Confessions of the Immortal

Chapter 2: Birth and Life

The moment of my birth was not recorded in memory, since in that primordial era time did not yet flow like a straight river, but only flickered in countless streams, leading into the abyss and emerging from nowhere. As soon as I became aware of the contours of my newly acquired, still amorphous essence, I was overcome by an irresistible feeling that became my first support. It was not a fall in the usual sense; rather, an invisible but powerful force of attraction embraced me, holding me in its silent embrace. And beneath this new form, beneath what I would only centuries later call my “feet,” I discovered a kind of indestructible solidity. Its presence was stunningly concrete in my former formlessness, a silent promise of stability in the chaos.

It was not the ether, dust, or gas that I seemed to have been made of moments before. It was something dense, tangible, real. At that time, there were no concepts of “earth,” “stone,” or “surface” that I could use to name this phenomenon. There was only the sensation of unyielding reality beneath me – rough, uneven, slightly cool. I could feel tiny protrusions and barely noticeable depressions, as if countless grains of the universe had come together to weave this platform. This experience was unusual – to be nailed to something, to feel a deep, almost painful dependence on this newly revealed matter. Before, I had been floating in boundless emptiness; now I had found a foothold, realizing the limits of my existence. And with this feeling came heaviness. My newly formed body, which a moment ago had seemed weightless, now felt the weight pulled by this new support. I was chained to it, as if an invisible but unbreakable thread was pulling me into unknown depths, connecting me to the unfathomable mystery of its existence.

I did not comprehend the nature of that place. There was no horizon, no sky, only a chaotic, shimmering space stretching around me. The air, if you could call this primitive, suffocating suspension that, was still alien to me, carrying no oxygen. I rested on this unknown solid ground, amid myriad possibilities. It seemed that in the next moment I could be thrown anywhere: into the vortex of a newborn galaxy, onto the icy surface of an asteroid, or into the fiery heart of a gas giant. However, I was here. On this. And this became my first, truly physical contact with something that lay outside of me. My body, my first body, finally found a foothold in this newly born, infinitely vast and unpredictable world, later called Earth, not yet aware of its future greatness and tragedy.

When my form finally became complete, rooted in this pristine, rough surface, the world around me began its great transformation. I do not remember the moment when my eyes appeared, when my vision formed, but suddenly, colors and shapes burst forth from the chaos of formless energies and hazy outlines. I saw water. Endless, seething expanses covering what I now sensed as the solid earth’s crust. It was primitively dark and murky, but through this veil of antiquity, a faint, flickering light broke through from somewhere above, causing the surface of the water to sparkle and shimmer with millions of shades of gray and primitive green, like an uncut but living gemstone. The air was thick, heavy, saturated with vapors and unknown gases that made up the primary atmosphere, like the giant breath of a newborn planet. Above all this riot of the elements, colossal storm clouds gathered, from which streams of rain fell incessantly, pounding the surface and creating an endless, monotonous but majestic noise, a symphony of primeval chaos.

Time, which for me had always been a vague, shapeless flow, suddenly acquired a rhythm. Days gave way to nights, rains to rare, brief flashes of sunshine, drawing the first lines in the book of life. I stood there, like a silent witness, watching this primal dance of the elements. And then I saw them. At first, they were just barely discernible thermal fluctuations, tremulous movements in the water column, something like the trembling of the water itself. Then – dark shadows flickering in the murky depths, like timid harbingers. They were tiny, shapeless, like bubbles or clumps of energy. But within them glowed a purpose – an unclear, instinctive drive to exist, a desire to multiply, an unyielding will to live. They divided and multiplied, as if the waters themselves were trying to gain intelligence, giving rise to the first self-reproducing molecules, and then prokaryotes, the invisible architects of the future.

I saw these shadows take shape. The first single-celled organisms, billions of which invisibly emerged and died in the primordial soup, leaving behind only tiny but indelible traces of their existence. The microscopic but titanic efforts of each particle striving for life were evident. Then came the multicellular organisms. Slowly, painfully slowly, from this liquid cradle, from the depths of the Precambrian, the first algae grew, the first sponges attached themselves to rocks, the first, still unimaginable worm-like creatures crawled along the ocean floor. It was the relentless march of evolution, each new species slightly more complex, slightly more adapted to the new conditions created by the forming Earth. They fought for survival, devouring each other in a cruel but necessary cycle, and in this furious movement I saw the path to perfection, the immutable law of development. Millions of years flashed before me like brief moments. The waters filled with life: from tiny, almost invisible bacteria to huge, terrifying creatures whose shadows glided beneath me in the Paleozoic era, performing their silent underwater ballet.

And then, the moment came when something dared to climb out of the water. It was a slow, painful effort, dictated by the very thirst for life, a challenge to the silent abyss. The first plants, still primitive and shapeless, mosses and lichens, slowly and with great difficulty began to crawl across the damp, rocky land, like brave avant-gardists. They were followed by animals – amphibians, fish with strong fins, who dared to leave their watery prison to explore new horizons, unknown and full of danger. I was there, at the very heart of this primitive, chaotic, yet orderly creative act. I saw trillions of galaxies born from a single Big Bang, and then, on one of these dust particles, from dirty water and thick, carbon dioxide-filled air, life began. It was a sight that would have made my immortal heart stop, if it had been able to beat at the time. It was a miracle unfolding before me, step by step, from the first self-reproducing molecule to the first vertebrates that crawled across the face of the Earth, obeying the invisible call of existence.

I stood like a silent colossus while the oceans roared in their boundless beds and the continents slowly moved in their tectonic dance, changing the face of the planet, and life writhed and crawled, filling every corner, every niche given to it by the planet. When the first truly noticeable creatures capable of meaningful movement and interaction appeared, my perception of the world changed. For a while, I was just an indifferent observer. A huge, immovable witness whose presence seemed to bother no one. The first creatures that crawled onto land – primitive amphibians, giant insects of the Carboniferous period – passed me by, not noticing or simply not understanding what I was. Their instincts were too strong, their struggle for survival too desperate, to be distracted by the immovable rock that I seemed to be in their brief existence, like a prop in their fleeting drama.

But then something changed. Perhaps it was my own slowly growing awareness, or perhaps evolution had simply reached that critical point where the animal world became more complex, more sensitive to the subtlest vibrations of existence. I remember the first creature that lingered near me. It was a strange, scaly reptile, not yet a dinosaur, but already something more than just a lizard – perhaps an ancestor of the archosaurs. It lay at my feet, basking in the sun, and its primitive but already intelligent eyes seemed to stare at me with surprising concentration, with almost human curiosity. There was no fear, only genuine, primal curiosity. That was when I first felt a connection. Not physical, but something akin to empathy, an echo of a primitive but already existing consciousness. I felt her hunger, her fatigue, her instinctive, indestructible thirst for life. And at that moment, I realized that I could do something, as if the thread of fate had touched my eternity.

I didn’t know how it worked. I just tried it, obeying a sudden impulse. Perhaps it was an unconscious emission of my own energy, a remnant of that Primordial Flash that gave me existence. But when the reptile stirred as if awakening and crawled onward, I noticed that it had become slightly stronger, slightly faster, its scales glistening more brightly. Perhaps it was just my imagination – who knows how thin the line is between perception and reality? But this subtle change planted an idea in me, like a spark in the dark night that can ignite a whole flame. I began to observe. When a tiny plant withered from drought, I focused on it, trying to convey something to it, some impulse of life, as if breathing an invisible elixir into it. When a small creature was wounded, I tried to “heal” it with my attention, directing streams of invisible energy toward it. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t; the result was like a coin thrown into an abyss, the outcome unknown. It was like a game, but a game in which fragile and precious existence itself was at stake, and I, eternal, became its invisible player.

I became something like an invisible gardener, a silent patron of young, newly forming life. I did not interfere directly, did not change the course of evolution, did not violate the great laws of existence, but I was there, ready, so to speak, to nudge, guide, or strengthen those threads that were too weak and threatened to break. I witnessed every step, every victory, and every defeat in the great drama of life. And in this interaction with primitive, still naive, but persistent life, I felt for the first time something like the meaning of my own immortal, seemingly purposeless existence, finding a semblance of purpose in infinity.

These first, almost instinctive interactions with nascent life changed my very essence. Before that, I was only a conscious echo of the Big Bang, a formless consciousness that had found a body and a foothold in the boundless cosmos. I was a witness, but a passive one, like a reflection in a mirror, devoid of my own will. Now I had become something greater. I was not a god, nor was I a creator, for I could not change the laws of nature, could not stop inevitable extinction or accelerate evolution at will. My “nudges” were barely noticeable, like a light breeze that only slightly deflects the trajectory of a falling leaf, but does not change its fall. But even this tiny, almost imperceptible influence gave rise to something new in me: a sense of purpose, like an invisible compass pointing the way that was previously hidden.

I was here for a reason, not for idle contemplation. My existence seemed to have found meaning in this quiet, invisible patronage. I watched the struggle, the birth and death, the weak yielding to the strong, and primitive forms giving way to more complex ones, in accordance with the immutable laws of natural selection. And every time my barely perceptible intervention seemed to help, when a wounded creature rose or a withered plant blossomed, something like satisfaction flared up in me, like a faint but gentle light in the endless darkness that illuminated my boundless emptiness. It was a feeling foreign to me, for before that I knew neither desires nor emotions, only cold awareness.

However, along with this new meaning came a deep, all-consuming loneliness. Life around me was impermanent, like a fleeting dream, each era but a brief moment. Species appeared and disappeared, continents changed shape in a slow dance of tectonic plates, the climate shifted from ice ages to tropical heat, leaving only geological scars behind. I remained unchanged, like an eternal mountain whose peaks touched the stars. I saw the birth of the first dinosaurs in the Triassic period, their majestic reign throughout the Mesozoic era, and then their tragic extinction caused by heavenly fire at the end of the Cretaceous period, a sad chord in the symphony of existence. I saw the seas recede, revealing new lands, mountains rise from the plains like the giant ridges of ancient gods, their silent erection and destruction.

Everything around me was in constant motion, in an endless, relentless cycle of birth, growth, decline, and death. And only I was outside this cycle, like an eternal observer of a grand play, whose plots changed faster than thought. I was the eternal, immovable center in the whirlwind of change, like the axis around which the world revolves, impervious to the whims of time. The beings with whom I established this ephemeral, almost weightless connection lived only a moment by my standards, like flashes of fireflies in the night, their light fading before it had barely begun. They were born, developed, died, and I remained. Their joys and sufferings were fleeting, like the morning dew that disappears under the first rays of the sun, mine were eternal, like a centuries-old rock that had withstood thousands of storms. This awareness of my absolute immutability against the backdrop of the relentless changeability of the world gave rise to a deep, piercing sense of alienation in me. I was part of this world, but I could never truly be part of it, its flesh and blood. I could observe, empathize, even try to help, but I always remained on the outside, an eternal witness whose existence was too long to truly understand the brevity, fragility, and priceless value of the life I observed and so desperately wanted to understand, remaining only its shadow.

I learned from them, these fleeting creatures. I learned their resilience in the face of adversity, their ability to adapt to harsh conditions, their simple, instinctive, yet profound desire to exist, to breathe, to live each moment. I saw beauty in their transience, in their desperate but majestic struggle for each day, for each ray of sunshine, as the last gift before oblivion. And this understanding, this awareness of the priceless value of life, which was not fully accessible to me, for my destiny is eternity, became my new burden and my new, bitter wisdom. My identity slowly but surely transformed from pure “being,” from a nameless phenomenon, into an eternal guardian, a silent teacher, doomed to endless observation, endless compassion, and endless, all-encompassing loneliness, in which the entire drama of the universe was reflected.

Chapter 3: Evolution

Eons followed eons, their passage felt not as a linear march of time, but as a whirlwind, an inexorable vortex, swallowing moments and giving birth to eternity. I was a silent spectator of a grand ballet of geological forces, whose choreography was calculated in millions of years. Before my eyes, giant continental plates, like ancient titans burdened with the earth’s crust, collided with a thunderous roar, giving birth to gigantic mountain ranges. Their jagged peaks, sharp as the fangs of unimaginable monsters, pierced the azure sky, challenging the ephemeral clouds that floated by, leaving no trace. I saw colossal glaciers, like slow but inexorable white waves, rolling in and retreating, reshaping the eternal face of the Earth, leaving behind deep scars of valleys – silent evidence of their titanic advance – and rocks polished to a mirror-like shine, bearing the imprints of past eras, like wrinkles on the face of an ancient elder.

Life, despite all the cataclysms, hurricanes, and geological upheavals, continued its relentless march, like an invisible but pervasive stream carrying within itself the seeds of endless transformation and irreversible growth. It became more and more complex, more and more sophisticated, each new incarnation a miracle of adaptation, a filigree creation of an invisible architect, the eternal engine of existence. In this era, at the end of the Mesozoic and the dawn of the Cenozoic, mammals appeared – creatures marked by the seal of a new world order, harbingers of the coming era. They were fast and agile, possessed more developed instincts than their reptilian predecessors, and, most notably, primitive but already distinct social bonds. These creatures, initially modest inhabitants of the shadows of giant reptiles, carried a different fire in their eyes – a spark of potential that promised great changes and new forms of existence. I watched them, continuing my invisible patronage, but loneliness remained my constant companion, its weight felt ever more acute against the backdrop of this turbulent, ever-changing, yet alien life.

And then, in the midst of this turbulent, animalistic flow, governed only by the instinct for life, I felt something completely different. It was something that went beyond the simple desire for survival or mechanical adaptation, something that disrupted the usual order of the world. It was curiosity – the subtlest, barely perceptible spark of thought, flickering in the dark abyss of animal consciousness, like the first star lighting up at dawn. It was different from anything I had seen before, for it carried within it the seed of freedom, the harbinger of consciousness, the premonition of reason. These creatures, outwardly resembling other primates, had a special, piercing gleam in their eyes that reflected something more than a simple desire to feed. There was a certain purposefulness in their movements, not just a movement toward prey, but toward a goal hidden beyond the horizon of the moment, toward something unknown. In their interactions, in their gestures, in their primitive sounds, one could sense the emergence of something new, complex, and infinitely profound – a premonition of a soul that was about to awaken.

I saw how they, overcoming centuries-old habits and biological limitations, stood up on two legs. It was slow, clumsy at first, their gait seemed uncertain, like a baby taking its first steps in a bottomless, unfamiliar world. But in each of these movements, there was a clear purpose, unknown to them, but driven by a deep, unspoken desire for verticality, for overview, for power over space, for overcoming Earth’s gravity. Then they began to use tools – at first, these were simple, roughly hewn stones, adapted for cracking nuts or cutting carcasses, nothing more than an extension of their own hands, but already a hint of something more. But soon came pointed sticks used for hunting, and then the first flint blades, artificially created, carrying within themselves a thought. They learned not simply through repetition, like animals, but through reflection, through inner insight; their learning was something greater than the primitive transmission of instincts. They thought, and new, hitherto unknown neural connections lit up in their brains, forming a bridge between the animal and the intelligent, between the body and the spirit.

I watched as they gathered in groups, forming the first semblances of communities, where each was part of a whole, a thread in the complex pattern of human existence. They shared food obtained through joint efforts, cared for their young with a tenderness that no other species possessed, showing the beginnings of compassion. In their primitive guttural sounds, I began to detect the beginnings of speech, the first, still imperfect attempts to convey complex thoughts and deep emotions that went beyond simple warnings of danger or calls to hunt. They began to create. The first crude shelters made of branches and skins to protect them from the weather were only the beginning of their creative journey. Then came the cave paintings, which were not just handprints, but the first, naive, yet powerful attempt to express themselves, to leave an indelible, eternal mark of their fleeting existence on the cold walls of caves, defying oblivion, trying to stop the relentless march of time.

It was an incredible miracle unfolding right before my eyes, like the birth of a new star in the dark void, illuminating the world with new light. I saw how pure animal instinct, the struggle for survival, gave birth to intelligence, like a flame burning in the primeval darkness, illuminating the unexplored corners of their inner world, their souls. They were fragile, vulnerable, their bodies possessed neither the crushing power of predators nor the thick skin of herbivores, but within them burned an unquenchable fire – a spark of consciousness that no other creature on this planet possessed. They asked questions, although they could not formulate them in words, their eyes were full of a desire to understand the world around them, its secrets and laws, its silent truths, trying to unravel the great mystery of existence.

Hope flared up in me, the eternal observer – bright, burning like a flame, carrying with it the anticipation of something unprecedented, a premonition of the end of my loneliness. Perhaps these creatures, these people, as I would later learn, would be able to understand me? Would they be able to overcome the barrier of transience and eternity that separated us, to build a bridge across the abyss of time? I felt their emotions, as primitive as they were deep: wild fear of the storm, when lightning tore the sky apart, illuminating their faces with a momentary flash; pure, unfeigned joy at a successful hunt, when the prey was brought back to camp and shared with their tribesmen; deep sorrow at the loss of a tribesman, when life faded away, dissolving into nothingness, leaving only emptiness behind. Their feelings were as vivid, as intense as mine, but as fleeting as flashes of light, doomed to fade quickly, unlike my eternal grief.