My Himitsu

by A Nomad Soul

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We were not born. We were not created. We just came to be. All of a sudden, out of nothing, we felt the sun upon our skin for the first time – the day that our time began. We were scattered, spread out across the Earth and each of us thought we were alone. We were not told our purpose; there was no sign or divine mandate. Life had been given to us, and we soon realised that it was life that could not be taken away.

Humanity was thrust upon us, it was unavoidable. We lived among them and soon learned to love them at their best and hate them at their worst. It was not long before each of us discovered how easily they could be controlled. We, the immortal, became kings and queens and then we became gods.

I was named Cho’gath, the protector. I was kind to my people and fearsome to my enemies. I built an empire of fire and stone that spanned an entire continent. I watched it fall to the one they called Baal. He was like me and thus became my enemy. We fought above Ararat for centuries before calling one another brothers. While we duelled, the world moved on.

I was named Horus. I ruled in secret, speaking only to a select few, who became known as priests and priestesses. A nation was born around me, and it lived on long after I grew tired and slipped away in the shadows. I watched as others like me transformed it and eventually destroyed it, just for sport.

I walked the wilderness for millennia, searching ceaselessly for a reason to care. Humanity served the others well. The one they called Zeus enjoyed the company of mortal women and men alike. He devoted three empires to the pursuit of carnal pleasure. The one they called Athena tempered him, and in turn he allowed her to teach his people to dream beyond sleep. And yet, it would take outright rebellion for them to realise that humanity has never needed us.

Most of us disappeared and gave up the power we once had over the hearts and minds of mortals, seeking instead to live our endless lives in secret. We went our separate ways and soon discovered the pleasures of mortality. The joys of love, and the pain of grief. We observed, at a distance, the beauty of that time between birth and death. In secret, we began to understand the nature of humanity, the constant flux of progress and destruction. We watched as the world burned, and was reborn. Yet we remained the same.

Some of us found purpose – as teachers, saviours, heroes and villains. For a time I had a taste for war. I never picked sides. I would fight first for one side, and then the other after fabricating my own death. It was the bloodshed that I craved. My own sense of futility was justified in the futility of a soldier’s life. I had no reason to care for the mortals other than their fear of death. In every battle, I fought for eternal slumber, where I would no longer wake to find myself in a world to which I have never belonged.

It is so easy for humans to die, and it is the very reason they love to live. They live though; to love, and love is the only reason to care. Since that first day, I had not discovered love. I understood pleasure. I had known joy. But never love. And then you washed up on the shore.

You had been cast into the sea in a plywood box that should have been your coffin. You were barely a month old when I found you, barely able to scream any longer, on the shores of Iwo Jima. I picked you up and held you, willing your cold, fragile little body to cling to life a little longer. In that moment, for reasons I am still unable to understand, I became your father and you became my secret whisper of home. My Himitsu.

In the light of ages, your life was only a moment – the most precious, beautiful moment I have ever been a part of. An eternal, unrepeatable moment that lasted a lifetime. I raised you and made a home for you. I taught you to speak and you taught me to smile. I taught you to dance and you taught me to laugh. I taught you to read and you taught me not to argue with you. I was there when you learned to walk, and there the first time you fell down. I wiped your tears and you wiped mine.

You were only seven when you noticed my immortality. You asked me if you were the same. Even then, young as you were, you understood that you would eventually cease to be. It broke my heart when you began to cry. When I asked you why your tears were being shed, you said it was because you knew that I would have to miss you eventually.

My beautiful Himitsu: you were always wise beyond your years.

Every spring you would pick cherry blossoms, pinning them onto every one of your dresses. You didn’t seem to mind that they withered away. You always said that the prettiest things are never allowed to stay long, because if they were, we would stop seeing them. Only an immortal would understand that, after watching mountains rise and fall, a human life is still the most beautiful thing in the universe.

Every spring, you grew older.

Winter saw us hiding inside around the fire. I would tell you ancient stories and you would always listen. You would run around the house shouting with glee when the snow began to fall, and you would beg me to let you go outside. I watched your wide-eyed wonder as the world around you transformed from grey to white. It was nothing new, but you still marvelled at it and in turn, I did too.

Every winter, you grew older.

In autumn you would paint. You always said that the colours were just right at that time of year. I watched your creations evolve from vivid, carefree splashes to delicate, nuanced masterpieces. You told the stories of fleeting moments in time, captured the light of ages and made it shine.

Every autumn, you grew older.

Summer made us wander. We would travel to wherever your heart desired. I was your guardian and you were my guide. You showed me the wonder that my wanderings never had. To you, it was all so new.

Every summer, you grew older.

In time, the little creature I had pulled from the sea grew into a beautiful, graceful young woman. You had a head full of dreams and a heart full of passion and a force of will to rival the immortals themselves. Around you the world was at war, and you were determined to bring peace. Suddenly, and without warning, you were gone – snatched from my arms by the fire and light and rage that came with the most devastating device humanity had yet created.

Their Fat Man had taken my little girl.

We were not born, and we cannot die. We have watched humanity rise and fall and rise again. We have always been among them, but not part of them. None of the others have ever known what it is to be human. They may have loved a human for a time, but it was always, in the light of ages, short lived. Their lovers were always of a different sort. Liaisons under cover of darkness, cut short before the truth of immortality could be known. My Himitsu, was so much more than a mere period of happiness in my life.

I spent centuries mourning her in a cave, until humanity took the cave from me. I wandered the ever-mechanical wastes until the sun grew dim, watching as humanity never stopped living. I hitched a ride off-world, hoping to find a home among the stars. I existed in a cargo hold as generations lived and died around me, hoping to reach a habitable planet before the resources ran out. I watched a new world born and I watched it die. In the light of ages, each world is but a moment.
The sky will soon go black, and at last, humanity will fade away. Existence itself will cease as the last of the stars burn out, and finally, I will die. In the light of ages it has been but a moment and she was a moment within a moment. And yet, even now, she was the most precious, beautiful moment I have ever been a part of.

My Himitsu, my secret whisper of home.

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Peace, Love and a Little Madness

Nomad.