flow. You know when you get sick, and it’s the only time that feels like a proper holiday, because on an actual holiday you can’t stop thinking about your responsibilities? It’s like that, at the bottom of the river. I’ll come out of it a better man. And I will come out of it. That’s what “immortal” means.