“It’s about damn time,” I said as I opened the top left drawer of my desk and slid the glass lid back.
I plucked two cigars—the good ones from the far back.
“It’s the small things that make life enjoyable,” I cut my cigar and sat. “Like a humidifier built right into the desk.”
The Lois Lane-inspired reporter stood across from me, exuding a stern, matter-of-fact dullness
“If you knew what a day—never mind a lifetime—was like before modern times, you’d appreciate how I marvel at this simple, climate controlled drawer. One purpose. Keep this tobacco fresh. It’s magnificent.”
I handed her a cigar.
The Wyrd Interlude:
In a quiet modern office, one man’s centuries-long truth meets an unsuspecting witness, and the illusions of mortality and immortality converge. The echo of countless lifetimes presses against the simplicity of a single encounter, reminding us how fragile truth can be when weighed against the endless hush of time. This—is wyrd fiction.
“No thank you,” she said. Her voice was deadpan. Stuck somewhere between full-blown shock and trying to maintain professionalism.
“Modern women,” I huffed and put the cigar back.
“Excuse me?” She lifted a brow and fanned the cloud of smoke I sent her way.
“Yes, I said _modern women_. I was born in 691 AD. My manners never caught up,” I smirked.
“What if I were a man and said no thank you to a cigar?”
“I’d have said ‘old sport, don’t be a woman’ and insisted you take it.” I grinned. The game was moving.
She sat down and massaged her forehead.
“So not only are you an immortal,” she let out a sigh. “But you’re an asshole as well.”
“Unfortunately, yes, very much so.” I puffed. “And terribly wealthy—let’s not forget that. In my defense, I tried the nice guy thing for a few hundred years—was no fun. And made no difference, if I’m being honest.”
She adjusted her jacket.
“I know what’s in the pocket, so you may as well put it on the table,” I said. “Don’t want you misquoting me because of bad audio.”
She removed a phone from her pocket. A recording app was running—it had been since she walked it. Her fingers were thin. No polish. She lightly placed the device between us.
“Would you like to repeat what you said earlier when you walked into my office?” I directed.
She adjusted in her seat. Paused. Took a deep breath. The power of the conversation was on my side.
“The audio will do fine,” she said. I could tell she was trying to take the reins back.
Huh. Maybe this won’t be boring, I thought.
“Why, after all this time—why tell me?” She asked.
“That’s your first question!” I was irate. “I have been waiting hundreds of years for someone to prove the rumors true. Sure, some have been close—but never here! Never in the room, knowing the answer. Never with that!” I pointed at the orb and huffed. “I’ve lived and seen—the stories I have! And you ask why you?”
“So my theory is correct. You wanted someone to find out?” She asked.
“Of course!” I puffed and paced. “Well, not at first, but after a while, it gets boring.” I groaned and smoked. “So fucking boring.”
“So you, Raymond the Tenth, are in fact every other Raymond before you?” She smirked.
“Precisely. The first time I tried it, I was Henry the Fourth—too regal, too suspicious. But passing myself off as my own descendant is surprisingly efficient. Really streamlines passing of wealth. You don’t know what a logistical nightmare it is to pass things from yourself to yourself.”
“Would you be willing to go on live TV and do an interview with me?”
“Oh, dear—no. Interview? Why would I let you interview me?”
Her brow furrowed. “Because you’re letting me interview you right now?”
My smile dissolved to pity. This was not a contest. The game was over.
“I thought you followed the clues.” I sunk into my chair. “Found the breadcrumbs that lead you here—here with that!” I pointed to the red orb.
“I did.”
“But you don’t understand, do you?” I laughed. “Ah, fuck me. How disappointing.”
She examined the red orb. “I found this in your original grave.”
“So you unraveled a century old scavenger hunt to discover my truth, but missed the actual meaning.”
“Enlighten me,” she said.
“I cannot.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“Ah, Jesus! Stop being so hurt all the time—I’m over 1300 years old—I’ve known countless women who needed no advantage over men—some accomplished great things, others, not so much. I respect no one. The only people I’ve ever respected died before your great-grandparents were born.”
She took a breath. I almost had her angry. So close. She pivoted and kept control, and pushed on.
“So tell me,” she said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“If I tell you, without you having known, then it cannot happen. And I would very much like it to happen.”
“This feels like a game,” she was dismissive.
“It is. It is a game.” I pointed at the red orb in her hand again. “And in your hand lay…” I shook my head in disappointment.
“What is this?” She held up the orb.
I shook my head. “If you really don’t know, then I’m afraid we’re done here.”
I took the iPhone and dropped it in my glass of water. She yelled something in protest, but it didn’t matter.
“I’ll need that too, so I can reset it all.” I extended a hand to the orb.
“Reset it?” She asked.
“Yes, reset it—the puzzle you solved 99% of.”
“If you’re going to reset it, then you can tell me.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“You said you couldn’t tell me, because if you did, then it wouldn’t happen. Well, whatever it is, it will not happen now with me. So you may as well tell me.”
She was right.
And she was wrong.
I wanted to tell her. I wanted to let the secret go and tell her the stories of my lives. I wanted to pass my immortal life to her, and finally die.
But she missed the point.
For a moment, I feel the old ache in my chest, the longing to escape eternity. But it fades, replaced by weary resignation.
“No,” I said.
“But I know—I know the rumor is true.”
“And you’ll what—tell the world?”
I believe she expected a physical threat, and she stepped back.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. I don’t have to. You won’t tell anyone.”
“I will,” she said. “I have to.”
“I wish that were true, but you’re not the first person to solve part of the puzzle—you’re not even the first person I’ve confessed to.” I remembered the loves of my many lives and their fleeting memories—I remembered the laughter of a woman in the 14th century, who I believe would have solved the puzzle had she not died of plague, she was one of the great ones. I shoved memories aside and shook off encroaching tears.
“I will say, I thought you completed it. You have the orb. Nobody else got that far in a very long time.”
She slowly stepped back.
“I don’t have to hurt you. The second you walk out of here—the moment I am no longer in sight—you’ll forget this entire conversation.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t expect you to. And I don’t care if you do. But you’ll forget. They all do.”
“Who?”
“Everyone I’ve ever told the truth to. They forget. They forget me. Who I really am. All of it.”
She was nearly at the door.
“You didn’t think immortality was a gift, did you?” I stepped to her, and she crossed the threshold.
“It’s a long and lonely curse with no end.” We were toe-to-toe. She took a final step back, over the threshold into my assistant’s office
Her eyes filled with a familiar glassy haze.
I plucked the red orb from her hand.
“Shame,” I said. “You had my hopes up.”
I shut the door just as I heard my assistant ask her how the interview went.
I pressed an ear to the door, half-hoping for a miracle—hoping that after all these years, there may be a surprise left for me in this world.
“Interview?” she muttered, sounding dazed.
I sighed and flicked my lighter, setting the orb’s glow to a slow pulse. “So it goes,” I whispered.
The Wyrd Curtain:
A lonely immortal confesses and the cycle presses on. A mysterious red orb holds the hope of release, yet another candidate leaves empty of memory. No end beckons, no final unveiling—only the sorrow of a curse reasserted. The door closes, the hush returns, and in the hush, a solitary figure clings to regrets older than centuries. Still, somewhere in the unseen corners of existence, a faint possibility remains. One day, perhaps, the puzzle is solved—and Wyrd Worlds yet await.