December, 2018
HOW MANY YEARS had it been? After one long-lifetime, I tend to question just that: how many years had it been? I remember being born into a dystopian—or much like it—world of constant bewilderment and disagreement. I was never one for wanting to be a soldier, and the refined ways of a Victorian Gentleman never did appeal to me, never had sparked an interest within me, and perhaps that is why I still roam the world today. Maybe I'm just looking for something to interest me.
No, that's far too ridiculous.
Born in 1815 was I, and quite the adorable babe, although the gashes and blows of a hard life in the orphanage never paid off well. My skin was patterned, and still is for the matter, with the marks of my childhood, and more than I would like am I questioned about it, their tone being soft and warped with an agonising concern:
"Sir? Are you okay? How did you get those marks?"
Number one: please don't address me as Sir. I may be two hundred and three years of age, but for an immortal it is rather young, and let me tell you—Sir is for old people. Number two: I am perfectly fine, thank you. I always do love when someone cares for my wellbeing. Number three: well, I'm a two-hundred and three year old man who has walked the Earth and seen the beginnings of Ferrero Rocher and I was whipped through a majority of my adolescent life.
Oh people, you see why I hate having to answer these questions?
Maybe my diversion of human interaction is because I am consistently lonely. I always enjoyed my own company in Cardinal Place back in 1895, around the time where a masked killer—whose true identity is still unknown, may I inform you—roamed around, murdering prostitutes with the esteemed skills of a doctor, which made him appear to be that of the richer classes—and boy, did that cause an uproar!
"A higher class! Never."
"Probably a peasant roaming around, pretending to be a higher class man!"
"I bet it was that doctors apprentice, James McCoy!"
Ah yes, the ignorance of humanity. Never had I missed it, and still to this day I don't. Perhaps that was my reasoning for always being alone—the avoidance of man and their prodding questions of curiosity and the hunger for the exceeding of the knowledge that the next man would be curious to want. Perhaps it was the fact that I never really did fit in, and when all my fellow associates at the orphanage had reached the staircase of death—in which the Grim Reaper greeted them with an awfully friendly smile, which startled them more than death itself—I still looked as though I was a man in my twenties, a mind still inexperienced and lacking the knowledge of life. Or, and this is the only correct one, perhaps it was because I had never connected with an individual on the same emotional, mental and physical level as I had with him; and only him.
Augustus Beauchêne.
A late night in 1909, the summer warmth of July still lingering on in September. Stars gleamed the sky and set alight the sheet of eternal darkness, the streets filled with lamps of oil and houses of age and vintage. I must've been walking down la Rue de l'Église, for the time seemed to shift on that very avenue, the paintings and tapestries which were threaded from the finest silk available were magnificent, depicting historical events such as St Bartholomew Massacre Day of 1572, and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1668. Remarkable work of the hands of impeccable weavers—I was astonished, and still it was the greatest sight I had seen.
Perhaps it was because of the clever winding of the colours to create an easy transcendence between blue and yellow, or green and brown. Perhaps it was the sight of a hand quick at work, the determination and focused etched within the mortal eye incredibly fascinating. Or, and this is of truth, perhaps it was due to the man hidden beneath the tapestry, the man who was the stars and the sky and all that seemed beautiful, his eyes of a startling blue turned toward me—for but a glimpse.
Augustus Beauchêne.
The man I loved.
I could still remember the feel of his hair, the soft curls under my thumb. Auburn they were, and in the night they warped and shifted form, appearing a deep umber. Eyes of an electrifying blue did he posses, and in the sun they appeared a similar shade to waters that lacked clarity, as I'm sure he did lack clarity on me. Why, I never had been one to voice my personal life, for it was all too strange for the mortal mind to take on. I had only told him that I was a lonely man from London, born—and which I proceeded to lie about my birth date—and set to die in the forthcoming years.
Update: I'm yet to die still, and it's fucking 2018.
Augustus, and his calm demeanour, had only shook his head, looked at me with a slight smile and said, "you may have once been a lonely man, but I am here now. You shan't be lonely again, Edward."
There were many things that Augustus had told me, all wise and with care and drenched in the waters of love, but that one stood out to me. Still, to this very night in which I sit by a cackling fire, hoping death would appear to me before Christmas is to dawn, it still stood out to me. Perhaps it was due to the simplistic promise he had wished for me, and if I was mortal I would have latched onto it with open arms and never let it go. Desperation—I think it was because I was desperate for a sense of mortality, and he gave it to me there. In his words. Bathed in his love. Bathed in him.
That was the first time I ever fell in love with Augustus Beauchêne. It was the first time I had ever fallen in love, period. And, it was the last time I had ever fallen in love.
I do not believe that immortals are meant to love. We are numbed after seeing so many we treasure die to the point that death no longer startles us, and to the point that love is not a bother. Never did I dare to have children, never did I dare to marry. My mother, I had never known, and father was just a word I knew. My friends died in 1897, and Augustus died in 1932, where—after years of loving and promising each over a life in which we were free to openly love—his mind finally gave in to the war, into the memories that had shrouded his mind since 1918. Alas, there were many good memories in the seven years before Augustus was persuaded into war by his mother, and many good after his acquiring of PTSD.
But he was never the same.
The flicker of his eyes—the light in the blue as the sun shone down onto his auburn locks; it was not the same. There was an edge, a pathetically hidden worry about everything. No longer could Augustus walk freely, the fear of being called to war had made him bed-ridden, no longer wanting to move. I stayed with him as a lover, but to his mother I was just a dear friend. I had shared a kiss with him, and for a second he kissed back—and then he stopped, eyes wide, as though the memories all came back. And then my Augustus Beauchêne was gone, and replaced with the ghost of his former self.
After Augustus Beauchêne died, I waited for death. I put myself on the edge of a bridge and fell off it, let the salt of the sea fill my lungs and drown me in my own discreet sorrow. I refused all consumption of food, allowing the meat to diffuse and let my body turn into skin and bone. No longer did I explore the world without a care, excited for what was to come next—no, I deprived myself of mortality, for the only person that granted me such a feeling was gone, and I was still there—over a hundred years old, waiting for death to come.
Death did not come.
It wasn't until 1945, in which I was one-hundred and thirty years of age that I left my house—the small flat in which I once let Augustus Beauchêne visit twice a day. If it was three times a day, then I would never have let him leave, just as I had not left it for thirteen years. Alas, in the end I sold the old place, which had grown old and crumbly under my poor maintenance. The day I left that shack in the March of 1945 must have been quite the shock, for I'm sure the landlord forgot that someone still lived there, hence the look of utter bewilderment as I strode out.
I ventured far away from Paris, and lived a life of promiscuity. A man there, a few women here—I didn't have the will to care. None of them compared to Augustus Beauchêne, none of them even came close. Lips: all cracked or filled with excessive slobber. Arms: not the right amount of firmness, and yet still soft to the touch. Hair: too soft, the touch too fragile to do often, or it was hard and brittle and made me repulse them even more. It made sense about my growing hatred for all people, for when the dawn of 1950 came, I returned once more to England, and have lived there ever since.
One may wonder why I wrote this, and in all honesty I haven't a clue. Words tumble out of my mouth, confessions and the truth beneath my two hundred year façade has been revealed, and yet I still am unsure of why I wrote this. Perhaps it was to let the guilt of craving morality go, and accept what I am. Perhaps it was to lure in death so I am greeted at his staircase as my friends had been in 1897. Or, perhaps it is because I am lonely, and I have finally become tired of it.
Perhaps it is because I never got to say goodbye to Augustus Beauchêne, and this was my way of doing it. This strange confession of the truth of my actions, the truth of who I am is all for him—in a peculiar, absurd way. And that is okay ... I think. I never have been quite sure on what okay, so I can't give certainty.
All I know is that no one had ever come close to Augustus Beauchêne, and that I miss him.
Oh, how I miss him.
Signed, Edward Poole.