The Life of Me
From all my years of experience I have learned that the beginning of a novel is, more often than not, similar to how you would greet a stranger. You start out with your name, which is often forgotten within the first few minutes of introduction, and on rare occasions, when their face appears trustworthy enough, you might tell them your story. However, I have no name, and I am no one, I am simply me, and so there is no need for you to worry about trying to remember what I am called. I tried names once before, but they all too quickly evaporated like smoke with each decade that blew by. I'm not quite sure of my exact age, but I do know that I am centuries old, impossibly old, yet I have the face of one so young. How, may you ask, have I come to cheat death for so very long? The answer is a man, a selfish man. He too no longer goes by his true name. He calls himself the Doctor. I find sadistic humor in his title. He thinks he has healed me. That, by giving me eternal life, he has ultimately fulfilled his self given name. But he has done quite the opposite. In my opinion, Immortality is the ultimate disease that even death cannot stop. I have tried to die. I cannot. I have begged and I have pleaded for the end. The end has not yet come. And so I go on living. And if I must continue living, I have decided to live a life that I, on occasion, can enjoy. Without regrets. I do have regrets, however. That is why I go by Me now. That is why I have detached myself. I cannot bear more regret and more heartache, and so I distance myself.
I was not always Me. According to my diaries, I was first Ashildr. I keep these diaries as memories. For while I am eternal, my memories are not. Ashildr was a nice girl, so young and naive. It was so long ago that I no longer associate myself as her. When I read her journals, I read them as though they were by another person entirely. And, in a way, they were. Ashildr was happy, glad to be alive, and not yet aware of her curse. How I envy her so. Then, her father passed, and soon after, the rest of the village was killed by others she did not know. They did not spare the children, the woman, or the lame, but killed all in sight. She watched as heavy spears plowed through the bodies of her friends, leaving them in lifeless heaps on the ground. One spear had gone through her as well. In one journal she had written, "The spear ran through me, and with it, a strange sense of joy. It was beautifully painful. I screamed not out of joy, but out of ecstasy. I was happy for the end to finally arrive. This is how it should be, I thought. I was ready to die. But as the spear left me, so did my hope. My body quickly repaired itself. And even though the spear had not killed me, I died that day." It was then that Ashildr felt truly alone. That I had felt truly alone. At one point, she had kept track of her age and by that time she was only eighty seven. Eighty seven had once seemed so old to her, to me. But now, Eighty Seven was nothing. She had already seen and experienced more than she wanted, but, little did she know, it would only be the beginning. This page in my diary was a particularly painful one. Once, it had been too much to bear, so I had ripped it out. However, I kept it safe in a special drawer, filled with other painful memories. And, after a few centuries when my memories fade, I read them again. I no longer find them quite as painful. Each page is a lesson. They teach me how to avoid the mistakes of my past. But, one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made was falling in love.
He was beautiful and charming, but his life was quick, fleeting. Another mayfly. He was not my first love. There were a few others. He was, however, the only one I was naive enough to marry and give children. He aged, while I did not. I was afraid he would find out. Those who found out grew to either hate me, or fear me. I could not bear either from him. When the questions came, I left. I missed him so. My heart was broken. I then decided I could not stand to be away from him any longer. I paid him a visit, only to find him withered away by time. The night before his passing I wrote in my journal, "My love is dying. It broke my heart when the questions started and I knew I had to leave him. I returned to find an old man who smiles and thinks I am a dream. I am flesh and blood, my love, but all you see is a ghost." Never again. No more marriage. No more romance.
Before his death came the plague, along with my greatest regret. When I left my love, I selfishly took our children with me. They served as beautiful memories of him. The eldest had his eyes, the second, his smile, and the baby, had not yet greeted the world. I looked forward to his birth and the days with him that would follow. But, those days did not last. "The plague. Mass graves. Sightless children clutching toys as they sleep, never to wake up. My children. My screams. I could not save you little ones. Such pain. And yet still, still I am not brave enough to die, to let go of this retched life. I will endure, but no more babies. I cannot, will not suffer such heart break again. From now on, it's me against the world." I considered saving them with the same object that saved me. I had another. I had not yet used it for fear I would regret using it on the wrong person. "I felt once more around my neck. The tile was there of course. It is always there. The tile that shares immortality. Waiting to be given. I looked from face to face. I had tried to cut it. I had sharpened my knife, so many times. It will not cut. It cannot be shared. Would it be my brave, my brilliant Essie? My sweet, my loving Johann? Or my laughing baby, whom I do not even know?" I could not choose. It was too painful. And so, they died. Rage then filled my grieving heart. "Oh for all the times I have been tried as a witch: if I only could, truly, curse the man who did this to me, if I could pull his blood out across the stars, slowly, drop by drop whilst he screamed the heavens apart, then I would." That was the day I became my true self. The day I became Me.