Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 12:38:49 -0700 Reply-To: WOLFEM@CGS.EDU Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Michelle Wolfe Subject: my so-called immortality 3a/13? From: WOLFEM 12-NOV-1995 12:33:16.24 To: WOLFEM CC: WOLFEM Subj: my so-called immortality 3a/13? I can tell you in advance...some people are going to feel that I'm treating the mechanics of 'the quickening' pretty inconsistently... My So-Called Immortality (or, "never trust anyone over 300"): a Highlander excursion by M. Wolfe Part III: Shadows in the Rain PARIS: Same day, someplace damp "...He claims I suffer from delusions Yet I'm so convinced that I'm sane It's can't be an optical illusion So how can you explain Shadows in the rain..." -- The Police "...Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will also regret that; hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both...This, gentlemen, is the sum and substance of all philosophy..." --Soren Kierkegaard, _Either/Or_ It was going to rain. His eyes never rose to the sky, to see the massing clouds. His eyes never strayed from their object, a body in motion, four limbs, a torso, a sword, a head. It was going to rain. At the very edges of his attention, his senses perceived the shifting details of the world around him: the fading light, the direction and force of the wind, the smell and charge of the air, the subtle sounds of insects and animals scurrying for cover. It was going to rain, he knew. The way he knew where his fingertips ended and the hilt began. The way he knew North without landmarks or stars. The way he knew from posture and the direction of a glance that the man he circled was about to lunge leftward, slashing-- as Connor lightly stepped aside, leaving only his sword to greet the miscalculating body of his opponent, the force of the man's own momentum running him through-- only the wind. He withdrew the blade, the mirror-like sheen of the steel stained with blood and tissue. Almost dismayed by the ease of it, watching his opponent crumple, the erect muscled body of a moment before now a dying heap on the ground. The eyes were still alive, though. And focused on him, brilliant with the intensity of a light bent on burning itself out. (...If he turned and walked away, those eyes would close, the lungs would empty and the heart would stop. Then the wounded flesh would suddenly knit itself together, as if it had never been rent; a spark would course through the still body, starting the heart; the mouth would fly open, drinking in air...) He stayed; he stood right where he was. He looked down. Lank dark hair framed the man's twenty- three year old face. Falling into his seven hundred year old eyes. "What are you waiting for, MacLeod?" Kempe asked, his voice thick and dull, clogged with the blood that had begun to gush from his mouth. An image formed in his mind, the face of a small child, black eyes pitted like a minefield, pink baby-flesh shuddering as the presence of an adult immortal wracked her senses. The tiny mouth forming garbled syllables-- her mind stunted with terror and neglect. A child deliberately made immortal before her time. For amusement. For pleasure. For the unique and addictive thrill of completely controlling and possessing another, of twisting and mangling their personhood at will and whim. "You know, Edmund-- I just don't know," he said calmly, shrugging. The sword seemed almost to drive itself through Kempe's neck. As the quickening ripped into him, burning through his skin, he felt a scattering of rain-drops fall on his face. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It had rained like the storm before the second coming, the night he'd found her. (...slipping away from Kempe's estate through the servants' cottages. Walking all the miles on the peasant-paths from Northshire to Lynn, carrying her, cradled in his arms, wrapped in his wool coat. Such a little thing, still trembling, no matter how warmly he wrapped her, no matter how carefully he sheltered her from the rain. His own arms bare wet goose-flesh; his feet drenched and numb. After an age and a day they reach the house he keeps in Lynn. Rocking her before the fire, feeding her some bread he'd soaked in hot milk and whiskey and singing to her scraps and bits of songs he'd learned, years before, listening to Heather. Until finally, still in his arms, she drifts away into the sea- deep sleep of a child. He waits-- watching her tiny eyelids flutter-- the sign, midwife Wallace had once told him, that the soul has wandered off to watch the night's entertainment in the theater of dreams. ...When she dreams her last dream, her breath growing slower and her eyes again still, he balances her small body on his lap with one arm. With the other he beheads her. ...the quickening is mild and brief, but he finds himself overwhelmed, paralyzed. Unable to let go of the headless body he's rocking in his arms, unable to drag his eyes away from the small head no longer rolling on the stone floor. It's eyes closed and its tiny features placid, like the painted faces of porcelain dolls he'd once seen in London...) Then suddenly the memory was distorted-- still looking at that face, but now very much attached to its body-- the childish features neither peaceful nor afraid, but corrupted and coy, gazing at him seductively, greedily beckoning him... No. Not his memory. Kempe's memory. Kempe's cruel and fatal fantasy. "It's over now," he whispered to himself. As if he were still holding her. As if she could hear him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ...continued in part B =========================================================================