Of all the words of mice and men
The saddest of all - what might have been
I am an External. One of a few left. Our births are a rare occurrence; even in the present age of Homo superior, at the dwindling of the human race. In recent months almost all of my friends have been killed one at a time by an enemy unknown to me.
So now, as I approach my seven hundred and sixty-third year, there is almost no one left among my peers. No person who has stood and watched the centuries pass them by. It shouldn't matter. But it does. My brain tells me that I should go on, keep living, make new friends among the remaining Externals. Their deaths still hurt.
Yesterday I received word that my oldest friend had been killed, the energies of his heart released into nature. I hope that in the afterlife he has a chance to speak with whomever would allow a hellish mutation like immortality to occur.
He was only 48 years older than me, which means that now I have the dubious honor of being the oldest living External. He told me that when he was young most of the Externals had been killed one way or another.
I envy those lucky enough to have been killed.
My friend had seen the slaughter of the mutant strain when he was young, several decades before my birth. In an event called the mutant holocaust, seventy-three percent of the mutant population was killed in the name of preserving humanity.
"They all died," he had told me. He had shook his head, and his grey-streaked blond hair shook back and forth. He looked the same that day as the day I met him, and the same as the day he died. "They were all killed, good men and women. Some of them were barely more than children, and they died in defense of a dream."
His voice had broken, and he stopped speaking long enough to get himself under control. "I was hardly older than those children. Some of us lived longer than others, and some died harder than others, but in the end they all died. Except me."
I was young then, and had asked him how he'd survived, then blushed. He was an External. That was all there was to it.
He'd put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't be embarrassed. They didn't discover how to kill externals until later on. But, by then the governments were negotiating for our release." He trailed off and grimaced; the thin white scar that ran from his hair line to his jaw pulled downward when he did. "They did manage to kill some of the immortals who weren't externals, though. Selene. Apocalypse. But, of course, no one really missed them."
The first time we discussed this I'd been confused. "But doesn't that mean that your friends died for no reason? I mean, they didn't have to die, did they? No matter what mutants had been killed, the results would have been the same."
His good hand had clenched and unclenched, and I could see in his eyes why he'd been considered powerful enough to warrant a full scale investigation into how to kill an External.
When he finally spoke, his voice had been icy. "No. Their deaths prompted the Mutant Protection Act. The government looked into their histories fully for the first time, and deemed them heros. They ruled that their deaths had been unjust, and started to really look at what they were allowing to happen, and that was the beginning of the climb to equality for mutants. Do you," he leveled his finger at me, and I flinched as if slapped. He started again. "Do you have to fight for everything you need? Do you have to stay on the run constantly, for fear you'll be caught and put in a death camp? That's what life was like for mutants by the time I was thirty. Because of those people's deaths you are a free woman. Enjoy it."
My thoughts return to the present, and his death. I kneel down in front of his grave, and trace my fingers over a symbol he had told me he wanted on his headstone if he ever died. A large X inside a circle. I don't understand the significance of it, but it meant something to him. As long as I knew him he kept a necklace with a tiny metal replica of the X on a chain under his shirt.
The same necklace falls out of my jacket as I lean forward to touch the heavy slab of marble. I tuck it back inside, and continue to trace the words and symbols. My fingers move in the loops and swirls of the current language. I brush aside the leafs that the wind has carried to the graveyard from the wooded area nearby.
A chill runs down my spine, and I shiver. To calm my sudden unease I begin to speak.
"Well, I never thought it would happen, but you're gone. From the look of things I probably won't be far behind you." I stop and rub at my cold nose. "I've looked at the past, and I saw a way you could have lived. It's really hell going through life knowing what might have happened. If only. I should have. It's all junk anyway, because I sure can't do anything about it. And I haven't seen a time traveler in a hundred years. Hindsight, immortality, total recall, and empathy make a rotten power combination." I stop and run my fingers over the cold stone again, speaking the words as I touch them.
"Samuel Zachary Guthrie. Born 1975, died November 14, 2783. 'Gone Too Late.'" That last part was Sam's idea. As long as I knew him he had a cynical sense of humor. I commented on it once, and he told me that he hadn't always been that way, and that it was something he developed to keep from going crazy when he was in the camps.
I trace the X one last time, stand, and stretch. I glance around the ancient grave yard and wonder why Sam would want to be buried here. I don't think that anyone's been buried here since before I was born. The tombstones are all so old that I can't even read them.
I wander out of the graveyard and by the lake. One at a time I toss pebbles into the water. I go a little further and come across the rusted remains of what was at one time a boat. Or maybe a car. I can't tell.
Eventually I get to an open field where what look like the crumbled remains of a gigantic house faces an open road. From what I see of the foundation the house was probably as old as the graveyard.
I turn around and head back toward the graveyard one more time before I leave. Halfway there I get the same creepy feeling I'd had before. I get to the cemetery and kneel next to Sam's grave again.
I stare straight at the grave and speak to the air. "You're the one aren't you? The one who killed Sam." I receive no answer. I don't expect one. In anger I reach out with my empathic powers, to find out what kind of man could kill so many of my friends. To my surprise, I don't find hatred, as I would expect from a killer, but instead, pity. Pity for the poor External, cursed to live forever. As he sees it he's on a mission of mercy.
More merciful than he could know.
I hold my breath and count the beats of my heart until I reach ten. I let my breath out slowly and whisper, "Do it."
There is silence behind me, and I scream, "DO IT!"
I feel a wrenching in my chest, and feel a warmth spread throughout my body. The air around me glows a dark red color, and my hand reaches up to clutch at Sam's necklace. The clasp breaks and the necklace falls from my hand and onto the ground just in front of the headstone. The air grows darker and I grasp frantically at the pendant. My hand falls over it, and in my last seconds of life my power flares, and find to my relief that there was only one ending for this day. No uncertainty. No doubt. One ending. I sigh and tumble toward the headstone.
The man stands over the brittle, fallen body of the woman. A single tear escapes his eye and splashes onto her shoulder. He stands next to her for a long time, then leans down, and touches her cool cheek. He straightens, turns, and leaves.
The day's work is not done yet.