Insomnia

23: Ulises

Kolwezi, May 2125

"I want to kill them both," I said.

The soldier was silent. My companions, in the next-door tent, were not.

We were still months away from our destination, with no boat, and no plan, and yet they were happy. Not just happy; giggling relentlessly. I wasn't even sure that they spoke the same language. I certainly doubted that this slave warrior, though one of my closest guards, understood my own.

Humanity's lack of ambition, their satisfaction with mediocrity, never ceased to anger me. "We've failed to achieve anything thus far, and yet my peers are happy in their failure. What right have they to laugh? Joy is for celebration, and celebration is for victors."

Again, the man across from me said nothing. He looked increasingly uncomfortable, whether he could hear my words or not. He, too, seemed unintelligent.

The world is full of that sort, of course; it is smothered with legions of idiots. They can only see the present, not the future, and so it's no wonder they've smothered it. Idiots will always create more idiots, without considering where they will go.

That's humanity's great triumph. When it comes to mindless reproduction and expansion, we're worse than our most notorious pests. With no natural predators, and destroying the earth as we go. We are the very definition of vermin. We ignore the future, and we suffer for it. If you don't look at the future, like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, it ceases to exist.

They continued to giggle, and I considered their murder.

We'd stopped to make camp outside Kolwezi, just for the day. The bloated city had overflown, and now the surrounding area served as a gigantic market for the trade of timber, local-mined ores, and water from its heavily-guarded reservoir. We would need a great deal of supplies if our journey was to succeed, and so we had taken tents on the outskirts, sending soldiers in to haggle and intimidate if necessary. Whilst others bought food, though, I had chosen to seek the valuable and rare resource of silence. A scratched cross in the dirt by my tent had deterred would-be traders, but this soldier didn't seem to have gotten the hint. He was supposed to guard me from intruders, not to become one himself.

"With this attitude, they will die soon regardless," I told him. This cruel world did not reward the joyous, the carefree, those who lacked ambition. He is supposed to be getting supplies, not befriending the locals. "Without me, they won't last a week. I can simply wait."

Of course, that was no longer so reliable. Death, once so punctual, had made a habit of missing appointments. I hoped to avoid her entirely. I'd been watching the future, and I liked what I saw. To best look forwards, I find, you need an eye on the past. I'd been watching closely.

In 1796, we cured smallpox. In 1955, we cured polio. In 2088, we cured old-age. The elixir of life, a philosopher's stone, the prize alchemists and scientists had sought for millennia. It was the pinnacle of human achievement, or so they had told us. I suppose that was an appropriate description, because humanity had been heading downhill ever since.

We're not actually immortal, but it sometimes felt that way. We'd just been made resistant to our three largest killers, and the harmful effects of ageing, doubling our potential lifespan. We still starve. We die of thirst. In an over-populated world, we rip each other to shreds fighting over the little food left. In our efforts to escape the brutality of nature, we have come to embody its most ruthless elements. We don't, however, pass away quietly in our sleep. We've been 'cured' of that.

I'd feel no guilt over killing these mortals, I mused, with this in mind. Mortals die; that's what defines them. Denying them their death removes a fundamental part of their nature, and that is more of a crime than giving it back. I would never mourn a mortal dying, because it happens to them all. Death is a necessary part of life.

We may mourn the timing and nature of their death, but we are mourning for us, not for them. They do not care: they are dead. It is only how the circumstances and timing affect others, those around them, which can be regretted. If these idiots died now, it wouldn't hurt any other, not more than at any other time. They had no loved ones here, besides apparently one another. Those back home would never know.

"No other living person would be worse off. I could do it, and feel no guilt." In fact, as they are using up resources, which other living people might then gain, I would be doing a service. Fortunately for these mortals, I am selfish. It would inconvenience me to kill them now, as I still have use for them. And hence they live.

My guard left. Had I offended him? More than likely, he had just felt awkward under the barrage of words he did not recognise. No matter. As I said, they would die soon regardless, and so would he. They would probably starve along the way, but I would survive. I am Ulises, I told myself. My crew may perish, the world may test me in every way it knows, but I will reach Ithaca regardless.

For me, this wasn't a cure, or a curse. It was an opportunity. We have been given the chance to live forever, or to die trying. I knew my history, and this is the greatest chance any man has had for immortality, though it has been sought since the dawn of time. Whatever my faults, I'm not one to ignore opportunity.

The idiots should not annoy me, because they, too, were a blessing. I was glad they could only see the short term, because otherwise I would have competition. Compared to that, I could tolerate a little giggling.

I controlled myself. Every great hero is a patient one, and sooner or later all mortals die. I could wait them out; all of them. I didn't care how long it took.

After all, I had eternity.