Figueredo Aragón Germán Alejandro, A Dream Of The Immortal

A DREAM OF THE IMMORTAL

Written By Germán Alejandro Figueredo Aragón

Seven thousand moons before the sudden dawn of Man, something came into existence. Nothing noticed its birth, for there was nothing to see and it came out of the ground. It was fragile, and it wasn’t impressive. Unlike the trees that reached the sky above, unlike the giant planets that swallowed and swirled the void, unlike the behemoths that roamed on the earth. This creature, unlike any Power visible or invisible, held a special place in the cosmos….

For blood and dust piled, mixed with the clay of time and space, became the Essence Of LIFE; a thunderous, fatal presence. A creature that walked on its hind legs, that grabbed and modified the universe around it with its limbs, that wondered at the stars above and became perplexed at the strange beating inside its own chest. A being who saw beauty, who enshrined desire, who brought Old Light upon the land.

This being was the highest creature; for it held the knowledge of The Outer Ones in its blood, in its nails, in its eyes; a Magnum Opus of the Outer Ones, the UNIVERSAL Masters. Nothing could destroy it, nothing could deny it. It was the Alpha of Cosmic Reason. Its name, uttered by himself, Binduk.

As the years went by, The Creature learned its place in the world. The environment was hostile, but this Creature exuded the silent charisma of The Outer Ones, God, and Archons of the Universe. Alone, but unafraid of the originally hostile environment, he started to learn to live comfortably amongst all living beings. But it came to pass that, with the downfall of rain, many of the mightiest beasts began to spawn ravaged and consumed, scattered across the land. Creatures of all sizes and species appeared feasted upon and left in bones everywhere as if a silent disease had made itself known; death beat its universal wings upon the land of the living. Once a lush tropical forest, now desert.

A man was born. With it, The Gods abandoned binary design, for, in his body, conjoined the explicable with the inexplicable. Walking paradoxes, errant immigrants of the cosmic cavalcade. But when the Immortal met Man, the creatures of the land were forsaken and left to their own devices in a changing environment. For it knew the closeness it felt to the men, and the admiration it felt for the women. It wished to lead them…to show them the way into greatness, to inspire them to become the truthful servants of the Outer Ones. But these same Gods thrummed in disapproval, for the stars dictated a sign. On one lustful night, where the smokes were smelling of fat and the tents vibrating with couples, Binduk was alone. He dreamt of a lion, a creature of Leo, defending a rat from a sand storm. He dreamt of this lion lasting eternally, a witness of the timelessness of the desert of immortality, And a horrid face opening its maw, as a cosmic abyss from which the Outer Ones called. The rat in the dream died, but from its rotting corpse spawned its offspring, and so this process carried on eternally. He woke up, and in the ecstatic atmosphere, he howled like a starved dog and cried bitterly.

He refused to lead, but he taught them all science, art, skill, and wit. And they claimed him as a God and desired to give him everything they knew; wine, women, gold, cattle, and power. He remained silent. And the skies showed temperance. With time, Binduk came to despise mortals for their perceived lack of perception, the empty walls they clung to, the sadness they chose to reside in for the short amount of time they lasted. For the potential he saw once, now he felt pity. And yet, envy burning in his heart.

The tribes thrived and multiplied. In a couple of centuries, an empire born from nothing, as a question mark rising upon the desert. The first civilization born, and God Binduk as its guardian. Death could no longer touch it, for Immortality

held its walls. And many centuries did Binduk disentomb and direct the same simple begging question to the Outer Ones;

“Why? Why immortality? Why do I have to do this? Why is it that with endeavoring escape, punishment rains upon me?” He said to himself. Although he was wise, and he knew the power and knowledge like no other being, his physical immortality anchored him to suffering, so he tried to numb it down. Many centuries spent in frustration, suffocating his desperation with beautiful dancers, wine and music, and private attempt at self-destruction.

So it passed, that he began writing a book in which he recorded the existence and history of man, down to the finest details, because he had already exhausted his own range of experience and motion. In anger, he recorded their stupidity, mistakes, and their awful morbid desires; but also, their inventiveness, their joy despite their predicament, and their growth.

It was from there, when mankind grew to his utmost development, so did the earth wither completely and the bowels of the lakes dry. So did war feast upon nations, and greed implode into itself. Wisdom whispered like the wind in the silence, and Binduk was nevermore such wind.

As for man, his days passed like dying midnight lights. Wandering around the streets of the City, he met with a sculptor; a slender man with rough eyebrows, yet deeply curious eyes. They spoke and so, midday shattered into a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sculptor was a man of various opinions, one of them being that the poor populace of the City was beginning to overwhelm its streets. The god shivered but wrote it down. After parting Binduk stumbled upon an old homeless man, who reminded him of the sculptor’s opinion.

This man spoke of the Earth as having enough fruit to provide everyone; “Why, then, was he in such a state?” Binduk

told him that the Universe knew not of ideas man conceived and that equality of life was a sheer dismay civilization tried to enshrine, to maintain its own rate of survival. Out of compassion for his good disposition, He put his hands on the head of the homeless man and uttered a noise that vaguely resembled a word; he left him with the assurance that wealth would come, but that his path would be changed.

And so Binduk headed towards the center of the City like anyone would… And at the sight of the curves, the skin, and the revealing clothes, he craved for something. He thought a while; some exotic ones from the Northern Regions, where blonde hair is natural. Others from the Orient, and some black like coal from the South. As an honorable guest, he could pick whichever he liked from brothels and homes, and one struck his fancy; sculptural hands similar to a goddess’ that could remold the world if she so pleased.

Gently came the nightfall, and ecstatically did it come to pass. But the mind of an immortal is a faddy thing. Lying next to her naked body, tired and sweating, his face was empty, and within, despite his strong appearance, his will was fractured and his chest was a vacuum, for this was one encounter of infinite encounters already lived and experienced. Despite his intention of drowning his sorrow in beauty and sensuality, pleasure could never bring him peace in immortality that weighed like the entire mass of the ocean. And mortals were never enough; his life was ephemeral in its longitude. He longed for meaning, for personal purpose, for something reminiscent of true company. In his heart, a terror was delivered discreetly.

Still in no condition and in the silent hours of the night, he headed towards the royal complex. He knew the King of the city; a man of much power but not many aspirations besides

resting in his palace and remaining king. Such endeavors led him to unmeasured fear of the immortal.

The day rose and he met with the vizir, which told him about the king’s concerns: the Gate of Ea was in a delicate position. It was being threatened by a witnessed colossal; a leviathan that had already destroyed various populations near the Coast at The Edge. So, it was the moment to tend to his duty. Binduk, with melancholy falling from his face, exited the colossal City walls with a prayer to the Outer Ones. To finally die and not remain forever.

And the days passed and time became thin. The desert was constantly covered by the soft shade of the vast clouds. And timelessness covered the horizon. Slowly arriving at the end of the desert, and of all known land, where salt and sand united, The Edge was reached (men knew not the reaches of those obscure waters). The sand was thin, and stone scabbed out of the ground. Bellies of sulfur accumulated along the shoreline, innocently clear like water pools reflecting the darkened sky. Blood had been drunk by the sand. It was a no man’s land.

A silhouette laid on the shore, sitting cross-legged, with his eyes closed. White and thin, it wore the night sky on its shoulders. Revealing the soft contour of an old man, the dark hair was ravaged by the salt and dry blood. And Binduk closed in on him like a dog sniffs upon finding an interesting object; he could not believe that presence was the only survivor of the massacre. This figure was divine; mortal as it was, as the silent sound it made by existing was enough to lure Binduk into a trance. After some attempts at addressing the character, all he heard from him was the word “Sunra”. But Binduk could not see, could not understand. Sunra was The Omega of the Cosmic Paradox. Binduk could sense its importance, and he spoke to it like trying to understand. Because no mortal had he

ever seen remain with such glee, with such peace, with such monumental tranquility with nothing more than silence and solitude. And no food did he eat, and so little sleep did he get... Many nights and days he spent inquiring into it, but no more than a few simple words escaped its mouth, infuriating Binduk. And months passed, and years without eating nor leaving the shore. Binduk could not leave its side, always staring into the distance, always crashing against the stone. The City wondered and trembled at the absence of its only membrane against annihilation and oblivion.

Sunra aged with the years, and Binduk still could not understand. He resigned himself to stand close to him and stare at his daily actions. He would sleep, wake, sit cross-legged and remain silent for hours on end, before kneeling and licking the sand. Then he’d fall asleep again.

And so Binduk, tired and desperate of the apparent indifference of the mortal, and his impotence regarding him jabbed to its throat with a clawed and powerful hand, to suffocate it whilst swallowing the noose in his own. He could not withstand the existence of a mortal being in more apparent peace than he was, indifferent to the external world. The movements stopped when, Sunra, with a smile, pointed towards the City’s direction with a soft demeanor. Binduk made an insane look, and suddenly his eyes went white, falling unconscious. And in a dream, they spoke of Wisdom. Of desire, of sex, of cancer, of suffering, of deliverance, of reincarnation. In their dream, A lion ate a putrid rat with glee. In their dream, Sunra taught Binduk the simpler mysteries of Existence and the True Master of the Universe (AUM). In a dream did they unite as one.

And as one did they leave, for there was but one body. And treading the soft distance of the desert, smiling all the way through, they got to see the City from a distance. Beautiful as the Desert’s Jewel, it was. Crossing the gate and entering

the City walls, the close guardians thought they recognized Binduk’s silhouette. Quickly did their smiles flee from their faces when they saw the terrible form that had become present, and their skin went white. They knew they were going to die.

From afar, the City could be seen on flames, the wild spikes contrasting against the starry celestial vault. It rained that night. And upon skulls and ashes, The True Immortal, now joyful and content, took hold of his one priced female, a woman with hands that seemed as if they could remold the world; and he gave her a child. And after the ritual had been carried out, The Immortal immersed himself in deep meditation, where the loud paradox of silence thrummed. In the deep, like an error erased from the face of the earth, mankind was forgotten.

And the new dawn had begun.

A dream of the Immortal, or truth. Perhaps both are the same in the end.