A Serpent’s Tale

They say death comes like a thief in the night. But sometimes, on very rare occasions, death doesn’t come at all. Sometimes, if God hates you enough, he would give you eternal life. Don’t ask me what I did to deserve such punishment — that’s between me and the old fucker. All I know is that I have been about forty years in age for a really really long time.

At first, it felt good. I stopped aging. I started receiving too many compliments on how good I looked for my age. Later on, people began jokingly inquiring on the secrets behind why I wasn’t growing old. It developed from joking inquiries, to serious ones. Few decades later, I had become the talk of the town. EVERYONE WANTED TO KNOW WHAT I DID. I didn’t even know what I did. I was as confused as everyone else.

When the attention became too much for me to handle, I had to move to a different town with my wife, who I now had to publicly regard as my mother, to avoid trouble. My children now looked like they were my siblings, and I was refused the honor of dying before my wife. At this point, it really started dawning on me that I wasn’t aging at all. I was some sort of immortal. And then I realized that I may end up having to bury my wife, and then my children.

So I tried killing myself.

As I dangled in the air, with the thick rope around my broken neck, blood gushing up my nostrils and mouth, suffocating my attempts at taking in air, I began to realize that it shouldn’t take this long to die.

I was not dying.

I had made sure to pick a secluded area to die. It is a very shameful and dishonorable thing for a man to die by his own hands. I wanted it to appear as though I had disappeared into the morning, never to return to a wife and children that were now too old for me. But it seemed that that was a terrible idea. It never occured to me that I would also be robbed of the option of ending my own life. I stayed dangling there for… a… very long time… writhing in pain and agony, while I kept choking on my own blood.

A little shepherd boy found me on motionless on the oak tree whose branch I had planned to end things on. At this point, I had already given up on struggling. Nothing mattered anymore — I had become numb to the pain. The little boy seemed to have thought I was dead, until I let out a forced groan, which startled him. He took out a small rusty knife from his bag, and tried cutting the thick rope with it. I had chosen a really thick rope, because I wanted my neck snapped immediately my body dropped — I just wanted a quick and painless death. It took a while before the boy finally cut the rope. I fell onto the ground — my body having a deathly white appearance. It took a while before I could finally breathe in air. My first inhale felt like tiny explosions in my lungs. The little boy saw I could not move, and I was clearly too heavy for him to carry all by himself, so he decided to go and ask for help to carry me back to civilization.

He never returned.

After a few sunsets, I encountered upon a serpent that seemed curious about my motionless body. I mustered enough strength to clasp its slithering body with my teeth, with the aim of eating it and gaining some strength. It didn’t matter if it was venomous. I had concluded that I could not be killed by anything, and even if it could kill me, it would be doing me a great favour. As I devoured the serpent, it kept struggling and I was bitten a few times, but it didn’t matter, I was fully resolved to consume this serpent. I had to hold my vomit with my hands and swallow it back a couple times, but it all seemed worth it as long as I could gain some strength to walk.

Within a couple of hours, I gained enough strength to weakly trod along in search of anywhere I could replenish myself. As I travelled across the deserted landscape, I tried eating anything I could find, until I finally found a small village. I collapsed just in front of it, so everyone could see the state I was in, and maybe help me. I was taken into a small room, where I slept, and what I presumed to be some sort of doctor or herbalist, came to check up on me. I was fed, prepared a bath, and given fresh clothes.

After a week, I waved my saviours goodbye, and went on my way. At this point, all I wanted was to kiss my wife and at least stay by her side till she passed on.

I knocked on the door with hesitation. I felt immense shame. I had just tried abandoning my family, and I wasn’t even successful at it. I was greeted by a young girl in maid clothes. She looked like she had been crying. I made it known to her that I was the master of the house and demanded to be let in. Before she could respond, I pushed my way into my home, I was very impatient, and I just needed to see my wife.

The air reeked of medicine. I walked to our room, only to be met with my daughter, and some individuals I suspect to be her children. She seemed to have been mourning. She struck me with a look that couldn’t hide its disgust.

“Where’s your mother?” I asked impatiently,

“Where have you been?”

“Where I’ve been is of no importance. Where is my wife?”

“She’s dead.” She said looking very irritated,

“Dead? When?” I was struck by a massive wave of vertigo, and found myself fighting to stay standing.

“She has apparently been dead for over a month. We only met her already-rotting body last Sunday.”

Apparently, I had been gone for months. I had been dangling on an oak tree for months while my wife died alone. I caused my wife’s death. If I wasn’t such a weak man, she wouldn’t have died such a miserable death.

I lived for too many years after my wife’s death. Too many to count. I made sure to be around my children, to cradle them into their graves, while I remained a pathetic forty year old. Since then, I lived a life that craved some meaning, and made desperate attempts at deriving some. Who knew that if you lived long enough, you’d run out of things to distract oneself with? I tried killing myself many times, but nothing worked. Only pain. In my immortality, my only companion was… only pain.