Young Writers Society

It was my eighty-seventh visit to the United States when I met you for the first. It might have been the eighty-eighth. I lost count.

The first time you looked at me with your clear blue eyes and handed me my coffee, I nearly spilled it in nervousness. My tongue was tied and I started to stutter; I had never been under such a powerful gaze before. You guided me to the side and asked if I was okay. Of course I was okay. How could I not when I was with you?

We talked some, and laughed plenty. You told me about the time when you were five and accidentally killed your fish because you were trying to help it take a bath. I wanted to tell you about my time in Venice so long ago when the clergy declared coffee to be illegal because they believed it to be the devil’s drink. But I couldn’t, because you couldn’t know my story yet. It wasn’t time.

So I told you about some more of my recent travels and sightseeing, pretending to be a rich heiress with nothing better to do. If I slipped up about my past experiences, I could always dismiss that to my unusual enthusiasm for history books.

I loved you.

You told me you were a poor man with wild dreams, wishing and hoping that one day you could travel out of the city to see the world and be in the cities that my enchanting stories promised.

So then the suitcases became our home, and we are the hitchhikers of the universe, moving from China to Argentina to Iceland to New Zealand to Hawaii and more and more and more.

We hurried from place to place, traveling each and every city, breathing in the culture and enjoying the scenery. I might have been clingy and rushed and insecure, but there were so many things to see, and so little time. We haven’t seen Canada or Russia or Brazil yet, and we need to make most of the limited we (you) have.

I didn’t want to lose you; after all, I had waited near a millennial for you already. I was not ready for you to go.

A decade after the beginning you finally noticed my oddness, my peculiar case of immortality that I cannot rid of despite my best effort. You confronted me and I broke down, sobbing into your chest in frustration, bitterness, and anger that have brewed for as long as I have lived.

You held me; your presence was enough to comfort. You did not call me a freak, and for that I am forever thankful. You listened to my incoherent mumblings as I apologized and said sorry sorry sorry sorry all over again and again because I lied to you for ten years when I could have said something all this time. You took me in and reassured me that it was all right, that you weren’t there to judge and just let it all out.

I did. I told you about my insecurity, that you would be gone soon but you just told me to relax because we’ve still got like fifty years and we’ve already spent ten years traveling all over the world all I need is you. I told you about my suicide attempts, how I would try my best to catch the tuberculosis or the Black Plague or getting excited when handguns are made available because of this miserable long existence. But you would just hush me and cry on my behalf and whisper I’m here, I’m here, I’m here… to my ear.

We recovered and I wanted to show you around Earth with a renewed vigor. There’s still Antarcticas and Saharas and Mt. Everests to conquer, there’s still Easter Islands and Great Walls of China and Isles of Rhodes to see.

You say that we have enough time for everything but we don’t— I had gone around with Alexandria and James and Lillian and Elizabeth and George before but none of them had seen everything. I haven’t even seen all of everything yet. I needed to show you the world; it was your dream.

But you said seeing the world is a poor man’s dream and now that I have you I am no longer poor. I don’t understand. But look! We need to catch that train. Let’s get to Milan first and then we can talk.

Then you’re slowing down. Why? You said you promised that you would keep up with me, even though you couldn’t carry me around anymore. Remember your promise just some times ago? I know it wasn’t yesterday but it wasn’t that long. You’re tired a lot lately, and your hair was much thinner and your face had many more wrinkles. You still stare at me with those beautiful blue eyes and dismiss my concerns with an easy I’m just sick excuse, but I knew that was not all.

What is happening? Why wouldn’t you tell me, I swore that I would try to understand? We are making more and more stops and you ar—

--wait no

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