Pulse of Heroes

by A. Jacob Sweeny

  “I know you told me that you’re not like everyone else, but I don’t think I really understood what that meant until what Xander told me. I believed you because I saw you do all those extraordinary things, but I didn’t really grasp it all,” she said, choosing her words very carefully.

  “I know, Michelle. I can’t even grasp it all myself. You look at me, and you see me as I am through your eyes, but your brain can’t really grapple with the complete picture. I have been alive for so long, constantly reinventing myself again and again, that I myself get confused about all the lives I’ve lived and the stories that I’ve told.”

  “How old are you, really?” she asked him. Elliot studied Michelle, measuring her. He wasn’t sure if she could handle the truth. “You don’t have to worry about it. I won’t freak out, I promise,” she said.

  Elliot smiled at her in amusement. “I’m about 4700 years old, give or take,” he announced proudly, laughing when he saw Michelle’s jaw drop after she could no longer fight it.

  Michelle couldn’t deal with that number, not yet. She didn’t know what to think, so she concentrated on something else, asking him what did he mean by ‘give or take’, and when was his actual birthday. But Elliot explained to her that he had experienced many birthdays, depending on which calendar he was living under and which chapter of life he was living, and that he had intentionally stopped thinking about his real birthday a long time ago.

  Elliot had never known his real parents. When his mother fell pregnant, she refused to disclose who the father was, not even to her own sister. All she disclosed was that the father was a traveler from a foreign land. It was a difficult birth, and although the delivery was successful, she died 12 days later from severe hemorrhaging. “I never knew my mother, or the ‘supposed foreigner’ that was my father.”

  Michelle looked down at the floor, unable to watch Elliot’s face as it contorted with pain. As much as she wanted to know everything about him, she felt that he was telling her too much. Was she supposed to show sympathy, which was what she felt, or would that make him feel uncomfortable? He sure didn’t seem like he wanted comforting, but she would be lying if she pretended to act otherwise. Michelle had thought that she would be able to handle anything that was thrown her way, yet she found herself without an answer. She wanted Elliot to spare her the details, but he had decided otherwise. He hadn’t visited those cobweb-covered memories in a long time, and it was probably time to bleed out a little. Elliot sensed Michelle’s squirming thoughts, but figured that if his words scared her away it was probably for the best anyway.

  In those years it was common convention to send any orphans to be raised under the auspices of the great temple of Enki, The Abzu. But Elliot’s grandmother refused to send him away. He was the only connection she had to her beloved daughter and she wasn’t going to lose him too. His grandparents and aunt tried to raise him as well as they could. Still, anytime they took Elliot out in public places such as the market or celebrations outside the temples, strangers would curse at them and spit in front of their feet. They felt that because Elliot was not raised inside the temple, his presence would bring bad luck upon the entire city. By the time that Elliot was old enough to walk on his own most people had made peace with the boy’s presence, but some still looked at him with suspicion. When Elliot was about eight years old he got jumped by four older boys and they beat him and called him all kind of names including ‘bastard’. When he returned home with a torn shirt and a bruised face he demanded that his grandfather tell him the truth about his real parents. After which Elliot grew to hate his mother. He was cursed because of her lack of integrity. She obviously protected the name of his father, which only meant that she had not been raped or taken advantage of. She cared more about him than about herself or her unborn child. As he got a little older, he became obsessed with finding out his father’s identity, and it was around those years that he started showing signs of extra strength and strange abilities. And that was when his world turned upside down. Elliot went from being looked down upon to someone who was blessed and celebrated. The same people who spit and cursed at him would come visit him at home so he could lay his hands on them to ease their ailments and to bless them; the hypocrisy was all too clear. If he had a use to others he was blessed, and if they had no use of him he was cursed. Elliot began making rounds at the Abzu and even traveled to Uruk to bless people at the temple of the Goddess Inanna. He helped his grandparents out financially by charging a small fee for his services, yet he grew angrier with each passing day. He had somehow hoped that his fame would bring his father out of hiding and the two could finally be reunited. Of course that meeting never took place.

  Michelle was captivated by Elliot’s amazing tale, but no matter how hard she tried, it was difficult for her to imagine that his account wasn’t some fantasy straight out of A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. His words came out like a memorized story. He just spit them out with hardly any attachment to their context. How many times had he repeated the same story to someone else, she wondered?

  Elliot could sense that Michelle was evaluating him and he didn’t like not knowing what she was thinking. He got up from his seat and tried to find something to do with his hands, picking up articles from the shelves and studying them as if he had never seen them before. What was she thinking? Should he care what some kid thought about him? No, of course not. Michelle got up from the couch and followed Elliot. “Are you ok?” she asked him quietly. She was afraid that her question might imply that she thought him to be weak. Elliot looked at Michelle as if it was the first time he noticed that she was there.

  “Oh, nothing at all. I just didn’t want to bore you with any more details. It’s a long drawn out story and it’s pointless. Maybe now you can understand why my childhood is not something I care to remember, let alone a birthday.”

  Elliot’s mood changed and although his eyes were wide and blue there was a cold and distant gaze to them. Michelle could tell that talking about his childhood had bothered him a lot more than he even revealed to her. She felt sad for him, and her whole being, her consciousness, told her, screamed at her, that she should comfort him, but Elliot’s tense muscles warned her not to get too close. Michelle pointed to a white object on a nearby shelf. “What is this?” she asked. It looked like a narrow, shallow bowl on top of a small stand with carvings on each side of its base. One was a monkeylike creature standing on two legs and holding something in each hand, and on the other side she recognized the half dog half man image of an Egyptian god. “It doesn’t seem like this bowl can hold much of anything.” Elliot smiled when he saw what she was looking at, and she was glad that she had succeeded in distracting him from his dark mood. Elliot’s eyes smiled when he smiled and Michelle stood next to him transfixed by his beauty.

  He ran his finger along the smooth curvature of the object in question and told her that she was right, the narrow curvature of the bowl would definitely not hold much.

  “Besides a human head,” he snickered.

  “What!” Michelle jumped back just a little and that made Elliot laugh. He told her that the alabaster headrest belonged to Kahl. It was the one they had rested his head upon in his burial chamber. The monkey-like creature was a depiction of the god Bes who protected against evil and the other depiction was of the god Anupu, better known as Anubis, the Protector of the Dead.

  “But Kahl is not dead! What are you talking about?” asked a very confused Michelle. Elliot laughed even louder than before, and explained to her that Kahl had only pretended to be dead in order to slip out of town unnoticed. He was able to slow his heartbeat to a level where no human could detect it. When they placed his cold body in the embalming room for the night, he simply got up and left, taking the headrest as a souvenir. Everyone thought that Kahl’s enemies had dragged the body away as an act of dishonor. He was a high official in Lower Egypt back then, and even in ancient times, every politician had his enemies. By sunrise Kahl had made his way to the port where El
liot was waiting for him on a small boat. They were well on their way towards Oea by midmorning.

  “Where is that?” Michelle asked, fascinated by such an adventure.

  “Modern day Tripoli in Libya,” Elliot said smiling.

  “But why would Kahl fake his own death? Couldn’t he just quit and leave like a regular person?” Michelle wanted to know. But Elliot told her that if she wanted an answer to that question she would have to ask Kahl herself.

  “I’m not going to get involved in Kahl’s personal business, even if it did take place thousands of years ago,” he added teasingly. Michelle loved seeing Elliot so animated and lively. She studied him, wondering how many identities his personality held. Regular people had many different facets to their personalities, and considering that Elliot had lived so many lives, how long would it take to really understand his character? Michelle pointed to a small flat object and Elliot handed it to her. It was a stamp seal with a carving of a unicorn on it.

  “That’s from Devin’s second palace. You haven’t met him yet.”

  Elliot told her that Devin was away visiting a friend over in China and that he should be coming back within a week. Devin was from Harappa, an ancient part of India that was now within the borders of modern day Pakistan. He told her that Devin was the first person he had met that was just like him. They became instant friends and began traveling together as bodyguards for rich merchants who journeyed along ancient trade routes by land and sea.

  “So he likes unicorns?” Michelle asked laughing, when she saw several figurines of the mythic animal on the shelf. “Unicorns are for girls to collect,” she teased. But Elliot snapped back about how little modern man knew of his history.

  “That is one of Lord Vishnu’s avatars. All other unicorn myths come from this original image,” he said, picking up another of the highly decorated figurines and showing it to Michelle. She immediately apologized, noting her own ignorance and wondering what else she didn’t know. She moved on to look at a small cup.

  “That,” Elliot said with importance, “is the first dish I ever glazed.” He picked up the small cup and handed it to Michelle. Michelle cradled the object in her hand as if she was holding a little bird. The cup was crude and the glaze was a mixture of browns and greens. Michelle felt special that Elliot let her hold it, but she was also nervous about dropping it.

  “Is it glass?” she asked, whispering as if her voice alone would crack it. Elliot told her that it was a ceramic with a glass glaze on top.

  “Glass was how I made most of my fortune a long time ago,” Elliot said, holding out his hand so Michelle could give him back the small cup. Michelle handed it back, and as she did her hand gently brushed against his. That tiny touch alone sent thousands of pricks and needles up her spine. And it was hard for Elliot to pretend that he didn’t notice it also. But he just placed the cup back on the shelf and walked back towards the middle of the room. His intoxicating scent followed him, leaving Michelle feeling cold and exposed.

  Michelle watched him from where she stood, wondering how she became so lucky? Why was he telling her all of this? And what did it all mean? Elliot’s thoughts were not so different from Michelle’s. He told himself that just because he was sharing some of his past with Michelle did not mean that he was somehow planning to have her be involved in his future. She was a nice girl, there was no argument about that, but what could he possibly gain from getting close to her? He tried to convince himself that Michelle had pushed her way into his life, and that he had been left with no choice but to reveal the truth to her. After all, she could tell the whole town about him and his friends. They didn’t need to be exposed to the public. All they wanted was a quiet life. If he didn’t tell Michelle the truth, the peace they all sought for would undoubtedly be disturbed.

  “Elliot?” Michelle started slowly as she walked after him. Calling him by his name again gave him a rush. Elliot hadn’t heard a woman say his name in many years, and it made him feel raw. “Why were you at Fort Bragg that day?” she asked as delicately as possible, trying not to sound accusatory. Elliot was caught off guard. The question came out of nowhere and he hadn’t yet thought of an answer that sounded credible. “And please don’t tell me that story about being at the right place at the right time again. I know you heard me talk to Samantha on the phone about going there the night you snuck in my room…”

  “I didn’t sneak...” Elliot tried to interject but Michelle just ignored him.

  “I would appreciate the truth, and I promise not to judge.” Elliot explained to her that he had wanted to warn her about getting into the water when they met outside in the woods, but he never got the chance. He told her that his senses had picked up on the strong static of the large swell approaching the coast days before the weather people had any idea. But after they argued, he knew she wouldn’t listen to him anyway. So he decided to drive up there anyway, just in case.

  “Thanks for worrying about me. That’s very kind of you and I guess I should be thanking you with my life,” Michelle asked him. Elliot felt uneasy because now she had found him out. And if she only knew the true extent of what he had done. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t look in the mirror, she was forcing him to. Just being around her was the evidence alone. He would never let her know that she would have been dead and buried if he hadn’t forced life back into her body. He still felt conflicted about what he had done, and was almost embarrassed at his own weakness for not being able to let the girl go as nature had intended. And now, looking at Michelle’s face, so alive and full of promise, Elliot didn’t know what to say, stumbling over the words in his head. Yet all Michelle wanted to do was tell him and show him that she was grateful and that she felt kindness towards him. And how she wished she could find the words to tell him that she could feel he was hiding something from her, maybe from himself. Overrun with emotions, she didn’t know if it was her gratitude or his strange powers controlling her mind and body, but without care she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. Elliot looked down at her confused but she didn’t seem to care at all. She stood on her tiptoes and pulled him towards her and kissed him on the lips. Once their lips touched they remained like that, locked in a long smack. No open mouth, no tongue, nothing of that sort. Elliot’s body remained stiff, and Michelle was too nervous to pull away, frightened by what his reaction might be. But when he didn’t pull nor push her away, she relaxed, leaning into him. Keeping her eyes closed she lowered herself and continued to hug him. Very slowly, Elliot’s body relaxed also and he wrapped his arms around her and then stroked her hair and gave her a small kiss on the top of her head. “It’s no big deal. Anyone would have done the same,” he answered quietly.

  Elliot knew that he had saved Michelle’s life that day, and most likely on Halloween night also. Did he somehow feel obligated to have Michelle around since that first night? As if she was his responsibility now that he had meddled with her destiny? She wasn’t supposed to be walking around in this world any longer and he bore that on his own conscience. The thought of Michelle, a beautiful lively young girl dead, sent shivers up his own spine this time. He knew that timing was not part of death’s calculations. Some trees lived for hundreds of years, others for only fifteen. None was more cursed than the other. Death was not a punishment; it had no agenda. It was simply an expiration date. The good died just as the evil did. For Elliot, life could be seen more as a curse than death, yet the thought of Michelle being buried somewhere underground unsettled him, and he hated feeling like that. He had seen so much death, and had been forced to bury and mourn so many loved ones, that he just never wanted to get close to anyone that dies ever again.

  An electrical ‘ping’ sound was heard from an invisible speaker system and Michelle pulled away from Elliot and looked around to see where it came from. It gave her the perfect opportunity to not look at him after their embrace. “What was that?” she asked nervously.

  “A signal that the front gate is in use,” Elliot replied while walkin
g towards the computers. He stood in front of a large monitor with Michelle by his side and they both watched the Thunderbird drive through the gate and park. The doors opened and the rest of the guys poured out. Ando and Kahl were there, and also the Asian guy she saw the day she fell. And there was another guy; she remembered him from the basketball court because he looked somehow out of place. He walked tall with a slight air of superiority. Elliot saw that Michelle was looking at his friend curiously, and told her that Rion was from modern day Georgia.

  “You mean he’s American?” Michelle asked.

  “No,” Elliot answered, “I mean the Georgia that used to belong to the former Soviet Union.” Michelle didn’t want to dwell on Rion and pointed at Haneul, and Elliot told her that Haneul was a no-frills type of guy, and this despite the fact that he traced his lineage to the first Korean dynastic family. Michelle was extremely impressed, and couldn’t believe that such amazing characters were living so close to her home. But Elliot was busy trying to find an excuse to whisk Michelle away from the underground library. He didn’t feel comfortable having her down there once everyone returned. When he couldn’t come up with a good excuse he just plainly told Michelle that they should leave, and she followed him up the stairs and out through the courtyard adjacent to the kitchen.