Eternity

           Eternity hadn’t seemed so bad when I was considering the gamble. In fact it seemed pretty reasonable. But after spending centuries wandering around this world without a reason to be here, I was pretty sick of it. I should have considered that she would have some other stipulation that would end up screwing me over instead of actually helping me, but I was blind. I was in love and I was stupid. And now I’m paying the price. I had hoped after a while that I would just accept my fate, but so far it had only gotten worse.

Still, I searched. I searched for the one who would set me free. The one who would one day liberate me from this personal hell I lived in now. I searched without hope because I knew it would be in vain. I did it anyway because I had nothing else to do. After the first three centuries of earnest seeking I began to realize I would never find her. I was cursed to search for someone that did not exist. That was the deal I made with Sharim. I can still remember walking into her small, makeshift house in the forest boarding Lord Drake’s kingdom.

“Please, Charles. Let’s just go back and forget the whole thing,” my young bride-to-be, Kesa, begged of me.

“No, we can do this. We just need to stay together.” We’d only recently learned of a woman who could work mysterious magic and even grant people the thing they want most. Being born of noble blood I was not allowed to marry Kesa even though she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I was determined to marry her at any cost and so we decided to come and see if the rumors were true.

“I can help you become a noblewoman of birthright if that is what you truly wish,” she told us after we had explained why we were there.

“It is,” I said with confidence.

“Then let us talk about a price. I would require some of your ladies beauty.” Kesa made a frightened noise and I turned to her.

“You have enough beauty to give some of it to her. It will be alright, I love you,” I assured her. Her terrified expression faded and she nodded.

“You must be sure your love is pure or there will be a terrible consequence for your actions,” she said to me.

“My love is pure,” I told her. How could it not be? I couldn’t stop looking at Kesa and wanting to be near her.

“Very well. Upon your return you will find things different then before you left. When you awake in the morning some of your beauty will be gone,” she told Kesa. We left immediately and sure enough the whole town was talking excitedly about our engagement as if hours before they hadn’t been fighting about our secret romance. I went to sleep that night happier than I had ever felt before. But when I woke up the next day and couldn’t find Kesa I knew something was wrong.

“She’s in her room,” her sister told me. “She won’t come out and she won’t talk to anyone.”

“She’ll want to see me,” I insisted. I walked into the house and gently opened her door. She was sitting in a dark corner with her back toward the entrance.

“Kesa? Is everything alright?”

“She said it would be different and I expected that. But it’s just not the same,” she whispered.

“Let me see,” I said coming into her room.

“No! Please, Charles I-.”

“Kesa, you know I will always love you. No matter what.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise,” I said as I reached out and lightly touched her shoulder. She turned to me then and I couldn’t hide my surprise. Her face was still as lovely as ever but a giant wart protruded from her nose like a beacon drawing my attention to it and nothing else. I tried to love her after that but I just couldn’t stop staring at that wart and no matter what we tried it would not come off. We grew apart and eventually she grew old and died. I wish my fate had been the same, but I did not die and I did not grow old. Instead I’ve wandered the earth generation after generation looking for my beautiful Kesa without any hope.

But today, all that changed.  Today I saw the tiniest spark of hope in the form of her beautiful, pure face. She was dressed, like me, in modern clothes that still made her look as lovely as she did when I first saw her. She was exactly what I needed to see and I almost ran to her. But after the amount of time I’d spent looking, I hesitated. What if it wasn’t her? What if I failed again? I wasn’t sure I could handle that. Finally I decided the risk was worth taking and I headed over to where she sat drinking her drink and reading a book. I sat down without being asked and I could sense the surprise in her body language.
            Slowly I raised my eyes. Her face was the loveliest thing I had ever seen on this planet and was just as it should have always been, before we made that horrible deal. The moment our eyes met the familiar energy seeped into my body making me feel more alive than I ever had before. I smiled in triumph but the moment was short lived. The disgusting wart that I had come to dread appeared once more on her face and the energy dissipated, leaving me feeling more lonely and discouraged than I knew I could possibly feel. She wasn’t the one. They never were and I would continue living my miserable life without meaning and purpose. 
          The woman who wasn’t Kesa slumped to the ground and I stepped over her now lifeless body to continue my search for the woman I would never find.

*Copyright Jayne L. Bowden*