Not long ago I planned to travel the world, now I’m dying. My name is Brynn and this is my story:

I come from a beautiful country where death is rare and also cherished because it signifies a time of change for my people. I was born 998 years ago which makes me a child in the eyes of society but I never saw myself that way. There’s a great party when we turn a thousand and on our birthday we go into the forest and make a marking on our birthstone. We keep track of our age more easily that way. At a thousand marks we have our second birthstone and we celebrate yet again (we find many excuse to have a party) but alas, we are not immortal so getting old enough to have a third or a fourth stone is a real honor.  

I remember when my brother turned a thousand, he received lots of gifts, gifts that I was jealous of. Oh how I wish I could’ve received such an honor! Just two years away… If only I’d waited. Now I’ll die in disgrace without having accomplished a thing. The humans have always fascinated me and I don’t blame them for my death. Their lives are so short yet they accomplish so much. They destroy and create life like it has no meaning. It’s as if time moves faster for them which makes them unable to see the small things and appreciate moments of peace.

I meet my grandparents regularly. They are as old as some of the trees and their bodies are almost as rigid. They decided a while ago that they’ve lived long enough and stopped moving. You can’t kill yourself, that’s forbidden, so they let themselves waste away. I’m not sure if they still hear me but they’re breathing and it’s encouraging just to look at their peaceful expressions.

I am not afraid of death. My contact with the humans taught me a great deal about life and I think I’ve done and seen more than most people my age. I went and saw the great lakes, for instance, and the busted wall that once held millions of gallons of water in place. I could only imagine how grand it must’ve been back then, the lakes are still called Great and are still quite big. The wall kept the sea monsters at bay and they flooded into the ocean when the wall broke and from then they grew even larger. Smaller ones still swim in the lakes. I planned on traversing the ocean, going recklessly like humans do and sail on a boat made of wood… I wonder what my grandparents would’ve said about that.

Well, those are dreams that I won’t see to fruition. I believe being with humans I caught their vulnerability. I can see now why they rely so much on the gods and they pray for fortune so they might not die. Had I known this I’d prayed to the gods too, but now it’s too late. My death is certain. Yet I don’t regret it. Because of my disgrace I’ll live once more, reborn perhaps to the same parents? It’s not unheard of.

War is a big part of the human world, more than in ours, I think the last one ended a millenia ago and I’ve seen how the humans fight! They are merciless and brutal to their opponents because the enemy is in the way of their fortune. It was jarring. They are so sure they won’t die, that they will be the lucky ones. They are reckless and fascinating. It’s their fate to be at the whims of the gods, my kind has a different relationship with the gods. They say we were their first creation but they became bored with us and created humans; other’s say we were gods ourselves in the past but were cursed somehow, tricked into mortality. It makes us special. I don’t see it that way, we still die in the flesh like humans do. We don’t create or destroy, no more than humans are capable of. We simply don’t do it and in death we just disappear like a breath in the wind. Forgotten. We leave the world neither better nor worse.

In our country we have what we need and doesn’t seek more. The opposite is true for humans, they start with nothing and can’t have enough of anything. I’m not sure which fate is worse. My kind have all the time in the world but does nothing with it while the humans time is limited but they want so much. I thought I was special and could do great things for a long time. Perhaps next time, if the world will have me.

© Christopher Stamfors