I live forever.

I live forever.

I inhale, and civilizations are born. Nations rise, babies slither from the womb, a rush of limbs, life and love. Eyes meet across a crowded room. Inhibitions are cast aside. A gasp, a grin, a giggle. A handshake that took years to come together. A union and a promise. Hope. Great riches. A blazing trail across the sky.

I exhale, and cities topple. A crippled man breathes his last, alone and unloved. A mother sighs and wonders what's to be done with her children. A stool is kicked away from forlorn, dour shoes. A puff of dust from the crash site. The world is bathed in fire and destruction. Gods themselves are murdered, and their killers in turn are struck down. You are all struck down.

I live forever. The world is blessed when it is drawn into my lungs, held close to my heart. I exhale, after taking what I need, and the world crumbles into nothing. It is lifted in the taking and is forgotten and abandoned in the leaving.

It's a metaphor, you idiot. I don't breathe in the world. I just breathe in lives. I suppose I'm a vampire, in a way. In another way I'm not. Vampires are pathetic, really. They limit themselves to blood, drinking it. As if feeding is the way to satisfy an immortal appetite - in controlling people, seducing them. I have seen a million, million people cavort through their lives from cradle to grave, their flesh melting from their bones almost as soon as they come into existence, birth and death melding seamlessly together in a horrific display of atrophic decay - at least, a display that would horrify, had I not seen it enacted a million, billion times, with the knowledge that it would come a million, billion times more. Everything passes, but I endure.

I may live forever, but I only have one stomach, only have one cock. I could have a million swimming pools, but I can only bathe in one. I could order fish and chips from a hundred back-alley shops and still be sated in one serving. I could have my pick of any lover on the planet, any lover in history, and still be sated after an evening (at best!). How is anyone supposed to slake immortal appetites when the body only has so much capacity for satisfaction? I have seen every sunrise and sunset since this rock began to orbit this insignificant star, and I will see every one until the star itself ends, and still I will endure - but I gain nothing from the addition. There is naught to be seen in your millionth sunset that you could not have seen in your first, or your second. There is nothing that is greater for being viewed infinite times. And yet, I am infinite. Feeding is not the answer.

I inhale. I exhale.
I will never stop.
Somehow, I think they would be worth more if I knew that they would end eventually.
Somehow, I wish that feeding had meaning.
Somehow, I know that mortality was all that was keeping everything together.
Somehow, I will stop.
I will stop.
Stop.

I live forever.