Undying

My name is Dominique...

I AM IMMORTAL.

I’m not kidding. I really am.

DEATH holds no meaning for me; neither does LIFE. I never have - and probably never will - experience Death. As for Life…ah, Life…I have an endless life...an endless, wretched life.

Each day passes by in a blur. Time is naught but an object of no use…worthless. I’ve stopped counting the years of my birth hundreds of years ago. I’ve stopped taking note of my age. How old am I? I don’t know. I lost track.

I say my life is wretched, and it is true. An eternity spent wandering, roaming the face of the earth, my voice lost in a crowd of unknowns. Lifetimes shared with a sea of nameless faces and faceless names…living not because I want to, but because I have to…I have no choice.

I was given no choice.

I don’t know how it happened. All I remember is his face…that beautiful face as he bent over me. His warm hands healing my wounds, and his soothing voice easing the agonizing pain that clutched me. The last thing I remember before darkness claimed me was the feel of his warm and scented lips on my own…

And when I awoke, he was gone…and I am the way I am.

That was hundreds of years ago, and I haven’t seen him since. Not a shadow, not a whisper…

I never found out who he was, where he is from, and why, on that fateful night when the nomads left me and my family for dead, he came and dealt his hand. I never knew his name. About that, too, I’ve stopped wondering. I know I’ll never find out anyway, so why bother?

Sometimes I wish he was a vampire, whose bloodsucking streak mingled with mine as he made me one of them, soulless ones. At least I would know my reason for being.

People who will read this confession of mine might find me odd, opting to ‘live’ as one of the undead when I could simply live day and night…and never die.

That’s just it. I live day and night. I never die. Where the vampires have a small time of peace during the day and comes alive only when darkness settles over the land, I go on.

I forgot what Peace was like…how being ‘normal’ felt…what LIVING really meant…what growing old is like…what being ill feels…

Wretched.

How many times have I fallen in love? Countless times. My immortal heart kept on beating from afar, as I watched the people I love grow old and fade away with serene smiles on their wrinkled faces…on their dry and chapped lips.

Then I move on. Another place, another life, another identity…not knowing what tomorrow might bring, only aware of the fact that the next sunrise will always be the same.

I should be elated. Nothing on this world, and even beyond, could hurt me. Not even DEATH. Blood will forever course through my veins. The beauty of youth will forever be mine. The power of life will eternally be with me.

But I’m not.

Tonight when the sun goes down, I will go back to that plush and lonely room at the tenement atop the hill. I will draw the blinds down and close these tired eyes…and still won’t know peace. Even in my slumber, the past will come back to haunt me. An endless stream of faces will appear before me and I won’t be able to stop them from inflicting pain. The pain of being what I am…of not having the choice…of not truly LIVING…

Years from now I will be in another place, in another lonely room. And it will still be the same: the same dreams, the same faces, probably add a few more…but it will still be the same.

I am immortal.

Wretched.