Confessions of the Immortal
- -
- 100%
- +
I continued to watch, sometimes trying again to influence them subtly, to push them toward new discoveries, toward survival in a harsh, unforgiving world that did not forgive mistakes. I saw how they discovered fire, how its warmth and light transformed their lives, making them a little less cruel, giving them comfort and protection. I watched as they began to work metals, creating tools and weapons, as they built their first settlements, protecting themselves from wild beasts and the elements, from the hostility of the surrounding world. Their progress was staggering compared to the slowness of evolution, each century bringing changes that had previously taken millennia. Humanity, like a river, flowed inexorably forward, overcoming obstacles and carving out new paths, sometimes bloody ones.
But the more they developed, the more acute my loneliness and alienation from this world became. They created complex languages, rich cultures, and epic stories passed down from generation to generation, building fragile bridges across the abyss of time that sooner or later collapsed. They built magnificent civilizations that flourished, reaching unprecedented heights of thought and spirit, and then, like houses of cards, inexorably collapsed, turning to dust and ruins, becoming only an echo in eternity, only a whisper in history. They lived, loved, suffered, and died, leaving behind only silent evidence of their former greatness, carved in stone or erased by the winds. And I remained. Their lives were bright but fleeting flashes, mine an endless, monotonous line. I was a silent witness to their greatness and their madness, their creation and their destruction. And every time I saw another empire collapse, great knowledge forgotten, man stumbling over the same stones again and again, I understood that I would always be alone, doomed to repeat the same cycle over and over, as if in a cursed cycle.
They were so similar to me in their insatiable desire for understanding, for knowledge of the world, for the search for meaning in the chaos of existence, but so infinitely distant in their mortality, in their doom to oblivion, in their finitude. I was the eternal keeper of their stories, their whispers in eternity, but I could never be part of their world, their fleeting joys and sorrows, their living, breathing existence. My role remained the same: a silent observer, a keeper of memory, doomed to endless contemplation and eternal loneliness, while intelligent beings continued on their way, unaware of my presence, unsuspecting of my silent suffering, of the weight of my burden.
My loneliness grew like an ominous shadow with each passing civilization. I saw how people, driven by an indestructible thirst for greatness, built grandiose cities of stone, whose spires seemed to touch the heavens themselves, challenging the gods. And then these cities, like mirages, crumbled to dust, buried under the sands of time or destroyed by insane wars, leaving behind only silent ghosts of former glory. I heard their songs, full of hope and sorrow, their prayers offered up to unknown, often cruel gods, their cries of pain and despair echoing across the battlefields where blood mingled with the earth. And every time I saw in their eyes the same spark of curiosity that burned in me, the same insatiable thirst for knowledge, the same thirst for truth, I felt an irresistible, burning desire to speak to them. To tell them what I had seen, what I knew, to share the unbearable burden of eternity that weighed on my soul like a stone.
My first attempts were clumsy, almost comical in their naivety, for I did not know how to be human, how to fit into their fragile, fleeting world, where every moment was precious, where time slipped inexorably through my fingers. My body, which had once been only a shapeless shell capable of taking any form, now took on human form, but I did not understand the subtleties of their facial expressions, their unspoken gestures, their complex, often absurd social rituals, which seemed to me as mysterious as their belief in mortality. I appeared among them, perhaps looking like a stranger from distant lands, an outsider whose eyes had seen too much, whose face bore the imprint of millions of years, and so they shunned me.
I remember the first time I tried to speak. It was in a small community living in primitive caves, where the smoke from the fires mingled with the smell of earth and fear, and shadows danced on the walls, creating bizarre images. Their language was guttural, consisting of simple sounds and expressive gestures, but it already echoed with the promise of future great speeches, a harbinger of words. I tried to imitate them, but my words must have sounded alien, like an echo from another world, carrying echoes of millions of years, unfamiliar to their ears, frightening in its antiquity. I pointed to the stars, trying to explain their movement, their infinity, their place in the vast, boundless cosmos, but their gaze was fixed on the earth, on their immediate needs, for to them the sky was only a dome. I tried to show them how to best work stone to create sharper tools, how to find water in the dry season, saving them from inevitable thirst and hunger.
Their reaction was… fear. Or awe. They looked at me with wide eyes, full of superstitious horror or incomprehensible admiration, for their minds could not comprehend what they saw, for they were too small for such truth. They saw in me not a human being, but something else – a forest spirit, an ancient deity who had come from the heavens, a messenger of unknown, powerful forces, for it was easier for them to explain the inexplicable in this way. They brought me gifts, tried to worship me, erected primitive altars, turning my presence into an object of worship, a symbol of their faith. When I tried to explain who I was, they did not understand. My knowledge, my memories of the Primordial Flash, of the majestic dinosaurs, of millions of years of evolution were unimaginable to them, for their consciousness was limited to a few generations and the nearest valley, their spirit too small for such an abyss of time.
I tried to live among them, to understand their customs, their joys and sorrows, their fleeting but vivid passions, their short but intense lives. I picked up their crude tools, ate their simple food, trying to be one of them, but I was always a stranger. My gaze was too ancient, my reactions too slow or too fast for their fleeting lives; I saw the world differently. I did not age while they withered, their faces covered with wrinkles and their bodies weakening, fading like candles in the wind. I saw the children I knew become old men, and then their grandchildren came to me with the same questions as their ancestors, unaware of my eternal, silent presence, of my unspoken sorrow.
I tried to be a teacher, like a prophet bringing light into the darkness, but that light blinded them. In one of the early civilizations, where writing and the first codes of law were already emerging, I tried to impart to them knowledge about agriculture, about the movement of the stars, about laws that could make their lives better, more just, more harmonious, but they did not hear me. But my words were distorted, my ideas turned into myths, and my warnings were ignored. They used my knowledge for their wars, for their greed, for their endless conflicts, turning gifts into curses and wisdom into an instrument of destruction, for man chooses his own path.
Every attempt to get closer to them ended in the same way: misunderstanding. I was too great, too old, too different to be part of their world, to share their fate. They could not understand what it meant to remember the birth of the universe, what it meant to see mountains rise from the abyss and disappear, to see seas engulf the land and then recede, revealing new lands. My eternity was a curse to them, not a gift, a source of their fear and superstition, for man fears what he cannot comprehend, what is beyond his understanding.
And then I understood. My direct interaction with them was useless, for they were not ready for the truth, they could not accept it. I could only observe, sometimes very cautiously nudging them, like an invisible shepherd guiding lost sheep, but I could never become one of them. My loneliness did not disappear, it only deepened, taking on a new, bitter note – the note of the impossibility of being understood, for the most terrible loneliness is loneliness among people, when you are surrounded by them but remain a stranger. I was among them, but I always remained behind glass, seeing their world but unable to truly participate in it, like a ghost doomed to eternal contemplation.
After countless attempts, after centuries when my words were distorted and my revelations turned into superstitions and false dogmas, I made a difficult decision. It was not a sudden epiphany, but a slow, painful realization, steeped in bitterness and despair, like the grief that comes after a long, exhausting illness. I stopped sharing my knowledge.
It was harder than I could have imagined. Inside me, a whole cosmos of memories raged: about the first pulsations of light, about the birth of stars from cosmic dust, about how the Earth was once just a red-hot rock, and then became the cradle of life, where the first, barely noticeable forms emerged, where the light of consciousness appeared. I saw how mountains were formed, how rivers carved their way, how forests grew and turned to charcoal, how civilizations rose to the sky and turned to dust, like sand through your fingers. I knew the answers to their deepest questions about their origins, about the meaning of their short existence, about the future they so desperately sought to comprehend, but they always remained blind. But every time I tried to share this truth, it shattered against the wall of their incomprehension, their limitations, their mortality, like a fragile vessel thrown onto rocks, whose shards only wound without bringing any benefit.
I saw how my words, spoken with pure intentions to help, became the basis for wars, for false prophecies, for idolatry, for the construction of Babylonian towers of pride that always collapsed. They took grains of my wisdom and turned them into weapons or chains that shackled their own minds, turning light into darkness, for man chooses his own path. My warnings of coming disasters were ignored, my advice on peaceful coexistence was ridiculed, for man prefers illusions to bitter truth, sweet lies. It was not just disappointment; it was pain. Pain from not being able to reach them, pain from my eternity being not a gift to them, but only a source of their delusions, their endless suffering, their eternal struggle.
And so I fell silent. I dissolved into the crowd, became invisible, like a shadow gliding across the walls of time, leaving no trace. My body, which I had learned to change in order to blend in with the era, became merely a disguise, a costume for the role I was playing. I was a wanderer, a craftsman, a soldier, a scientist – anything, but never the one who remembered the Big Bang, whose eyes had seen the birth of the universe, whose memory held the abyss. I listened to their stories, their legends, their theories about the world, and in each of them I recognized distorted, sometimes unrecognizable echoes of what I had once tried to tell them. It was like watching children play with fragments of a precious stone, unaware of its true value, unable to comprehend its integrity, its indescribable beauty, its hidden meaning.
I stopped trying to guide them. I stopped trying to teach, because the lesson had not been learned and my efforts were in vain. My role was once again reduced to observation, but now it was observation tinged with a sense of deep, inescapable doom. I saw them make the same mistakes over and over again, like flies banging against a window, unable to see a way out. How they build and destroy, love and hate, strive for greatness and fall into an abyss of madness from which there seemed to be no escape and from which no voices could be heard. I saw their progress – incredible discoveries, flights to the stars, the creation of machines that could think, surpassing them in speed and logic, but devoid of soul. But even with this progress, their fundamental questions, their moral dilemmas, and their terrifying, destructive capacity for self-destruction remained unchanged, as if they were a fatal flaw inherent in them, an original sin that they could not atone for, from which there was no salvation.
My loneliness became even deeper, even heavier, for it was not just the loneliness of the eternal among mortals, but the loneliness of one who knows the truth but cannot share it, who bears the burden of knowledge that has no addressee, no understanding. I became the keeper of unspoken secrets, the silent witness to all their triumphs and all their falls, their greatness and their insignificance. I was their shadow, their echo, their living history, which they would never know, never be able to understand, for it was too great for them. And in this silence, in this voluntary retreat from the world, I realized that my eternity was not only a gift, but also the greatest curse, condemning me to endless contemplation of a world that I could never truly change or save, for salvation must come from within, from the very soul of man.
“About Everything” in order
Chapter 4: Life in a Primitive Tribe and the Birth of Civilization
When the decision to remain silent became unbreakable, as if carved in stone, I sought refuge where my vast knowledge would be useless and eternity would be an invisible veil, barely perceptible to the mortal eye. And I found it in the heart of the virgin, primitive forests, whose ancient trees whispered legends of the dawn of the world, among the first who rightfully bore the name of man, whose existence was inextricably linked to the primitive order, with its harsh logic of survival. For millennia, like an invisible spirit, I watched these tribes: I saw their first fires flare up, their tongues of flame dancing in the primeval darkness, the first crude tools, harbingers of civilization, being born from clumsy but already tenacious hands. Now I have decided to become part of their world, to immerse myself in its tangible reality, as far as possible for a being whose memory held the echoes of countless ages, stardust, and the birth of matter.
I appeared on their land, still young by human standards, my flesh retaining relative freshness, but ancient in essence, my soul bearing the burden of billions of years. They found me, half-naked and alien, as if I had emerged from the very fabric of the universe, by a babbling brook whose clear waters reflected the faces of imperturbable, indifferent nature. Their eyes, wild, alert, penetrating, were full of primitive suspicion, that instinctive distrust of everything else, but deep down there shone a genuine, childlike curiosity, a spark of knowledge. I did not know their guttural, still-developing language, I did not know their unwritten customs, their ancient taboos, but intuitively, almost telepathically, I recognized their fears and immediate needs, their hunger and their pain. Once, when their sacred, protected fire went out under the onslaught of a violent storm, whose wrath fell upon their fragile camp, I, like an ancient deity from a myth, brought them a new one. This simple act, the act of giving warmth and light in the merciless darkness, palpable and all-consuming, may have saved me from exile or even instant, primitive death. They named me “Stone” – for my apparent immobility, my unbreakable silence, as if I were part of the eternal earth – and accepted me into their camp, into their small, vulnerable world.
Existence: The relentless rhythms of survival
My life among them was subject to the relentless, almost cosmic rhythm of survival, where every breath was a tribute to ruthless necessity. Every day was a struggle for existence, every night a confrontation with unknown threats, every dawn a harbinger of a new challenge, a new battle with the wild, indifferent nature that gave life but also took it away mercilessly. Their dwellings were extremely crude, built from what the forest provided, but surprisingly effective in their primitive engineering: wigwams assembled from animal skins and flexible branches, smeared with clay to protect against the piercing winds that brought cold and damp, or deep depressions in the ground, covered with thick skins, like the womb of the earth, carefully protecting its children from the hardships of the outside world. Inside these shelters, there was always a persistent, pungent aroma of smoke from the fire, damp earth mixed with sweat and blood, and untreated skins – the smells of life itself, intertwined with the echoes of primitive existence, ancient, animalistic, human. I slept, like everyone else, curled up by the life-giving, crackling fire, feeling the warmth of other bodies, their breath, their heartbeats, and the anxious but surprisingly soothing, rhythmic breathing of the sleeping tribe, immersed in a deep, defenseless oblivion.
Morning came even before the sun, the great deity, rose above the horizon, when the sky was just beginning to pale, promising the arrival of a new day. The men, with their crude spears with sharp stone tips, whose edges glistened with morning dew, and flint axes sharpened by countless blows and centuries of experience, set out on a hunt – a sacred ritual that determined the very existence of the tribe, its future. I followed them like a shadow with flesh. My eyes, which once took in the vastness of space, were now honed to perfection to catch the slightest break of a branch under the invisible foot of a beast, the barely noticeable imprint of a hoof on the damp, pliable earth, or the faintest, almost imperceptible scent of game carried on the morning air. I did not resort to my “abilities” in their mystical sense, did not use my eternal powers, but my incredible, seemingly endless endurance, multiplied by my senses sharpened to the limit, made me an invaluable hunter, a giver of life. For hours we wandered through the forest, blending in with its rustles and shadows, with its silent breath, tracking graceful deer, mighty, shaggy mammoths, whose tracks left deep dents in the ground, or fearsome saber-toothed tigers, whose fangs brought death and terror. A successful hunt meant life, satiety, the continuation of the species, victory over hunger; failure, on the other hand, was a harbinger of starvation, exhaustion, the fading of spirit and body, a slow, painful death.
Women and children devoted themselves to gathering – another pillar of their survival, as vital as hunting. They searched for edible roots, juicy berries, and mysterious mushrooms, combing the forest thickets and floodplains, knowing every corner of their land. I saw how they unerringly recognized hundreds of plants with astonishing accuracy, almost instinctively distinguishing the poisonous from the nutritious. Their knowledge of flora was remarkable, passed down from generation to generation, absorbed with their mother’s milk. They knew where to find the best clay for rough pots, the best stones for making tools, as if the earth itself whispered its secrets to them. Their hands were calloused and rough, their faces weathered by the sun and wind, scorched by the harsh conditions of the primitive world, but in their every movement, in their every gesture, there was an amazing harmony with nature, a deep, almost mystical understanding of its cycles and unspoken laws, to which all life was subject.
In the evening, after returning from the hunt, it was time for the communal fire, the sacred center of their existence. It was the heart of the tribe, its pulsating, life-giving center, around which all life, all hope, all aspirations gathered. The flames, like living creatures, cast bizarre, dancing shadows on their faces, highlighting sharp features, deep scars, and wrinkles, like marks of time, creating a living, breathing picture of ancient life, full of drama and simplicity. Here they ate meat – raw or only lightly roasted over coals, whose hissing filled the air – gnawing the bones clean, leaving nothing to waste, for every morsel was precious. They shared stories, primitive in form but bottomless in meaning, full of primitive wisdom: about the spirits of the forest, invisible but omnipresent, about the great hunts where man came face to face with the beast, about the ancestors whose shadows, they believed, roamed invisibly among them, protecting and guiding them. Their voices were low, guttural, mingling with the ringing, carefree laughter of children and the devoted howling of dogs, who were always nearby, faithful and inseparable companions of man on his journey. I sat among them, listening to their speech, which gradually, word by word, became understandable, feeling their smells, their warmth, their humanity. I was one of them, but I remained myself – a silent witness to their fleeting, fragile existence, imprinting every moment in my boundless, eternal memory, as if on the tablets of time.
Life: A web of faith and relentless fear
Their lives were permeated with faith and relentless, all-encompassing fear, the two pillars on which their world rested. Every shadow dancing in the gloomy forest seemed to be a harbinger of something unknown, every rustle of the wind running through the treetops carried a secret message, every thunderous clap of thunder had its own hidden meaning, its own interpretation in their naive but profound worldview, where the world was full of animistic forces. They worshipped the spirits of nature living in trees and rivers, powerful beasts that were the embodiment of strength, the majestic sun and the mysterious moon, seeing in them the embodiment of unknown but almighty forces that ruled their destiny. Their shaman was not just a healer capable of banishing disease, but also a living link between the world of mortals and the world of spirits, a silent interpreter of signs and omens, capable of reading the will of the higher powers. I watched his rituals: ecstatic dances around a sacred fire, whose flames seemed to reflect the faces of ancient gods, monotonous, hypnotic singing that induced a trance, primitive but meaningful sacrifices that carried prayers. These rituals held a primitive, almost magnetic power, a belief that the world could be appeased, that inexorable fate could be changed, that blessings could be obtained or curses avoided, that their voices could be heard. I did not interfere, even though I knew that there was no angry spirit behind the lightning, and that the illness was caused by a simple, microscopic infection that my knowledge could easily cure. Their faith gave them the strength to live, to cling to every moment, to find meaning in chaos, and that was far more important than any scientific truth they could not comprehend due to their level of development, for it filled their lives with meaning and hope.
I witnessed their rites of passage – milestones marking the formation of personality, stages in their life journey: initiation rites for young men, when, naked and defenseless in the face of wild nature, they had to survive alone in the wild forest, proving their maturity, fortitude, and right to be called a man, a member of the tribe. Or rituals of worshiping the dead, when the body of the deceased was carefully placed on a platform high in the treetops so that it would be closer to the sky, or buried in the ground with special, sacred honors, granting peace. Death was their constant companion, an inexorable shadow, always nearby, always ready to take another life. It came with hunger that exhausted the body, with predators lurking in the night, with diseases that brought invisible destruction, with hostile tribes whose spears brought death and destruction. They mourned their dead, and their grief was deep, but their sorrow did not linger long, for life went on. Life was too precious to waste on endless sorrow; it was necessary to continue the struggle for survival, for life itself is a struggle, eternal and relentless.
I myself, invisible, like a ghost, became part of their myths. My silence, dictated by millennia of contemplation, my ability to see in pitch darkness, as if night were my second home, my incredible vitality when I survived wounds that would have been fatal to any other creature, gave rise to stories about me – whispered around campfires, legends that became part of their oral tradition. They believed me to be a forest spirit who had taken human form, or an ancient ancestor, who had returned from the depths of time to protect their kin, their blood, their land. This undoubtedly made my life safer, for no one dared raise a hand against a legend, but at the same time it separated me more deeply from them, from their simple human joys and sorrows. I was their talisman, their living legend, their guardian, but I could never be their equal, their blood brother, for my burden was different.