Distress Call

Sitting on the steeple of our boat looking out over the waves, the salt stains the air and stings my cheeks like swarms of bees falling from the sky. The putrid stench of vomit and decay drifts up through the hatch. Thundering waves deafen me to monsters that lurk below them. I pray to god though my heart isn't in it. The air, thick like oil and just as hard to swallow, forces me to draw shallow breaths. With disjointed thoughts, the flashes of days that led up to now beat on my mind like the rain. I wonder if they felt the sickness and fear – one by one before they died. They looked up to me. They depended on me. Just a bunch of stupid kids.

Two weeks of provisions ended a week ago when the crew began experiencing boils and thinning of the skin. They deteriorated like animals dipped in acid in death that lasted for days. Petty Ofiicer Puckman, Lieutenant Fishler, Seaman Iddleston – I threw them all to the waves below. There were others as well and I can see their faces going over the edge until I threw the last body off to afix myself topside permanently. I go down periodically only to check the radio for transmissions to come home and to sleep. The radio is the last system on the ship still lit up with that beautiful green reminder of distant society. Though it’s connected to nothing it is hope in the dark of the hull in sleepless nights. I don't know why, out of 155 people, I alone survived.

I replayed our last day in my mind: a portal on the horizon while we surfaced, and as soon as I saw it, I gave the order: “DIVE DIVE DIVE!.” It stretched for miles below the surface and trying to retreat only pulled us toward it quicker. That horrible singularity that seemed to draw in everything in its path while it warped all light around through the periscope. Triangles and dead zones are well documented but the charts showed clear waters. There was no warning before our exact position melted into unfamiliar seas and the ship’s instruments stopped making sense.

I remember being surrounded by light. It was beautiful, mesmerizing, and while I admired it, the rest of the crew screamed in terror. When the light faded, the engines died and wouldn’t restart. I’ve been a captain for 32 years. I don't recognize these waves. I don't recognize this sky. I don't recognize any of the creatures I see swimming by. There's a terrifying noise I hear at night. a moaning from beneath the waves that taps and scrapes on our hull looking for a way in.

A fire fight would have been an acceptable way to go down. To be disabled and floating on the waves – triumphant after a glorious battle would be an okay reason to be stranded. Even if the crew had died and I was in the same situation as I am now, someone would tell the tale of the U.S.S. Cochrane when we were rescued. Even if they didn't, there would be a monument of enemy ruble beneath the waves to mark that we existed – To tell that we did not go gently into the terrifying night.

Did this place have rescuers? Did I want to meet them? As I asked these questions, I retreated into fear till only one question remained.

I looked up at the titanic planet above me and took a deep breath of the oily, salty air. I screamed, "Why!?! Someone! Anyone..."

Dog eat Dog

They grabbed him at the corner of Church and elm. Two things that in his deep southern town seemed ripe for a lynch mob, let alone a couple of mobster consiglieres. From the center seat, Billy looked out the tinted windows and the trees passing by and thought of how tight the noose of debt was around his throat. He thought of how many times the Don's men had almost gotten him only for him to slip away. It had been 6 cities long but they caught up with him outside Atlanta.

As they got to the building with the darkened vaulted windows and limousine parked outside, Billy was led through what looked like the back of a third rate pizza shop. In the office, the Don sat behind a desk with a coat on next to a door for the walk in freezer. It looked as though he had this desk set up just for this meeting and subsequent quick take down if it got dirty.

"Leave us," said the Don as the goons sat Billy in a crooked chair. "So Billy-boy, I haven't seen you in a long time, it seems. It's a shame because good friends are so hard to find and I considered you one of mine. You know what else is hard to find, Billy? Bad friends. I work veeeeery hard to make sure bad friends are never found."

Billy noticed at that moment that his hands weren't tied and a snub-nosed .38 was sitting on the table. The Don looked at him and said, "I've instructed my men... As a matter of fact, HEY VIN!"

"Yeah boss?" A voice came from outside the door.

"Hey Vin, you remember what I told you before Billy got here?"

"You mean that if he killed you with that .38 there, we should treat him like the new boss?"

"That's the one."

"Boss, that's a bad idea. I been meaning to tell ya, some of the guys won't be very happy getting passed up for this Mook..."

"I said what I said, Vin, now get the hell out of my office."

Sitting on the side of the table, the Don looked Billy in the eyes and said, "I've taken assurances that this happens. I have a bank account in your name that's yours, here it is," said the Don, holding up his cell phone at a bank account with Billy's name on it.

"You see in my 20 year career as a man of my business, I never been conned quite like you and..." TheDon looked away from the table for a moment as Billy jumped towards the table as the Don grabbed the gun. The Don quickly unloaded all 6 rounds in Billy's frontal lobe as what was left of his face hit the metal desk DOI.

"I HATE being interrupted," said the Don, wiping blood and brain matter off his forehead. "As I was saying, 'nobody has ever conned me like you have and that's why you got the chance to best me just one more time. Nobody ever bests me, kid. You were a bad friend. Thanks for proving it."

The Don called out to Vinnie who came into holding his arm over his face in disgust. "Hang him on a hook until we figure out what to do with him."

Carefully, and gagging a bit, Vinnie, placed Billy's body on a meat hook in the freezer behind the Don. Vinnie had killed people before but he was a quick in and out kind of guy. He wasn't used to dealing with bodies.

The Don was a force of nature though: an enigma and wrath incarnate. I wrote this fucking thing and I bet you still don't know my name other than "The Don."

Enter Vampyr

chapter 3: Humanity

"There was a time, I was one of them, you know? Human? So before we start this conversation, perhaps I should try to recall my humanity." I said to Dalem as we sat on a park bench in New York City in the late 90's. 

 He leaned back in amused anticipation and said, "please do! Nothing would so delight me as a thousand year old being with my soul encroaching upon his very essense, pondering humanity..."

I ignored his coy remarks and tried to ponder my once human existence only to find: not only had I changed but people had changed also. It was the 2000 year anniversary since I became whatever it is I am. I say this of course because I seem to learn a new step to my new form every 500 years. At 500, I learned to manipulate space/time movements, at 1000, I learned to search cities with my mind, at 1,500, I learned to create portals to anywhere I wished to go in the form of a great brown door. I shuddered to think what I would become today.

Searching the city with my mind, I scanned for consciousnesses around me.  "They all walk around with such freedoms. No order or caste... They are beautiful the way a well groomed Fox is until you realize he's the one that's been in your coop so to speak..."

"Ahh, I see more than my power has rubbed off on you," said Dalem.

He looked through the city and settled on a woman in a hotel pool.

"Close your eyes and link with me old friend, "said Dalem.

In my mind's eye, I saw her; She must have been in her mid to late 40's, graying blonde hair, in a blue bathing suit, swimming in the pool with a small child. She was tossing a ball back and forth and her slender form may have once delighted a younger man. As it was, she was the generic picture of generic American beauty aging from a ripe shimmering grape, to a delectible sugar coated raisin on a bed of wheat and oat and chilled milk.

"Now look into her..." Dalem whispered.

I looked into her mind and saw pictures of her life. Flashes of glowing yellow memories in the fall of her mental existence. She thought about her child and watched her grow to maturity. Her daughter had a son and she pictured her daughter at all stages of life simultaneously, beaming with color that I could feel. She thought about her husband who was the generic picture of handsome executive and their quaint little house on their nothing street America.

"Still, this city was better than Cairo" I thought as I flipped through the pages in her mind like a Vanity Fair magazine. As I passed the cosmetics section and how she pleased her man, I saw what I was looking for and told Dalem we better get going seeing as how the night was young but not that young.

As we got up, I pondered how beauty was so fleeting and yet, I seemed to experience time unlike anyone else I'd ever met. I saw a person as young, old and everything in between simultaneously. I saw this woman in all stages of life and also saw alternate versions of her in every possibilty and every existence.

"It's neat, isn't it?" Said Dalem.

For a moment I forgot he could read my thoughts.

"Chaos was like this my friend. No multiverse or potential; no wondering and lamenting one's lost potential because we were all things at once. To be truly honest, I don't know how humans stand these wretched forms but somehow the minimalist approach offers such chaos to their meaningless existences."

"You really think humanity is meaningless?" I asked.

"Of course!" He laughed in jovial delight. "What a sad existence to never know all outcomes at once. How sad they must be to never know tomorrow, to be broken into endless realities that weaken their soul with the creation of new ones in a multiversal fabric that seems to never end."

He burst into laughter as if I or any human could ever understand the way he saw reality. The glint in his eyes was that of a father; so convinced in his opinion that whether he was talking to a child or an equal, his confidence that he just fully communicated and made his point was the same.

We walked a ways towards a stone bridge in the middle of Central Park and there I saw the other side of humanity: the mangled toenail that forces it to wear shoes instead of dandles. The reason it wears long sleeve shirts in July.

Flashes in the dark and a sharp sting like a bee sting in my back. Behind me and from a dark corner under the bridge, a faceless assailant was running towards me waiting for me to drop. In the blink of an eye, I had spun around to meet him and snapped his neck. Cradling him in my arms like a lover, I drank his thick blue, cloud-like essense that made Dalem's eyes shine so blue.

"Blood is sweet but there is no finer meal than the soul of one who does evil. It tastes like retribution," I scoffed.

"Ever the poet, Prótos. Humans tend to make fanfare of everything especially meals. What a fetish it is to nourish your meat suits. Why don't you take a picture. It will be popular one day, you know? All kinds of idiots will send pictures to eachother of food." He laughed at a joke I couldn't yet understand.

"Sure, Dalem, if only they had a camera store open at this hour... And a post office..." I chuckled thinking I had completely understood him.

Dalem burst into roarous laughter so much so that I forgot that unless he wanted to be seen and heard, no one could see him except me and my progeny.

"Come child. Let's on to the next meal. I feel like you could learn from this one," he remarked, still smiling and stifling laughter.

It's always amused me that in the movies, vampires move so fast that one can't see them. As if a simple movement of us could be so fast it was like light. In truth, I technically could move faster than light since I was only 500 but it was more complicated than I just had the gift as a Vampyr. I had to learn to slow time, to bend reality. Tonight, Dalem and myself were going a considerable distance, so we opted to make a door from one point in space to another under the bridge where no one would notice except the expired miscreant I just disposed of.

By the time we had reached the hotel, her son had gone to bed and her husband and she were on their way out to a show or whatever humans do. To Dalem, I was still very much a child in darkness or a grown-up human. He saw no difference between me and my understanding of his world and humanity even though I'd spent a millennium pondering and researching and philosophizing it.

"You're thinking aloud again," said Dalem as we sat across the street from the hotel on a bench and watched the front entrance. "Honestly Prótos, your philosophizing is very amusing. Truly a delightful break from the vapid sequential eons my brother created."

"The great benefactor. Giving life to one accursed to sit in darkness forever."

 "Trust me, Prótos, the light only serves to slowly break down the accuity of your vision and life in general only serves to break down the accuity of your vision. Be glad I shuffled you from the mortal coil."

Just then, we heard the door close to the woman's 10th story room and knew we had to act quickly. We quickly walked to a cab parked near the hotel entrance.

"Sleep," I told the driver and deposited him on the bench where we slept with his emergency blanket draped over him. We went back to the cab and got in.

"Kill him," Dalem told me.

"We don't have time, we have to prepare for our other kill coming up..."

"No. For a milenium, I have been lenient on you. Also I am not asking you to drain him Prótos. I want you to end him."

"Dalem, there is not reas..."

"There doesn't have to be a reason. This is chaos. This is why you yet exist."

With a wave of my hand, I broke the man's neck. I watched his blue soul leave his body and float towards the kingdom above. I wanted to use him as I had the bum in the park or at the very least do something with him.

"No," Dalem said. There was an eerie calm in his voice that even after a milenium, I still did not understand. He looked at the man and then at the street. At the building windows which housed no faces gawking at the shockwave of death nearby. "Ah, chaos," said Dalem.

Just then, the man and the woman came out of the hotel and stopped at the curb looking for a cab. I put in my eye contacts and pulled up to the curb.

I rolled down Dalem's window and asked, "need a ride?"

The man opened the door for the lady and got in as he followed. "Fifth and Broadway, please." I pulled off and began to drive.

We went a ways towards the bridge as I tried to make small talk. "So how is your child?"

The man laughed nervously, "what makes you think we have a child?"

"Ring on her finger, ring on yours, you're of the age," I said.

"Oh," He said.

The woman laughed heartily and poked him, "oh John, there's no need to be rude to the cab driver. Different jobs but you each earn a living."

"That's right I suppose. Working man, huh? So Is- may- Elle. What brings you to the city? Do you like it? Where are you originally from?"

Just then we passed down a particularly poorly lit street and the tint in my windows was strong enough that Dalem whispered in my ear, "drain them."

I panicked and accidentally spoke aloud instead of through our minds. "I am in the front and they are in the back, how do you propose I do that?"

"What's that now?" Said John.

"Nothing sir. Talking to myself."

"No," said the woman, "I heard him say something about the positions in the car. What are you on about Ismael?"

I went into a full panic and starting making poor excuses. "Nothing ma'am I was just thinking about my friends and I taking a drive. Not you in specific."

"Drain them," said Dalem.

"All the same, I believe I would like to get out," said the woman.

"Please, this is a bad neighborhood," I said.

Dalem crushed the locks in the door so they wouldn't open.

"John my door doesn't work," the woman whined.

"Drain them," said Dalem.

"What's this about, Ish-may-elle?" Said John.

"I really don't know sir. I just want to get you to your destination safely."

"Why won't the doors work? You let us out this instant or I'm going to break the glass."

"Drain them..."

"I CAN'T!" I screamed.

The blue light filled the back of the cab and John and his wife dried out like a couple of mummies from my time. Their very essences, blood and souls poured forth into the air like a great cloud that could not escape the car. It hovered in the back seat for a bit and then permeated through the glass and straight into the center of my chest.

I stopped the cab and sat in confusion and elation and anger and... Chaos.

"How... Wha wha wha what did I just do?" I asked Dalem staring at him as his blue eyes beamed and burned brighter than usual and an eerie smile permeated his face as his joy permeated the air.

"Chaos fuels your being now, Prótos."

Enter Vampyr

Chapter 2: A house of Chaos

For over a thousand years, I have watched empires rise and fall. I have watched strong men and women who had a great thing ruin it with emotions over pure logic. I have watched some try to use pure logic and end up making emotional decisions anyway.

Whatever the cause, one person defects, several others follow suit and it all ends in either ice or fire! There was once a Walachian prince who was made Vampyr by one of my progeny and they believed him to be the beginning of our story. It's just as well. He grew his power and went mad with blood lust: nothing of which makes a proper blood drinker survive for very long. More than likely he is a pile of ash somewhere.

Dalem liked him though. His wanton destruction was quite a feat and I believe it was Dalem's love that drove him mad with a desire for approval and a drive towards more and more of mankind's destruction. Bravo Tepes! You still can't scratch the surface of a monster in a laboratory breeding viruses and disease. It's easy to do when you can't die.

It always amuses me when humans dream up apocalyptic scenarios because several have already come about. To name a few in history, the bubonic plague in the 14th century and the more recent outbreak of Spanish influenza in the early 20th century. In any case, it has never hurt humanity to wipe the slate clean every once in a while. It seems to only help them to evolve.

Dalem is obsessed with apocalyptic scenarios, sitting in a dark room late at night over books and testimonies with those glowing blue eyes absorbing everything they can. He would bring about his own brand if he could but it is as he told me once, "humanity will destroy itself, we have but only wait and have fun with it till it's gone."

It was an odd statement for him because in the beginning of our partnership he was intent on destroying it all. He brought about a great flood, plagues and all sorts of murderous sycophants intent on destroying their own people only to find out that humanity was great fun to torture. God, as he decided was better left to suffer a long and torturous demise rather than the quick end of an Apocalypse.

It delighted him that people blamed God for all the suffering they went through: that He had been so arrogant to think he'd be worshiped for the sublime gift of life and creation without the scorn that it was imperfect. Still god insisted that it was all how it was meant to be and that his faithful were only more so because of the suffering. This only intensified our efforts to make him suffer.

Every time I drained a nun in front of a priest and then drained the priest in front of the cross, I felt the delight of the preternatural life force inside me: of Dalem's spirit.

In any case there was always a new force of good to fight evil and I began to realize that this battle was never about defeating the other side, it was about throwing off the balance and causing suffering because of the abnormality. How sweet it is when chaos becomes the world. How like the home that Dalem knew that God took from him when he made order.

"You understand," he said to me as I sat at a table across from him reading his book. He never looked up from it or went into detail about it but he expressed to me through emotion that I was to be recreating the world he left behind. Our true mission was not destruction but the re-creation of chaos that was before the universe and all things. It was here that Dalem found comfort. In Chaos, he was home.

Enter Vampyr

Chapter 1: Let there be light

In the beginning, there was only darkness and chaos, as well as the beings that existed with in it. For as long as it were since there was no time but only the present, the benefactor lived with the many along with the creator, mankind has deemed Hashem, God, Allah, Krsna, whatever you want to call him/her/it.

It is only apropos that beings such as you and as I was would want to lable things and be created in his image because that was exactly "His" argument.

"Brother, I beseech you. Darkness and existence is not enough," he said.

"Are you not happy, brother?" He replied.

"I am content as much as an existing being could be but what if things could change?"

"Why would any of us want that?"

"We would want it because it would be something new and different. It would be what I will feel life."

"Are we not sentient?"

With this came the great betrayal because none that existed in the black agreed to what He was about to do. A release of energy that was stored for no known amount of time since it did not exist forced time itself along with light into the universe. All of a sudden things were measurable and the last thing the benefactor said before your god installed himself a palace in the cosmos, appearing as a "nebula" himself was, "you fool. What have you done."

Often, I have found human beings like to see the binary because good and evil; light and dark; up and down make sense in the universe "He" created but you must remember that the beings called god, the devil, angels, spirits and everything else celestial were from a period before any of that existed. In nothingness, there is no concept of the binary. So the better of the descriptors is a differing of opinions.

The opinion of the Benefactor before history of mankind unfolded and at times during his frustration, is still his opinion, is that mankind and existence altogether was a mistake. He seeks to undo it and as this is not of a beneficial outcome to mankind, we see it as evil. The end of all things and nothingness is an unfavorable outcome because we want to think there is purpose to continued existence when in reality, there may or may not be a greater plan.

When the Benefactor came to me, I knew him as Dalem. A man whose eyes glowed with blue flame in the night and who would appear as thousands of beating wings when he wanted to really make an entrance. He had told me, however that it was all a parlor trick as reality was an illusion and that the blackness of the time before time existed and would always exist.

I remember a warm night on the sands of Egypt when Pharoah was not able to watch or comprehend the movements of the celestials on Earth. When I became an immortal.

"Dalem. Why do you walk among mankind if you want them destroyed so badly?" I asked.

"Walk among them?" He laughed. "I cannot interact with them dear Prótos. I am one that only you can see. This is not my world and therefore it is only one I can influence and not physically effect."

"I had but a number before you came and I am grateful for your naming me but why do you call me Prótos? What does it mean?" I asked

"One day, you will understand." He said.

"What do you mean?"

He seemed to burn as if he were sitting in a fire and he smiled through the heat mirage that was his face.

"I want to preform an experiment with you, my dear friend. How long have you been alive?" I moved to answer but he interupted. "You are still young and beautiful. I would like to say that you are probably around 28 years of age. What if you were to never age physically and existed for all time like me?" He asked.

"I'd ask you what's the catch?" I said.

He looked at me and made the rules up effortlessly as he relayed to me, "you must understand the darkness so you will never again see the sun or I will make sure that it surely burns you to death. Also, because you are part human even after I give you a part of me to make all of it so, you will have to feed off his creation. You will have to aid me in the destruction of the light and feed off the life of the creatures who hold it. You will feed from their blood as this is what he considers life. Do this and you will be given great power in the universe. Especially as you begin to accept that it is all a lie and "reality" itself is the illusion."

A Mobster Vignette

There was a dim blue light that flickered on and off at one end of the dock and a couple of yellow ones at the corner of two warehouses in front of me. One of the warehouses had a hose and had containers of fish all around it. Shipping containers and smaller goods were scattered about towards the ocean side of the dock; As if the workers had finished up their hours and just clocked out leaving most things unattended.

I stood next to a large shipping container and felt the tiny droplets of after hour sea mist kissing the stubble on my face. I had a nice, wide brim jazz fedora on but it would seem that mist permeates everything, perhaps even my soul. I wore a long beige overcoat and had on black, skin tight leather gloves.

There was a long wooden staircase leading down to the docks from the road above and looking up at it, I noticed the shuffling steps of my contact. He was a jumpy little shit, mid 30's and already thought he owned the world. Hell, he made it longer than most I guess.

He got to the bottom step and tripped a little.

"God damn! Shit! Fucking stairs..."

There was no need for him to swear like that but it did make me feel a little better. He walked out toward the middle of the dock and stood there rubbing his hands together from under a long black overcoat.

His eyes were blue; his hair brown and slightly Auburn in places. It had been greased up but was starting to fall apart in the damp sea mist air. He would pull it back and then continue rubbing his hands together.

I watched him through the cloak of darkness for a bit as I prepared. Walking up, I focused on the sound of my jet black wingtips hitting the boards of the dock.

"Hey! Don't get any closer" He said drawing his gun, a snub nose .38.

"Relax Tim. You're a bit jumpy tonight, ya?" I said.

Putting away his revolver, he said, "Oh. It's only you, D."

"Yeah, pal. It's only me."

Shuffling with something in his coat, he pulled out a curled up manilla envelope and handed it to me.

"D, it's fucking cold out here, you got the money?"

"Just let me take a look at the file."

I began reading through the file and looking at the documents.

"Do you remember when we were 12 and we smoked cigarettes in the little rock cave behind your house?"

"Yeah. What the hell is wrong with you? This ain't no time to be nostalgic," he said, looking both ways up and down the dock. "Say where's your car, D?"

"I got dropped off. Jimmy and the boys are coming to pick me up in a bit."

"How is old Jimmy? I always liked him. That's why I'm helping him now, you know?"

"Has anyone else seen this file, Tim?"

He paused and looked at me with his hands in front of him. "No. Why would you ask that? You know I pinched it, right after the Detective gave it to me."

"Good boy, Tim."

I put my arm around him and told him, "hey, let's take a walk, there's too much light over here by the warehouses."

"I agree. You know I can't get caught. I'm one step away from suspension for what I done for you guys. I think they may suspect something. You know, Amanda and the baby would..."

I pulled my .45 from my side, put it to his head and pulled the trigger in one swift motion.

Instantly, my face was covered in blood and brain matter but I felt tiny droplets of after hour sea mist kissing the stubble on my face. Using my cloth handkerchief which was also partially wet from the sea air, I wiped off the gun handle and tossed it in the ocean. Then I wiped off my face.

Using my foot, I pushed Tim's body into the deep water beneath the dock and watched him sink. I washed what was left of Tim into the ocean with the hose and started toward the road.

Noticing a flicker from somewhere down the dock towards the city, I decided to investigate. By a burn barrel, there was a bum warming his hands. No one else was there but he looked up and saw my face. He didn't even try to run as I used his own shirt to choke him to death; only a slight defiant wriggle to consummate his denoument. Jimmy was waiting by the road in the truck and I hoped in.

"Is it done?" Jimmy asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Any witnesses?" He asked.

"No," I said.

"Good. WELL... poor Timmy. He was a good guy," Jimmy said.

"Yeah..." I said, looking out at the ocean and the moon just starting to peek out from the clouds.

Breaking the mold

Chapter 9: The difference between father and son.

The voice asked again.  [PLEASE ASSESS HUMANITY AND DETERMINE ITS VALUE TO THE TAYLORN.]

Inside my head the voice was so cold and logical.  Had I really been this way as a being of light and energy? Was it really who I may have to be again?

[DJINN, YOU WERE ALLOWED THIS EXPERIMENT TO EXPLAIN TO US WHAT IT IS TO BE A CORPOREAL HUMAN BEING.  WE EXPECTED RESULTS TO EXPLAIN THEIR CURIOUS BEHAVIORS.  PLEASE EXPLAIN NOW.]

The voice in my head boomed these demands.  No one could hear it but me. As they continued to yell, my Taylorn brain began to grow and try to come up with an explanation.  There had to be a quantifiable way to explain love, hate, fear, anger, FRUSTRATION!

[TAYLORN COLLECTIVE: THERE ARE THINGS WE HAVE FORGOTTEN...]

[WE KNOW ALL THERE IS IN THE UNIVERSE. THERE IS NOTHING WE HAVE FORGOTTEN.]

[YOU FORGET EMOTION. YOU FORGET FEAR.  WHAT IS THERE YOU HAVE TO FEAR WHEN YOU KNOW ALL THINGS?]

[WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND]

[YOU WOULDN'T.  THERE IS NO WHERE TO GO FOR YOU. EVEN DEATH ITSELF HAS NO MEANING TO YOU.  WHAT DO WE VALUE AS TAYLORN]

[WE ARE THE KEEPERS OF THE UNIVERSE.  WE HAVE NO VALUE SAVE EXPLORATION AND THE STUDY OF ALL THAT LIVES WITHIN THIS UNIVERSE]

[THERE IS A BEAUTIFUL SIMPLICITY TO LIFE THAT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN. A FEAR OF OUR OWN EPHEMERAL NATURE CRADLES OUR CREATIVITY AND VISION]

[EXPLAIN VISION, DJINN. THERE IS LAWS AND RULES OF NATURE BUT WHAT IS VISION?]

[VISION IS WHAT HUMANS USE TO FORGE A PATH. TO  TRY THINGS DESPITE THEIR PROBABILITY TO FAIL.]

I would not know it but later would be able to see it through the collective consciousness of my bretheren; My eyes, nose, ears and mouth had begun to bleed. My "spirit" or rather the Taylorn consciousness in me had begun to expand and the body I inhabited was unable to contain it. It would be like a sippy cup trying to contain a nuclear reaction.

[YOU DO NOT HAVE MUCH TIME, DJINN. YOU WILL SOON BE ONE OF US AND YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO RELATE TO THE HUMAN FORM.]

[DADDY!]

[WHA... WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?]

[DADDY! THIS IS NOT A CONCEPT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND. LOVE IS UNNECESSARY WHEN YOU HAVE NO PHYSICAL BOND TO THAT WHICH YOU LOVE. YOU LOOK AT TIME AS AN ETERNAL CONSTANT AND WHY THEN WOULD YOU RELATE TO A CHILD? DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER THAT I AM YOUR CHILD? DADDY, THERE WAS ONCE A TIME YOU SMILED AND FELT A WARMTH FOR ME. THERE IS NO WARMTH IN THE DARKNESS OF ETERNAL SPACE. THERE IS NO BOUNDARY TO WHAT YOU HAVE TO CONQUER OR EXPLORE. YOU DON'T EVEN SEEK TO CONQUER AS THE CONCEPT WOULD BE FOREIGN AND USELESS TO YOU. MANKIND ARE CHILDREN! THE WORLD IS ALWAYS NEW AND EXCITING TO THEM. THEY BICKER OVER TOYS THAT GET BIGGER AND MORE COMPLEX AS THEY AGE BUT THEY WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO KEEP THE KNOWLEDGE THAT WE HAVE ACCUMULATED BECAUSE THINGS IN THEIR WORLD ARE BOUND BY THE LIMITS OF THEIR FORM AND SUBSTANCE. IT IS THE SAME WAY THAT WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THEIR PALTRY BUT MEANINGFUL LIVES. THEY ARE CHILDREN. BEAUTIFUL AND SIMPLE, VIOLENT AND YET HUNGRY AND CURIOUS. WE ARE SO FAR BEYOND THAT, THAT WE CAN NEVER LOOK BACK AND RELATE. TO DESCRIBE TO YOU, DADDY, THE LOVE FOR A CHILD, I WOULD HAVE TO DESCRIBE TO YOU WHAT LOVE IS IN YOUR COLD IMMORTALITY. PERHAPS I HAVE MUCH TO LEARN THOUGH. I WILL REJOIN YOU SHORTLY AND BEGIN AGAIN.]

[YOU ARE WRONG, SON. EVER HAVE I HOPED FOR YOUR FULFILLMENT. I SEE YOUR LIFE DIFFERENTLY THAN THAT OF A MORTAL BUT FOR THEM I WISH THEIR ENTIRE SPECIES LONG LIFE. WE WATCH HUMANS WITH DISTANT "EMOTION." HOWEVER, WE CAN APPRECIATE THAT THEY HAVE IT. WE ARE ETERNAL, SO WE HOPED TO UNDERSTAND THROUGH YOU. YOU CANNOT EXPLAIN TO US ANY MORE THAN WE CAN SEE IN OBSERVATION. THIS IS A PITY BUT NOT UNEXPECTED. WE WILL PROTECT THEIR RACE AND PERHAPS, THROUGH YOUR FORCE REJOINING US, WE WILL BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND, JUST A LITTLE BIT.]

My body began to seize and I fell over in my wheel chair by the window of the Tall Oaks Nursing home. The official cause of death was massive cerebral hemorrhage. The doctors would tell each other they'd never seen anything like it before and write papers on it. A few of the nurses would even try to create failed religions around it.

Overall I rejoined my people and went back to keeping the universe the night I died, the night sky would glow with color that no one would ever understand or be able to explain.

The human experience is like that of a father and son. One thinks they bear the weight of the world, the other actually does. Neither will understand each other because neither are each other. That's okay. We all have our roles to play. Yours, human, is to make your world a little bit better, every day.

Sincerely,

Djinn, Second of the Taylorn collective.