The Immortal Wanderer

I had felt the gaping loss of her each time the Gods decided to take her away. Every time she died her brutal death, another little piece of me was taken away. Freak accidents on Main Street, a battle with cancer, unexplainable illnesses even with an autopsy. At one point, she was the victim of a mass shooter. 

It was absolute torture, for them to give her to me time and time again just to snatch her back out of my reach. Each time we met again; she’d show no recollection of the millions of lives through which I have loved her. 

It was my punishment, after leaving the life of the Gods, claiming I was done with the games, of being a lowlife pawn to them. Now here I was, the ultimate pawn in the ultimate torturous game. My own personal hell. Forced to remain immortal, daily I watch everyone around me die with their loved ones. I watch my own love die over and over again. 

Lillian is, or should I say, was, quite literally, my other half. Out of everyone I had met, she was the only one who cared enough to learn about me, and the moments that have shaped me. I had stories, those of which I couldn’t be sure I could tell again. In each of her short lives, I had sought out her familiar, unchanging face despite hundreds of years passing. I traveled a thousand miles to find her each time and wouldn’t have had to think before traveling a thousand more to be able to spend just a little more time with her. 

Lillian always looked the same, and I found her in the same place in different cities: an art museum. As we spent time looking at each painting, I always found myself stealing glances at her instead. And each time we had our first kiss, it was like a thousand fireworks going off at once. There was no one else on this entire earth who could compare.

Eventually, the Gods had finally decided they were bored seeing me grieve the same way each time, and so they killed my Lillian off for the last time. It hurt even more than the others, knowing that I would never see her beautiful face, alive, again. 

Since her death, I have been in a self-inflicted isolation, wallowing in the scent of her. I couldn’t imagine being subjected to another cycle of meeting and separating, so what was the point? 

Out of the blue, a burst of spontaneity came over me. Quickly, I put on my shoes before the feeling passed and I was stuck inside by the crashing of another wave of sadness. 

Eventually, I passed the museum where I had met the love of my life for the last time and felt a pang of remembrance. I almost went in, but I knew my emotions would get the best of me. So, for the first time in hundreds of years, I didn’t go to an art museum. A few doors down, I came across the glass doors of a café. In the years I had been in this small town, I had never cared to notice anything but the museum. I stood, debating whether I should go in. 

Then, I was suddenly pulled out of my thoughts by a tap on my shoulder. A woman boldly asked, “I noticed you standing here for a while. Can I take you for a coffee?” I am left speechless; no one has ever come up to me in any of my searches. There’s been no recognition at all. The woman before me doesn’t seem anything like Lillian. She looks different and seems to know exactly what she wants. She also seems to be waiting for me to answer. But I have no idea what to say. It feels wrong to go out with another woman. It feels disrespectful, somehow, despite her finality. 

And then I saw her. Lillian, ghostlike, sliding passing us. She waved to me smiling wide, almost the exact same smile when I had asked her to move in with me the very first time. But this smile felt different. It talked without talking at all, and said, “It’s okay. It’s okay to move on.” 

Drawn out of my thoughts again, I looked back at the woman in front of me, very real, starring up at me. 

“Yes.” 

I walked through the glass doors into the café and crossed the final stage of grief: acceptance. I felt the beginning of something new and it didn’t feel wrong. But somehow, in the back of my head, I couldn’t push out the thought of Lillian on the street. 

A voice told me, “Whatever you think you saw, you did not see.”