The Immortal and the Time Traveler

“Stop following me,” said the traveler as he found the immortal, over and over again.

"I was there first," said the immortal, always.

"How did you become immortal anyway?" traveler time asks only once no color left in their hair.

The first time the question is asked of the dead, they are young, so young their immortality is like a green wound, still bleeding. "Should we talk about death?"

The time traveler makes a face. "Nothing endless, without you?"

They left without saying goodbye.

After the encounter, there is also a table, two chairs, and a bottle of a solid object between them. No matter where the conversation begins if it can pass the first few sentences it goes back to the same place: history and art.

The traveler has a good sense of history.

The immortal has a good artistic appreciation.

Disagreements over the importance of topics go back hundreds of years. They talk about it, especially in their middle years, they both have information put on their belts.

"History is more important than art," emphasizes the traveler of time. "Great moments that shape the course of humanity."

Immortality is perishable. "How do you think big times happen, unless the little ones give context to what follows?"

Time goes back to a time when one lives in caves. They set up a time machine to check organisms and find a child playing with sticks by the river the way children play during the time. They look at the minutes, before typing on a machine strapped to their arm like a macabre clock, which they photograph. There must be an answer here.

The child notices them, and goes up without fear, as does an old friend. A time traveler cannot move them, no matter how fast they move.

"What are you doing?" Asks the child.

"Stop following me!" a time traveler breaks down.

The baby blinks in confusion at the owls. "I was here first."

“You have to stop and look at it immediately,” suggests immortality from time to time. In this case, it is a young wanderer, with a new smile and wide eyes.

"It means age, life, not travel," replied the traveler. Immortality only bows its head in peace, while the traveler begins to sail. "There is no time. Not all of us are immortal."

"How many times should you collect as trading cards before you can be satisfied?"

"How many times should you make that argument?"

"At least once again, my friend, as usual."

"How did you become immortal yet?" the stranger asks again, sharp.

The immortal is old, so their immortality in the old is like a scar, sometimes painful but very memorable in the news. "Should we talk about death?"

"Nothing endless, without you?"

"You're going to die," the immortal tells the traveler. It makes the traveler time to win, but immortality continues. "You will fade. Nothing will stop that. Even my memories of you will not keep you alive, because if I tell someone about you you will lack the context to understand. It is inevitable."

The time traveler opens and closes their mouth several times. They raised their hands, clapped their fingers in the air between them, raised their chests as if to make a bold proclamation, but who could not comprehend the silence, the silence, "You are a bastard, you know that?"

"I just thought you were going to die, old friend," said the immortal. "Not that you lived in vain."

The traveler walks away without saying goodbye.

Occasionally the traveler returns to the child playing by the river. Sometimes they look at the distance, exploring the child's favorite places and then the teenager and then the adult. The traveler wonders if the immortal one remembers them from childhood, wonders why the immortal approached his early childhood but sees no harm in continuing to look.

Why do they not die? Of course, if it is a secret, a traveler can find it.

Great times, says the traveler.

Little times, says the immortal.

The traveler grows and ceases to care for the sanctity of their timeline. They flew from one convention in 1420 to another in 4120. It is becoming increasingly difficult for an immortal person to trace what they have finally discussed, when they have met before, in the attitude of a stranger.

"I don't want to see one last time," said the traveler once, in the 3270s.

"There will always be one last thing," said the immortal, morose. "You shouldn't use that much. I've been reading it, it's dangerous."

“It reflects on what you know,” said the traveler, the ghost of a man who was once a youth.

Is this before or after? The immortal can neither speak nor ask.

A child is playing in the park. They have a spacecraft in their hand and make loud noises as they run down the aisle ...

Perhaps it is understandable that the immortal, old and weak, struggle in the same way towards the lakeshore. The child does not think so and just turns around and screams.

"Stop following me," the child asked.

"I was there first," he told the immortal, smiling sadly.

The baby is barking. "Nu-uh!"

He smiles immortally.

Time does not fade from their visit. The immortal is afraid to comment on it.

The traveler has always been a friend. The immortal grew up relying on their visitation amid so much death, and so much loss. Has the immortal lost them again?

For a long time, the traveler suspected that immortality was a great moment, lightning. The traveler even hung on to his immortal mother during pregnancy.

In all, the traveler is visiting the immortal soul as a baby, an infant, a child, a teenager - more than 600 times. Members of the immortal nation think of the traveler of time as a merchant. No other woman gets pregnant during this time, no more babies are born. Then, when the immortal youth, the members of the tribe begin to die. It is not strange at first, as it was in prehistoric times, but the traveler's time scans twelve to die and we get cancer these people should not have, same cancer that chokes the traveler from the inside out.

It is the radiant radiation in their long-distance machine, a traveler who recognizes time with great awe. They have killed these people, immortal orphans. He made immortality by using a certain fluke. Six hundred seconds, including one when the immortal takes the arrow to the heart, then returns to the top, confused.

It makes the visitor waste time.

The traveler takes the immortal to his homeland when no one is left, makes sure he arrives at the farm and pays the family to take care of them, and never visits any version of immortality for a while.

Three thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven years after the traveler came out the second time, the immortal came home in a dusty book with papyrus sheets. It is written in a language that an immortal person once knew but has long forgotten, and it contains the text.

Remember that saying it was one of your favorites.

An immortal smile and passing a hand over the pages, remembering without reading, trying to imagine what kind of inner story might have taken their imagination enough to talk about to the traveler.

Is this before or after we know the stranger?

"How did you become immortal anyway?" the stranger asks again, fear grips their voice like a thorny vine.

The last time a question is asked of the immortal, old, weak. No longer is cell phone alone. Death. There is nothing endless. "Should we ... talk ... about death?"

"Nothing endless, without you?"

"Heh. I'm not staying long ... good tired"

The stranger blinks. "I - I mean, I'm sorry - you've always been--"

The immortal raises his hand, silences it, and shakes it to the ground. For a long time, immortality was not a matter of trying to apologize.

They sit down next to their friend's wheelchair, looking at the glass. There is no more life on Earth, no more. Something about the sun, something related to the ozone layer, something that the traveler at that time did not bother to read, but mankind can still see storms moving across continents when the traveler can see them in space stations. The stars are shining all around and the traveler does not have the context of the moment, it is very far from the future, but when you look at the immortality their eyes are closed and the traveler is drawing a little breath. It is not a bad place to rest, to die.

"All right," they said goodbye. "Maybe you had a point."