One Life: Episode 7 IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT (last page)
babyblue1387:
Sorry it's been a while since the update, all. College has been kicking my butt with this new fangled dangled contraption called homework (seriously, the last time I've REALLY done homework was my sophomore year of high school). I'll be busy this weekend, but maybe I can squeeze in some more next week or (if I'm lucky) sunday. Thanks for being so patient and sticking with this thread even though I update once every blue moon! You all give me the fuzzies!
babyblue1387:
I was done with homework early, so I was able to squeeze in an update:)
-------------------------------
I watched quietly as my mother and this new wonder Inamorta went off to sleep. I was happy for her. My mother. Happy that she had found some sort of peace or at the very least a companion. And yet, for myself, I couldn’t help feeling sad, and increasingly alone. Aiden, for whatever reason, has kept me away from his recent work. He says it is a surprise, and yet, all this does is leave me alone. Ever since I was brought into this new life, I’ve been alone. Even those years I’ve spent with my mother were truly alone. She could not hope to understand the situation I am in, or what it’s like to be stuck in a doorway, unable to choose a side.
So I sat, and resumed reading my book. Sleep had not yet come to greet me, and I felt that I might not sleep at all this night. Feeling a little mellow, I poured myself a glass of wine and attempted to loose my thoughts in the words of another, but I was unable to. So I sat on the couch, drinking my wine, and waiting.
I hadn’t been waiting for too long when Aiden came in the house, his hair messy, and his face alight with exhaustion and excitement. To see him as he is these days breaks my heart. I know that he is engaged in the work of his lifetime, that he is working on some large project, but to know his limits, and yet see him push himself so far beyond his own breaking point…. I could not contain myself any longer, so I spoke to him, startling him. He hardly even notices his surroundings anymore.
“Aiden, love, what are you doing that takes so much out of you?”
He turned to me, and I couldn’t help realizing just how old he was. His face was deeply lined, and his hair completely grey now. How quickly time passed for me! How long had it been since I’d truly looked at my husband last? And what would my children look like now, if I stepped back and looked at them? Perhaps some of it was the wine, but mostly…mostly, I realized, I hadn’t paid enough attention to my family.
“What I’m doing now, is making you a present. Something so spectacular…well, words just can’t describe it. Consider it a testament to our love, done all in honor of you! All that I do now, working day and night, fighting off sleep, keeping careful records, all of this is for you!”
I smiled, but sadly. Maybe he couldn’t see it. Maybe he didn’t want to see the way this was affecting his body. How much longer could he take this? How much longer before his heart gave out, and could no longer sustain this ridiculous working pace?
It wouldn’t be long before I found the answer. I dreaded this moment, knew it would come, yet feared and dreaded it all the same.
I was with Inamorta that night, four years later, sitting at the kitchen table.
“Why do you put up with him?”
“He is young. He’s lived his eternal life for only 75 years. Foolish. An idiot! He was decent enough as a human, if not somewhat overly proud of himself. The only reason I turned him was because I needed someone to take care of the things I could not. So, for 75 years, I was forced to live with this mistake whenever I traveled abroad.”
“So then you were here the night he turned my mother, and came to kill me?”
“No! Oh, no, child! Had I been here, that foolish idiot would no longer exist. He must feed to survive, this I know, and he knows as well. He also knows the rules that I set for him. Yet he cannot get over, in his head, my appearance. How would it look, he said to me once, if I were taking orders from a 10 year old? I made him remember that I was 10 only in body, not mind and power.”
She was quiet for a while, and I did not push her. Over those four years that Inamorta and my mother stayed with us, I came to understand the way that Inamorta works. The only time she knows is the sunrise, and, the sun just having fully set, she knew that time was hers to command. She did things when she was ready to, and I admired her for it.
“I was at home. My castle in the English countryside. I was keeping tabs on him since he left in such a foul mood. I was certain that he’d go off and do something stupid. Something to prove to himself that he could exert such control over others as I could over him. A foolish thing to do. It was a false security that he wanted, and one that I was not going to give him under any circumstances. We cannot afford false securities.”
We were quiet for a long while, and I tried to imitate Inamorta’s coolness. She seemed so at peace, and yet, I fought hard to continue with the life I have always led. I continue to be stuck in a world neither full of light nor darkness, and yet still no balance between them. I watched as Inamorta sat, statuesque, for hours, lost halfway in my own thoughts, when she spoke again.
“I must return to England. I have affairs that need to be taken care of back home. My house is open to both you and your mother. She has expressed her wish to return to Europe with me, and said that you and your husband would do well with a vacation.”
Pandora Moon:
Hi. great story. It can be hard to remember that Inamorta has lived for centuries when she looks around ten years old.
Good work. I'll be looking forward to reading your next update.
See ya.
babyblue1387:
Aww, thanks so much!
babyblue1387:
Update tomorrow! Had to go advance some more lives for the story...
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page