Immortally Yours

I’m immortal.

Don’t get too excited. There are seven of us. One for each continent. Obviously.

We gather every June, at Devil’s Island, for our annual meeting. We selected this island purely for the irony of it all. Our Australian representative thought Easter Island would be equally as ironic, but he’s an idiot and majority rules. Besides, we didn’t want anyone to mistake our immortality for anything religious. It’s purely scientific.

During this spring’s meeting, it was decided, by a 6–1 vote, that we would work to improve our community engagement. Over the millennia, we have grown rather lax in this area. The Australian immortal was the lone dissenter. He said he’d rather go fishing. Nonchalant immortals are the absolute worst.

So, last week, I was involved in the North American town hall meeting in St. Louis. It was basically a glorified Q&A. I hadn’t conducted one of these in 300 years. The questions are always interesting.

Question: Did you ever think you’d live long enough to see Donald Trump as President?

Answer: Sure. After a while, you begin to realize that you’ll see everything, eventually. Besides, being around during the Grover Cleveland administrations would truly give you all the perspective you’d need to survive this current fiasco.

Question: Will you please tell my Great-Great-Great Grandkids I said hello?

Answer: If you have them, sure.

Question: Who shot J.F.K.?

Answer: Lee Harvey Oswald.

Question: How did you become immortal?

Ugh. I don’t like this question. Three hundred years ago, a Puritan asked me the same thing and didn’t like my answer. He felt my response was too scientific, and he rushed the stage in anger. It was a violent confrontation, and he got the better of me in the short term. Twelve years later, though, he was dead from cholera, and I hadn’t aged a day.

Answer: It’s science based. I could bore you with the details, but your life is the one with the expiration date on it. Not mine.

Question: Who will win the World Series this season?

Answer: I’m immortal, not clairvoyant. But probably not the Phillies.

Question: Why won’t the Phillies win the World Series?

Answer: Because they’re rebuilding. They probably won’t win another World Series in my lifetime.

Question: But aren’t you immortal?

Answer: Exactly.

You get the idea.

I once did a Q&A session at the beginning of the Dark Ages. That was fun. I was covering for Luigi, the European Immortal, who was on leave.

Petrarch, the supposed scholar of the time, and who had conceived of the idea of a Dark Age, was a real pain in the ass. In fact, he credits me as the reason he’d had the idea for a long period of darkness in the first place.

“Your mysterious powers are what doth bringeth such madness to this world,” he shouted. “We shall henceforth go dark.”

I was nonchalant in my response. “Whatever, man.”

In the end, I just waited him out. I always wait out the people that annoy me. Howard Taft, Mary Todd Lincoln, Captain Kangaroo. I can afford to play the long game.

The other night I was at a bar, enjoying a drink by myself. I decided many millennia ago that I would not engage in long-term friendships. Long-term friendships were only long-term friendships for my “long-term” friends. For me, they were just sad reminders of things ending and honestly, it became too much of an effort to make new friends.

A drunk fella next to me began asking me philosophical questions. He was apparently unaware of my immortal status.

“100 years from now, all new people,” he said. “You know what I mean?”

“Well, almost all new people,” I responded.

“Bartender, get this man another beer!” said the drunk. “On me!”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I have a physical in the morning.”

I didn’t really have a physical the next morning. I’m immortal, so medical exams are rather irrelevant.