A Highlander Fable
© 2001...Rory V. PascualAUTHOR'S NOTE: This short story was inspired by a piece of cyberart that was created by Lynn G. way back in 1999. (ATTACHED BELOW) Although I do not remember the exact date when I wrote this story, I perfectly remember the circumstances. It's up to you, the reader, to guess when this little fable was written. Thank you, Lynn, for allowing me to post your artwork along with this story.
There once was a young woman who dreamed of Immortals. Day in and day out, she would stay in a quiet corner of the Watcher's library, reading about the lives and adventures of these beings blessed with eternal life
But there was one Immortal who has captured her mind and heart.
"A warrior, a lover, a wanderer," she read in the journal of her superior, the man who was this Immortal's Watcher and best friend.
An apt description, she thought. In her mind, however, he was so much more than that -- the kind of man she always dreams would fill her lonely life. A man who literally shone with goodness, like the bright summer sun. A man, who by his very presence, warms an aching heart.
But she knew she was just suffering from a delusion. She was doomed to live a humdrum life of normalcy. A Watcher she may be, but her duties lay behind a desk, to catalogue the chronicles of the Immortals. She was also a physician to her colleagues, who somehow came too close to the line of fire.
Oh, how she wished she could be like the majority of their clandestine group -- watching, observing, never interfering. Well, maybe not interfering, but interacting. Her superior was doing it. Why not she? Still, what an irony her life was! She was a Watcher, and yet she's not one. She wanted to BE a Watcher. She wanted to watch HIM.
As the months turned into years, she watched with envy as her colleagues went on their respective assignments. Same also for her superior, who, unknowingly, was fuelling her unrequited desire to be in this "other" world by sharing with her the chronicles of "his" Immortal. Always the same people. Never her. When she also read about the people, both mortal and Immortal, who had gone to see this godling, like addicts who craved for more of his company, she would just find the tears trickling from her eyes, wetting the journal she was reading.
With time, she grew to hate them. Most of all, she hated herself, many times thinking if she should end her miserable, lonely existence once and for all. What was it to imagine when one will never experience the reality? How long could one continue to dream of reaching that unreachable star?
Rather than wallow in regret for what could never be, she immersed herself in her work, hoping that she could forget, lose the obsession that had a tight grip on her heart and soul.
Probably noting her restlessness and sorrow, her superior decided to give her her first field assignment. She didn't like it. The Immortal she was tasked to watch was an evil man, the complete opposite of the Immortal she so admired. Unfortunately, she could not choose whom she should watch.
Strangely enough, this Immortal brought her back to the man she always dreamed of. The fiend had set a trap. Someone would shoot their prey in the back and, while he lay dead, her Immortal would take his head. She knew she couldn't let this happen.
When she saw the raised gun, she didn't think twice. She ran forward, calling out his name. She saw him look at her, surprise on his face. Then, pain slammed into her chest, and she fell into darkness.
When she opened her eyes, she surveyed the stillness of the cemetery around her. Her superior was there, and so was his friend, the Immortal she had saved. Both gazed sadly at the gravestone before them, her name neatly etched in the marble along with the dates of her birth and death.
The Watcher was telling him about her -- about the good she had done to many people, the way she had placed the needs of others above her own.
"Why did she do it, Joe?" the Immortal asked in sorrow.
"She read your chronicles," her superior replied. "That's all she ever reads for a length of time."
They looked at each other for a moment, and the Immortal realized what his friend was trying to tell him -- that he had meant very much to her, even if he had been just a dim shadow in her life.
"I wish I could've known her," the Immortal whispered, a tear falling down his cheek.
Unseen by the two men, the woman leaned forward and kissed the Immortal tenderly on the brow, as she began to weep as well.
Feeling the warm light behind her beckoning, she said sadly, "It's too late for that."
THE END
