Eternity
There remains just one problem. I no longer have eyes to open. I am
dead. I am dead and I must now make a choice, which will live with me
throughout the rest of time.
I died. I know not whether it was three seconds or three minutes,
three hours or three days or... I could have been here for an eternity
already and I would not know it. But I know I died. I remember the
moment completely. I am dead. I no longer even have a body and I
cannot understand how I may think and feel as I do when I have not a
mind or a body with which to think and feel.
And I cannot see. There is either nothing here to see or I merely
cannot see, and I know not which would be worse. I am just here and
it is so strange. I wish to rub my eyes, my temples, to feel my hair
upon my cheeks and the burning in my limbs as I run, cool air upon my
skin, anything. But I cannot. It is as drowning without drowning, as
lying in my bed with eyes closed, unable to feel anything, ever,
outside of warmth and suffocating safety. And it is suffocating, like
any second I may break into a panic; yet even this I cannot do. I am
mere disembodied thought and pure feeling, and I cannot even frown to
express my confusion at being in this state. I do not have a face
with which to frown. I had one once, yet I have no longer. But I
could have again.
For, though I know not how I know it, I know that I have a choice to
make. I do not even think I wish to know how I know this—it seems
to me almost an instinct, a natural understanding, akin to the danger
in playing with fire or unarmed combat with an orc. Still, it does
not seem right that this the most important choice of my life will be
made in death, even if that is the way it must be. And while I may
take as long as I will, forever if I need, I must choose. I must
choose one moment from my life to live forever, again and again. One
moment from millions. One moment in which I wish to exist for all
time.
But how do I choose? How do I choose one single event from my whole
life to live out forever? It is impossible. No man could be expected
to have the wit to do this. Perhaps this is what hell is, to be
forced to examine my life for one perfect moment. Or perhaps this is
just the way the afterlife must be; some people would know their
moment in an instant—the birth of a child or the meeting of their
husband or wife, or their wedding, or the lifting of their first
sword. Children may play forever. I may play forever. I could be a
child again for the rest of eternity and forget the rest of my life
even came to pass. This may be a good thing, because I could just
forget everything I ever wanted to forget. If I go back far enough I
could be happy forever and never know what my life became. I never
knew that death is so forgiving.
I could perhaps live my sixth birthday forever. I was barely even
aware that anyone else existed then, outside of my home and my
family, and certainly I knew nothing of Mordor or of a Dark Lord.
There was no Ring, there were no Elves and no Orcs; nothing existed
outside of Gondor or even outside of Minas Tirith. All I knew was the
White City, my mother, my father the Steward. I knew lessons that
were more like play in archery, swordplay... It was all I knew and all
I wanted. I was happy, blissful in my ignorance. I could do worse
than play-fighting and feasting for the rest of time.
Or the first time I held my sword. The first time I rode a horse
unaided. The day I finally understood my place in the order of things
as the son of the Steward. The first time I lay with a woman, told
her I loved her. My first battle, my first kill, meeting Legolas.
Meeting Legolas. He came to Gondor a messenger from Mirkwood, on some
errand from his father that I never fully understood. We were
introduced at dinner one evening and I cannot think my eyes left him
for more than two seconds together. I had never before in all my
twenty years seen an Elf, and I could not help but stare. There was a
gravity to him, and a light I could not fathom, some quality that
drew me to him like a moth to a flame. He, the flame. And yes, I was
burned, as I knew I would be from the very moment I set eyes on him.
He sat across from me at the banquet table, cutting his food into
infuriatingly small pieces before lifting them to his mouth with an
infuriating grace. Everything was so precise, so measured, as though
each motion had come out of long practice, both intriguing and
irritating me together. I knew then that I had never seen anything of
such perfection in such a simple act as raising a fork to a mouth.
And I caught myself staring as he lifted the glass to his lips, the
blood red of the wine staining his lips. I knew he must have done it
purposely, allowing the liquid to linger on his lips, simply because
there was nothing he did which he did not intend. I wished to slip
from my chair, walk to where he sat and kiss the wine from his lips.
As the meal was ending, when he looked up at me over the rim of his
glass and smiled, I knew that was what he had intended all along.
Gazing into his huge dark eyes, I could almost imagine I tasted the
wine from his lips and not my own.
He came to me not half an hour after that, and with sure hands on my
trembling body he made love to me. There had been no other male for
me before that night and there were none for a long time after. Yet
this Elf, I could not refuse him. Gender mattered not when I was with
him, as he seemed to somehow transcend it completely. He was not of
my world, something ethereal, not quite real to me yet in some ways
the most completely real thing in my whole life. In a world full of
war and steel and leather, beauty as I saw in him had never before
crossed my path. He was something exquisite, the only thing I knew I
could not possess, and which instead threatened to possess me. Simply
looking upon him made me shiver. And he made the night perfect simply
by sharing it with me, sharing my bed and himself.
The knock on my door almost startled me as I stood alone in my room
shrugging out of my clothes; I called out for whoever was knocking to
enter, and it was him. I saw him in the mirror, followed him in it
with my eyes as he moved toward me. He seemed almost to glow in the
candlelight of the room, moving as though every rule of weight I knew
eluded him, light upon the floor. It was near to gliding, that walk.
He cocked his head and looked at me as I looked at him in my mirror,
and I could not read the expression on his face. It seemed
thoughtful, but I could not tell anything of what he thought. I doubt
that I was meant to.
He lay a hand on my shoulder and though I had expected it, seen it in
our reflection, I flinched at the touch. He smiled then, brushed his
fingertips over my neck, my cheek, my lips. They lingered there a
moment as he looked into my eyes, before his hands went to my waist
and his lips replaced his fingertips.
I believe the moment we kissed and I tasted wine on his lips, from
his mouth, was the moment I fell in love. Or perhaps it was before
then, perhaps even the moment I first saw him. He was enchanting, had
captivated every man, woman and child present in that banquet hall,
could have had his pick of them all. Yet he chose me, naïve eldest
son of the Steward. I think perhaps I loved him for it, for being
there, for choosing to share one shimmering moment from his
immortality with me. And I had never felt so close to perfection than
I did lying in my bed with him that night.
I had no illusions that what we had could last. I was aware at all
times that he was not strictly speaking a part of the make-up of my
world, that his life was many miles away with people who were not my
own. He had little to detain him in Gondor and I knew he would leave,
was resigned to the fact that once he left I would never set eyes on
him again. So I intended to make good of what little time we were to
have together. And that I did.
We rode together, long miles together outside of the city, about the
Pelennor, all smiles and laughter. We hunted together, ate together,
slept together. In the night we were just as inseparable as during
the day, perhaps more so. I all the time awaited the moment I could
lie with him, feel his slim form against my own, wind his long hair
about my fingers and know every inch of his moonlit flesh. He would
lie still and simply smile at me as my eyes and my hands and my lips
explored him, voraciously, hungrily—there was not a single thing
about him I did not wish to know, and as we lay there I would beg him
to tell me of his home, his life before our meeting. His voice
soothed me when all my life my one wish had been glorious battle.
Being there with him in the comfort of my own bed brought on a
longing for a simpler life, a quiet life, a life I knew I could not
have. I knew it could not end well.
No matter the effort I made to convince myself that he would leave
and we would part peaceably, no matter what evidence I had to
convince me of it, I knew all along that there could be no good end.
A moth to a flame. I loved him and I believe he cared for me, yet
there was no love on his part. Sometimes I wonder if it was truly
love on mine and not mere infatuation, some sort of intrigue with his
beauty, but no, it was love. It was deeper than infatuation. I wished
to spend the rest of my life by his side.
Perhaps if I had wished to leave the White City and travel with him
to his home he would have taken me with him... and perhaps we would
have been happy together. Yet, the night before he was to leave, as
he spoke of his life and his family, about his home, it stirred again
in me those passions for my own home, my own people. I lay my heart
bare before him, told him I had a wish to be Steward one day, rule as
my father before me, that I would bring back to my land and my people
the glory they had once known.
He merely smiled at me, a condescending smile that spoke to me of how
he truly saw me, and he told me that he had met Aragorn. Aragorn, son
or Arathorn, heir to the throne of Gondor. And he would rule. I
realise Legolas never meant to dash my hopes that evening, but that
he did. I asked him to leave. He did not understand, we quarrelled
and we parted on bad terms. He told me that my love of power would
one day be my downfall, told me I was proud and selfish, a naïve
child; he broke my heart and he left the city the next morning. I
felt sure that he was wrong, and I felt sure that I should never see
my love again. I was wrong on both counts.
The night I met Aragorn is a good memory. Standing there holding the
broken hilt of Narsil in my hands, realising I was not alone, seeing
him sitting there, distracted from his reading, watching me... For an
instant I was not even sure if he was a Man or an Elf. There was a
familiar gravity to him, pulling my eyes to him, drawing me close to
him, and awkward as the moment was, I could feel there was to be
something between us. I was proved right when he came to my room, as
we spent one perfect, feverish night inside each other, hot and hard
and passionate. I should have been sleeping, weary from the long
journey to Rivendell, but instead I spent a night committing to
memory the every curve of the body of a man I hardly knew.
But morning came and everything was spoiled. First I take my seat at
the Council of Elrond only to find none other than Legolas sitting
there staring oddly at me, and then... then I find that this man with
whom I spent that night is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. I almost wished
I had allowed my brother to make the journey in my stead. Legolas'
being there changed everything.
He was in appearance the same Elf I had known twenty years before,
and looking at him I felt everything as keenly as I had the day he
left. So there I was, trapped in this Fellowship with an Elf I had
once loved, a Man I desired and a force of evil I did not understand
that tempted me every second of every day. Torture is too light a
word. Half the time, when the Ring was not speaking to me, I felt
like I was in danger of losing my mind. I was sure I loved Legolas
still.
There was a moment, not long after we had first set out, by the light
of the fire as the others slept, that Legolas came to me, lay me
down, touched me as he once had. He knew every inch of me still,
though twenty years had passed. He knew how to please me, and
physically he did—his tall, lean body above me, warm hands and lips
moving over me, wrapping me up in that same soft feeling of both love
and safety as he always had. Yet this time... I felt something amiss. I
did not feel a part of his beauty as I once had, did not even feel
close to it, felt so divided from him that though oh so familiar, his
very caresses felt alien. He pleasured my body and stirred my mind to
unrest.
For in my mind, in my heart, he was not what I wished for. My
traitorous heart desired Aragorn. And, in spite of everything that
had passed between us, arguments, my childish struggle for authority,
he desired me still.
I believe that for a short while Legolas could not bring himself to
believe I could desire another over him, or perhaps he did not want
to believe. Yet as time passed and we travelled further, as I spent
more time with Aragorn, be it smoking, talking or arguing, he began
to realise that it was not he whom I desired any longer. He came to
me one night, in Moria, told me that when he left me before he had
been careless with my affections and that he regretted this deeply.
But he said that he understood, that he had been watching me, us, and
if I loved Aragorn he would let me be.
If I loved Aragorn. I had not known it 'til I heard the words aloud,
and even then I wished it were not so. In love with a man I had
thought to hate. It was more than I could bear. I longed to feel that
love for Legolas instead, but I knew it was useless. I was in love
with Aragorn, yet sleeping with Legolas. He seemed not to care that
half the time I was imagining he was someone else, that his face was
not so smooth, his hair not so light, his eyes so dark.
I am not saying I did not love him, because I did. I still do,
strange as that may sound. Perhaps love truly can live forever.
Except I do not think I shall see Legolas again, for he still lives.
Maybe. I do not know how long it has been. Perhaps he is dead now and
it is just that I do not know it. But I am never to see him again. I
am never to see anyone ever again. It is just me and my memory for
whatever is left, and that does not seem right. The afterlife is
false. It is as a dream from which you can never wake, that you do
not know is a dream, that you are living over and over without even a
mere idea of what your existence truly is. I do not want that. There
is some appeal in it, to live your one fondest memory forever, to
think that you are with your loved ones and truly believe that you
are there, but it is false. If I truly had a choice, I would not
desire this.
Except I know that if choose not to choose, I will lose everything. I
will be blank for all eternity and that scares me more than living a
lie. So, I have to choose, even if it is simply because it is the
lesser of two evils. And after all, I know that once I am there in
the moment I will not know the difference between fantasy and
reality. It will not matter that it is not real. It will not matter
that I am in truth alone and there is no one there with me. It will
not matter that I will never truly see them ever again.
I loved Legolas and I do still; he is special to me, holds a dear
place in my heart and in my memory. Yet I know I remained with him
simply because I needed consolation. I was in love then with a man I
knew could never love me. He may have lain with me, may have touched
me with heat and passion, but his heart I knew lay in the hands of
Arwen Evenstar. He wore her jewel about his neck and to my memory
never once removed it. Even in the woods, in Lothlórien, that night
when he came to me, that night we spent together, a memory I have
treasured, he did not take it off. It hung there between us, a
reminder of what could not be. He could not be mine. I may have been
his, but he could never be mine.
But that night, knowing what I knew, understanding he was not for me,
I promised myself that I would not waste one second that I could
spend with him. Even if that meant that in the end I would be hurt. I
cared not. I simply wanted to be with him for as long as I could. And
I was. I was at his side almost every moment from then until the day
I died.
This is not at all what I imagined the afterlife to be. While I was
living I was never even sure it existed, no matter what I may have
been told as a child. I have always seemed incapable of believing in
something if there is no evidence of its existence, and the afterlife
was always one of those things. But, I imagined that if there was a
life after death then surely there must be an order to it, places to
go, and your afterlife would depend on the kind of person you were
and the deeds you did. That does not seem to be the case. There is
nowhere, there is nothing.
So I'm not in some sort of hell, unless this is what hell is like.
Maybe this is what you make it. This could be heaven or hell
depending on the way you look at it. This place gives you the chance
to forget or the chance to remember. Depending on your choice you
could be happy or tortured forever. Or you could agonise in your
choice for all eternity. Or you could just simply choose oblivion.
This really is what you make it. And I am making it all too hard on
myself.
I simply cannot think I led a particularly good life. I may not have
been a bad person but I was never a terrifically good person either.
I may not have raped or plundered or anything of the sort, I did not
commit genocide or mass slaughter or even simple cold-blooded murder.
And I did not flatter or lie or lust in excess, I did not cheat and
steal and I did not otherwise intentionally hurt people. Yes there
were times when I may have hurt unintentionally, like Frodo... but that
was unintentional. I never meant for that to happen, did not wake one
morning and decide I meant to hurt him. I am not trying to shrug off
responsibility, because I know I hurt him and I know it was my fault.
I was a weak, stubborn man, with a weak, weak mind, and the Ring took
advantage of that. I was not strong enough to resist it, and it would
have had me kill Frodo, innocent Frodo, one so much better and
stronger than myself. I carry the guilt of that day with me still.
No, I was not a good person.
So I deserve to punish myself. For a while at least, even if I do not
in the end choose something deliberately hideous from my past to live
forever. I cannot think I am quite so masochistic as to do that.
Besides, this choice has been given to me, so you would think I can
choose whatever I wish to choose without having to agonise over it.
And after I have chosen I know I will not remember anyway, so why do
I even think on this? This is folly. I should just choose my happiest
moment and get on with reliving it, over and over until the end of
time.
There remains just one difficulty. I do not know what my happiest
memory is.
I wish I knew how long ago it was that I died. I do not know the
process here. Perhaps I died just now or perhaps I died a hundred
years ago. Perhaps it is this way by design, so we are all
disorientated and do not understand. Perhaps we are supposed to feel
disconnected and alone. But still I wish I knew when I am. Maybe then
I could understand a little more. Was I here, not feeling, not truly
conscious for a time before I woke after the shock of my death,
suddenly knowing all this and having to choose? Was it something I
knew the second I died? I need to know this, because I need to know
if I have to grieve now for the people I loved. I do not know how
long I have been here, or even what or where here is.
But I do know that I died. I remember the moment completely; I do not
think I could ever forget. At least not without choosing a moment.
I had never fought so hard in my life, or with such a fever in me.
Merry and Pippin could not defend themselves against such a number
of... Orcs? Were they Orcs? If they were they were unlike any I had
ever seen. And I fought for the little ones because they could not
defeat such an enemy alone. But in all that time I could not forget
what had passed with Frodo, what may have happened had he not escaped
me. I could almost feel my hands closing around his neck, squeezing
tight against soft flesh, feeling his small body struggle beneath me,
his strength dying away with his breath. And I am so, so glad that
did not happen. But I feel so, so guilty. I was not sure how I would
be able to live with myself knowing what I had done and what I had
been about to do. Perhaps I am lucky that I did not live.
The pain was sudden, sharp, though not unexpected. I had seen the orc
take aim and while I could have turned and fled and he would have
missed me, I could not abandon Merry and Pippin. Even after the first
arrow hit, pierced my flesh, bit deep into my muscles, I could not
leave them. But I could not hold off the orcs. Hit three times I
could hold them off no longer.
"They took the little ones".
Aragorn was kneeling by me, kneeling over me. I was trying to tell
him to go, to find those orcs, rescue Merry and Pippin. And I needed
him to know that was my fault. He did not understand. I was not
enough to stop it. I should have been but I was not. And Frodo... Tears
stung my eyes as I thought on what I had done.
"Stay still".
"Frodo. Where is Frodo?"
"I let Frodo go".
"Then you did what I could not", I sobbed. "I tried to take the Ring
from him".
I looked at him, expected his reproach, but it did not come. All I
could think was he did not understand.
"The Ring is beyond our reach now".
Except he did understand. With just those simple words he showed me
he knew. He may have been stronger than me, but he had been tempted
just as I. Just as he had known we would be all along.
"Forgive me. I did not see. I have failed you all".
"No, Boromir. You fought bravely. You have kept your honour".
"Leave it", I said as he reached for the shaft of an arrow that was
in me, in my chest, bloody and unnatural. "It is over. The world of
Men will fall, and all will come to darkness. And my city to ruin".
And that was when I saw it. In his eyes. Because he knew I was about
to die. And in that moment I know he realised something. I was going
to die and he would miss me. Not only that—he would mourn for me,
grieve. Because of... of the love he had for me. It was true. What I
felt for him was requited. I was just overcome. How I could feel that
much joy and that much pain together is beyond me, but I felt it, in
every inch of me.
"I do not know strength is in my blood, but I swear to you, I will
not let the White City fall—nor our people fail".
"Our people". My heart swelled. I believed every word he said to me
because of that look there in his eyes, the catch in his voice. There
were tears in my eyes but, but... "Our people". Our people. He knew
it. He had finally accepted it. Brothers.
"I would have followed you, my brother. My captain". Yes, finally, I
knew it. "My king".
And he held me as I died, as all the life drained from me, just
watching me, holding me, everything I could possibly have wanted to
know then right there in his eyes. I died knowing he loved me. And I
that when I died he knew that I loved him.
I do not know what would have happened between us if I had not died
that day. I would like to think we would have stayed together, happy.
And perhaps we would have been, but I will never know. Neither will
he, and that is the tragedy. I killed all of our hopes just as we
could have begun to realise them. I killed our passion. I saw it in
his eyes the moment I died, mingled with the love and complete
sadness.
Oh, that's it. That's the moment.
I do not need any more time. I have it now. My choice is made.
Give me the moment I died forever. Let me live in that moment looking
into the eyes of my lover, my king, feeling the pain and seeing that
look. I might as well have killed him then and taken him with me,
that is what that look told me. And it hurt. It hurt so much. My
chest hurt and my heart hurt and everything was aching as I lay there
staring into his eyes. It was pain beyond anything I had ever felt
because it was not just my body; it was cutting into my soul. He had
realised what he felt and immediately he was losing me. Because I
could not fight them back.
Give me that moment. I care not for what other happiness I could
have. I care not that I will live forever feeling that same guilt,
that burden on my heart over Frodo, over Merry and Pippin, over my
weakness. I will resent myself forever but if that is that price I
have to pay then so be it.
Because it was then that I could finally feel how he felt. He loved
me. He did not think it was wrong, did not question it. He just loved
me. And I loved him. There was no doubt and there was no more hiding.
There was no longer a shadow cast over us. We were meant to be.
So give me that moment forever, until the end of time. Give me the
moment I knew that he loved me. Give me the moment I died.
End
by Lizzie
do not understand. Yet, at this same time, I do. It is so strange.
It seems so clear and its reasoning sound, and yet... yet this cannot
be. This simply cannot be. I would reach out at my side and feel my
lover's sleeping form there; I would wake him and have him make this
right for me. I would know this is not real. I would lid my eyes and
open them again to find this all a dream.
