Chapter 3-in which our character is finally called home

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by frost.

I didn't know what had called me to New York in this life, in this time. I had not been summoned by the fate of September 11th. I had then been an ocean away fulfilling another destiny, following other sorrows. It has been almost three years since then. And while there remained a permanent scar on the city, it was in fact a scar and thus already healed. There was little more I could do. Life is what it is and it is no more complicated then that. When fate itched, I scratched, and fate had directed me to New York City.

After a long month of tedious lectures I found myself sitting beside Jesse yet again. He seemed distracted by my presence and while packing up at the end of a very long hour at the end of a very long day, we began a rather familiar conversation. He stared unselfconsciously as I placed a notebook in my worn leather bag.

"Hello," he opens. I smile and nod at him. "Jesse Thomas," he informs me as he holds out his hand.

"Jennifer Kelly," I reply as I accept his hand. He startles at my touch, but does not let my hand go. I complete the task for him, though he seems not to notice.

"Jennifer Kelly", he repeats airily, "you have the most beautiful voice." I smile and look away, avoiding eye contact. Though I've heard the compliment before and try to avoid such, it does stroke my ego a bit. I try not to let it go to my head, it rarely does any good there. As we stride out the door and down the hall side by side we are silent. Jesse appears preoccupied and I do not mind the companionable silence. As I turn down the street toward my subway line I am a bit surprised that Jesse turns to go with me. There are few details in life that slip pass my notice and Jesse, as he always does, had driven his car in to the city that morning. The parking garage was in the other direction.

"Are you running errands," I ask. He stops abruptly at the sound of my voice. I stop as well.

"Going home," he replies absently.

"Oh" I reply, and let the matter drop. There is no use pointing out the obvious to him. He looks around in that moment anyway and finally notices that he is not in fact where he intended to be. He looks at me a bit awkwardly and I give him an encouraging smile and a slight shrug of my shoulders. I am at least a dozen feet on my way when I hear his voice at my back. He has still not moved from the spot I had left.

"We should go out," he yells out. I turn back toward him and smile to myself. I make my way back toward him.

"No thank you," I tell him.

"Oh,"he replies dejectedly and does manage to look pathetically sad. Unfortunately, after a few thousand years simple rejection does little to affect one's sympathies like war, plague, and oppression can. I shrug trying to keep my condescending cynicism to myself. After all, it's not his fault.

"So you're the rebuffed, pessimistic, love is shit type."he says allowing his anger at being rebuffed to emerge

Well, I guess this is a remarkably familiar conversation.

I pause and try a different approach, after all he won't remember in the morning, I will. I might as well try for a more pleasant memory. For a moment I consider going home with him, but it is a brief moment and never truly considered. Instead I put on my best faux doctor voice and reply, "love is a temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient." This gets a small laugh out of him and I turn to leave on an up note. When I do, I catch his eye quite by accident.

It is remarkable how much there is to see of one's soul through the eyes. It is then that I know what turn of fate brought me to New York. Jesse has the HIV virus. I know not how long ago he acquired it, but it matters little. I am surprised I did not catch on when we touched, however, the contact was overwhelmed by his happiness and he is not, as yet truly unhealthy. As I make my way home I think on the days ahead and wonder if my fate here could be so simple. I am never generally attracted to the sorrow of one person, and as I suspected, in the following weeks I learn to what extent the sorrow would reach.

By the end of the month, eight people have contracted the virus. During health exams prior to our first hospital clinic one year later 39 people are informed they will die. It is not war, or mass genocide, torture or rape I face this time, but all sorrows have their place, and so follows mine. I have bided my time until the physicals. Though I know what will come to pass, I do not interfere. Just as I obey my fate, so too do I obey the fate of others. My own physical was quite remarkable, as such things always are. Being only half human can really skew your results. I politely refuse any additional tests and accept follow up appointments that I will never keep.

It will take all week to make contact with all 39 students and months more to take their memories. I could meet them all within a day but such a process draining and unnecessary. I have found that suffering too has its place, though I will not stand and let it pass unchecked. Time is not such a pressing matter as I once thought it was, and though for the last I contact it will be the longest, most horrid time of their life, no permanent damage will result. I take from each their coming suffering and leave no knowledge of what will be. Though they will meet death on their appointed day, the passing will be an easy one. I do not grant them clemency from their sentence; even if I could, I would not. A true angel of death, I will give them the gift I have only dreamed of for myself. The following months will not be hard, I have lived them before. I am numb to the memories I adopt. They take little notice besides the collection I have acquired. The physical suffering is more outward and yet the feeling will pass. No doubt more quickly then it should.

The cat started coming around about the same time that my nightmares did. I have had nightmares in the past, but not for hundreds of years, and not like these. It was as if I was experiencing the fate of something great and horrid befalling a power that should not fail, but was. There was little detail for which my imagination more then made up for. The dreams themselves had little variation, always I was falling, always I was surrounded by flame. I am unaccustomed to the impact that such a horror can have. The thousands of memories of victimization have had little to no impact on me, certainly not like this. Compounding my worries was my utter lack of knowing and feeling the living world. I had given up my game of telling the time when I awoke.

The cat was nothing much to look at. Old and scruffy, he had been in too many fights and eaten too little. It was difficult to make out through the matted fur that he was gray striped. The first day he came in through my open window above my fire escape I felt obliged to give him a bit of my dinner. He never approached me, and I never approached him, it was an agreement of mutual acceptance, made without having to test any boundaries and I appreciated that. As time went on he stayed around longer and longer. Whether he was comforted by my presence or stuck around for the food I don't know. I like to think he was there to comfort me. On the tenth night he decided to stay and I decided he needed a bath, again the decision was reached by mutual consensus. When he woke me on the third night during an exceptionally painful point of my dream I brought him home tuna fish.

Though he was a comfort it was not enough. I came to accept the dreams for what they were, a calling... and I knew it was time to go home.