The Immortal

So I saw the title of a story by Jorge Luis Borges called "The Immortal." I decided upon this encounter, that I would pen up my own story by the same title. It's not even really a story, I just kind of started writing. But this is what I came up with.

I am….tired. I have walked for thousands of years, countless ages of meaningless travel. I have seen the trivial conquests of man, the rise and fall of kings, who believe they have true power. I once began trying to understand the complex mysteries of life and of death, but these journeys are similarly inconsequential. Mortal man is not meant to know the heavy secrets of the universe. Life is nothing but life. My years were wasted trying on my own to find the glistening peaks of spirit and the frigid chasms of despair. The world today is bright. Harsh lights pierce the thoughts and the memories of man, leaving frightened sheep without their innocence. The world holds ineffable secrets. One such as me could wander the earth for a hundred thousand years, coming no closer to truly understanding the accepted constructs of existence. The souls of Death and of Dreaming and of Power and of Love are unexplained by the empty pursuits of man. We have all, at some point, explored the world of dreams, but all my excursions, all my meetings with the lord of Dreams, eventually slip away, lost in the chaos of the waking world. Men who dream of holding power know not the true nature of power incarnate, of the ability to manipulate the workings of the world. Those who truly know power can do naught but succumb to it; the woman who drowned for her love for the sea, the man whose desire burned like a flame until he was dark and forgotten, the angel who challenged his creator. To wish for the power of God is a fruitless venture, and, as can happen with impossible dreams, will leave the dreamer hollow and endlessly wanting. Men who dream of love, romantic and eternal, fail to understand the fleeting longevity of their existence. Those who dream of love, raw and unadulterated, understand their purpose in life, simply to prolong the existence of their species; but they come no closer to understanding the outer bounds of existence, life beyond life. What is love but innumerable, futile deaths? And for those like me, who circumvent power and love; who dream simply of death, there are only two simple outcomes. We live a life like a light in the dark, or we allow death, like the absence of light, to swallow us whole. Though sometimes…and for this reason alone I question those inexorable constructs of the universe...She refuses to come. She comes for my families, for my friends, for the rich and the poor, leaving me always alone with the inevitable rising and setting of the sun; the blooming and wilting flowers. It is without fruit, immortality. I am left no wiser after the countless years of life spent waiting for her arrival. She leaves me simply in desire. In despair. She leaves me…simply…tired.

Right, I think I'm actually going to read the immortal now, to see what I'm missing out on. Sorry if that wasn't very good, I'm still just a student.