Ageless

“Have you ever loved?” asked Julia, perhaps the most beautiful woman in all of Boston.

“Of course I have” answered the man she loved.

“Than why is it that you don’t show it? You don’t look at me with those eyes filled with admiration and a sense of care that can only be shown with a certain glare from the soul?"

The man stayed quiet. What Julia didn’t know is that this man that she thought was around her age, 28 years of age was actually far older. This man had travelled all 7 continents and spoken to millions of individuals throughout his journey. He lived through all U.S. Presidents, even personally meeting George Washington himself while he traveled through the colonies in the early days of the revolutionary movement.

As the awkward silence caused more disturbance to the woman’s heart than the loudest engine of the biggest planes in the world ever could, the man only could think of one thing.

“Immanuel answer me! Please!” she shouted as her eyes filled with tears and her heart felt empty and cold like a beach shortly after a hurricane has destroyed it.

He had nothing to say, she would never understand anyway. By now, there were tears coming from her ocean blue eyes and rolling down her rosy red cheeks. She could not take the silence and insecurity of loving a man who she did not know if he loved her back.

“I want to love you but I just can’t.” said Immanuel to break the silence.

The tears began rolling down her cheeks even harder than before, so much so that her grass green dress had several wet spots.

“Why!? Are you not human? You just don’t want to! I bet you have been hurt before and another woman has probably torn your heart out and stepped on it but you know I wouldn’t do that to you! Plus I am also taking a chance of being hurt by giving you mine.” She pleaded.

Immanuel looked at her with a blank stare as if her words didn’t penetrate his ears. He knew that she would never do that to him and he knew that no woman had ever broken his love. All he could do is look at her in the eyes and hold her hand, the same hand that had shaken the hand of Leonardo Da Vince centuries ago, was now trying to comfort the soul of this beautiful woman. All to no avail.

Julia violently jerked her hand away from his and sadly walked away while still having tears down her cheeks. Immanuel didn’t try to stop her at all.

If anyone were looking at this seemingly young couple, they would probably be wondering two things. How could such a beautiful woman love such a man? And how could such a man not love such a beautiful woman? Surely this woman had to had witnessed such indifference in his character and the cold nature of this seemingly young man. And only a blind man or a fool would be stupid enough to not allow himself to love and be loved by such a beautiful woman.

What no one watching would have been able to know, much less understand is the nature of a being who had lived through more years than one would want to count in a single day. Immanuel was surely human and had once had the ability to love a woman but through the centuries, he learned that it was better not to. His heart had been numbed by the many that he had loved and he saw die while he remained the same. Their bodies and souls never to be seen or heard from again even as he remained unchanged. Immanuel never forgot them but his heart had grown as frozen as one’s fingers during the coldest winter day.

Immanuel would’ve never thought that when he made the choice to live forever would not allow him to truly love ever again. He could now only truly love objects since they don’t die. But even that is a problem for him since even the nicest of cars will get rusty and become old once the new version comes along.

Still sitting in the bench, Immanuel sat there for hours upon hours with a blank stare on his face. He thought about how a romantic candle light dinner at the oldest restaurant in Boston – Union Oyster House – and a walk alongside the harbor had turned so sour. He thought about the many other women in his past whom he had not allowed himself to fall for and how they split and never heard from most of them again. He thought about Julia and figured how she would do the same as the others. But above all, he though about the fateful day in which he chose to live forever. He wondered how different it would be, how he could actually love a woman and give her his heart – even if it is for a few decades. Death, right now, seemed so much sweeter than living with a cold heart.

As he sat there with a 1000 thoughts in his head, an old couple walked by holding hands. The man had a walking cane in one hand and was holding the hand of his wife in the other. They both had hair the same color gray as a rain cloud after mid-afternoon storm and the style of her necklace reminded him of his time living in Egypt during the reign of Cleopatra. The golden eagle-like bird with its’ wings spread and the three blue pearls around it was a common jewelry peace for the magistrates back in those days and he hadn’t seen anything like this one a couple hundred years.

“Hey there young fellow,” said the older gentleman as they both smiled at Immanuel. “Beautiful summer night we got going tonight huh.”

Still lost in his thoughts, Immanuel did not answer but did manage to fake a smile back at them. The old couple continued walking slowly step by step down the paved road alongside the harbor. They didn’t say anything else to Immanuel or each other but those few words and slow steps said more to Immanuel than a whole book could say.

Unexpectedly, Immanuel started to feel a tear rolling down his face. Just as Julia had some flowing down hers like a small stream coming down a hill after a light drizzle up in the mountains a few hours ago, it was now Immanuel’s turn. He looked at the old couple again in the distance and could not help but to envy them. He envied the fact that they could love one another unconditionally and that they would not have to bear with the fact of living through the other one’s death forever. They were content with each other company and seemed happy with being able to take a walk in the park on a pleasant summer night.

As the tears continued to come down his face, Immanuel conjured up a smile. This time, it was not fake one like the one he gave to the couple a few minutes ago. This one was genuine. In the midst of this extreme sadness, Immanuel realized that he had not felt this alive in so long. The pain of what had just happened with his sweetheart Julia and seeing the old couple holding hands walking had awaken a part of him that had been dormant – a dimension that no animal could ever feel. This pain brought him back to his young days as a teenager in Egypt and how getting whipped in his back pushing a two-ton boulder towards Giza felt like. He felt vulnerable, he felt unsure of the future, he felt envy.

Above all, he felt mortal. And it never felt better.