Pulse of Heroes

by A. Jacob Sweeny

  “What are those for?” Elliot asked Michelle, pointing to the books she was carrying with her when she descended downstairs. She told him that she still had homework assignments to finish before the next morning, and that she was going to do them downstairs. Otherwise she wouldn’t do them at all. She was very tired and her bed would be too much of a temptation if she tried to do her homework in her room. That’s right; Elliot had almost forgotten about Michelle being in school and how important that was. He started to feel guilty about being there at her house to begin with. His world and Michelle’s might cross paths, but they lived in two different realms. He asked her how much homework she had, and she told him that besides reading a chapter in US History she had a few pages of translating conversational Italian. As Michelle said the word ‘Italian’, an invisible light bulb switched on above her head.

  “You just came back from Italy, right? You speak Italian… Maybe you can help me? I am doing really awful and I tried asking my friend Francesca for help but she’s too old and doesn’t have the patience to really sit down and help me. Please?” she begged. Elliot did speak Italian and a number of other languages fluently. It was true that he and his friends had just moved to California from there, but even long before that Elliot had lived in Italy for many years.

  “Right now?” Elliot asked in disbelief.

  “Why not? You can tell me whatever it is you came to tell me afterwards. I won’t be able to concentrate anyway, not until I’m done with this,” she pleaded, innocently batting her eyelashes. Elliot was glad that she was able to persuade him.

  After spending an hour on Italian homework both Elliot and Michelle were in a better mood. It was actually a fun lesson, and she listened carefully to what Elliot had to say about the rules of the language a lot more than she had ever paid attention in class. She was engaged, finding him irresistible when he spoke the language of Amoré with such fluidity. Maybe that was all she needed, one-on-one types of lesson from a godlike creature. When she asked questions, even if they were repeats, he didn’t make her feel stupid or inadequate, patiently reiterating the answers in many different ways until she finally understood. She was even rolling her R’s better than her pitiful tries beforehand. She loved listening to Elliot’s voice and watching him as he talked. And just like that, Michelle’s new fascination with the Italian language was born. She did space out a few times just watching his lips and all she could think about was putting hers on his. She had always heard that French was the ‘language of love’ but she had come to the conclusion that it had nothing over Italian and needed to be chucked off its crown title. Elliot agreed with her and told her that French was a bastardation of Italian to begin with and even though his French was almost as good as his Italian he always felt like he was speaking really bad Italian when he spoke it.

  By 6:00 PM Michelle was starving and asked Elliot if he was hungry also, but he wasn’t. He was already feeling too comfortable just hanging out with her in her home, and to have her feeding him would just be too much. He didn’t want to get too relaxed, and besides he still had to tell her about what had happened with the guys back at Hekademos. So he told her to go ahead and fix something for herself because he had eaten a late lunch. His kind didn’t feel hunger the way humans did. They could go without food and water for an amazingly long time. They needed to sustain themselves, but not as often as humans because they constantly drew energy from everything around them, and their pores drew in moisture from the atmosphere or from plant life.

  While Michelle was rummaging in the kitchen, Elliot wondered how on earth he would tell her about what had happened without making his friends sound like a bunch of jerks. That evening, when Elliot had arrived back at Hekademos, all the guys were in the living room and it was obvious that they had been talking about him because as soon as he walked into the room everyone became suspiciously silent. The crux of the conversation was about Elliot bringing Michelle there. It wasn’t anything personal against Michelle, everyone thought she was adorable, but Elliot had crossed all of them.

  Their home was supposed to be a safe haven away from everyone else and the things they were storing in the underground library were for their eyes only. It wasn’t just because of the tremendous value and personal meanings that were attached to many of the ancient items, but there was information in there that could be used by others against them. No human was supposed to know about the existence of the library because humans could never really be relied upon to keep secrets, and Elliot had definitely overstepped that boundary by escorting Michelle down there without asking anyone else’s approval. It was one thing if he was going to put his possessions and secrets on the line, but quite another when he did so for all of them. Never before had they concentrated all their artifacts and knowledge in one place because it always seemed too dangerous, but it had been Elliot’s idea to do so now, and they had all agreed.

  Adding to the complexity of the situation was the fact that Elliot was the owner of the land that the school was built on. He had owned it since the days of the oil press factory. The story about it belonging to a Portuguese family was true. Elliot’s descendants and some of their friends had originally emigrated from Portugal to the so-called “New World” in the mid 1500s to escape the Inquisition. Elliot eventually joined them and purchased the parcel in the late 1800s. Northern California was so much like the hills surrounding the Mediterranean that everyone sought to replicate what they had left in the old countries. His family established the first olive oil press in Northern California, just as the Italian immigrants were establishing the first vineyards in the hills of Napa and Sonoma.

  After World War II, Elliot’s family moved to the re-established state of Israel. Elliot helped his descendants return to their true home, as they had been strangers in foreign lands since the Romans had taken over Judea more than 2000 years earlier. But he never sold the California property. The whole argument about the school wanting to establish itself in Saint Alodia was just an elaborate way to distract people from noticing that the land had never changed owners, and had remained in the same living trust that Elliot had established over a hundred years earlier under a different name. Elliot’s recent return to California coincided with his thinking that anyone who could have possibly recognized him from the early 1900’s had passed away. And he was almost right. They all had, besides Francesca, but he didn’t know about her.

  Michelle emerged from the kitchen with a large bowl of salad and Elliot teased her that for someone who claimed to be starving, she didn’t make a very credible case standing there holding a bowl of leaves. But like most girls, Michelle was still worried about being seen as a pig in front of people, especially if they happened to be a super-human guy she liked… a lot! Michelle rolled her eyes at him and sat at the dinner table crunching away. “You sure you don’t want some?” she said stretching a forkful of lettuce dripping in salad dressing in his direction.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” he politely declined. Michelle knew that at some point she would have to listen to whatever it was that Elliot had come there to tell her, but she just wasn’t ready for anything negative yet, so she decided to keep talking about other things until she ran out of topics.

  “I read tons about Eridu last night. Fascinating. I can’t believe you were there at the beginning, that you’re that old… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” she corrected when she saw Elliot frown at her.

  “No, no, you’re right. I am ancient. If I were human there would be nothing left of me but dust, maybe a bone or two.” Elliot looked at Michelle to see how she reacted. Her face turned white, just as he had expected. “Quite amazing that I don’t feel anything close to feeling old, not physically at least, not even one bit. My mind is a whole different story.”

  “What does it feel like? To be alive for so long… I mean how did you figure it out?” Michelle asked from the kitchen while rinsing her plate. She walked back to the living room and sat next to Elliot on the couch. To her surprise he didn�
��t seem to mind that she slid right next to him and that their thighs were touching. “I’m sure you’ve been asked that question plenty of times,” Michelle looked at her feet feeling silly.

  It was true. Elliot had been asked that question many times before, and mostly by women. But the answer always changed a bit because he himself saw things differently as time moved on. He told her that he wasn’t sure when he had actually stopped aging; it could have been when he was 20 or 26. But it was in his mid-thirties when he began noticing that his human friends were showing signs of aging while he and Devin looked exactly the same as they had the day they met. They both still had the same energy and excitement as any other young men might. At first it was great because not only did they have their special abilities that they were learning to control and enhance, but everyone, men and women alike, would compliment them for not succumbing to the harsh punishments of time or the sun as they crossed the trade routes back and forth. They were definitely blessed. But eventually compliments turned into taunting and some friends even questioned his masculinity, which did not fit well with Elliot’s personality. He had gotten in many fights and had hurt people more than he had meant to because he didn’t realize his strength until it was almost too late. He slowly began shunning human interactions.

  Then there was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, which was when he realized that he didn’t belong amongst humans. It happened when he returned to Eridu to bury his grandparents, and later his beloved aunt and uncle. Seeing that he looked no different than when he had left, the townspeople turned against him once more and the memories of their cruelty to him as a child resurfaced. They called him all kinds of names like ‘demon-spawn’ and ‘monster’, and they even managed to turn his own cousins against him. They used the fact that he did not know who his father was to justify their spurning of him, telling him that he didn’t really belong to their family. It hurt him that the only people he loved had turned against him.

  “After that I never went back.” Elliot took a deep breath, letting his emotions catch up with his words. Michelle sat there paralyzed and didn’t say a thing. She felt so sad for him and was very angry at what his family had done to him. She told him that if she was there she would tell them what was on her mind, and Elliot laughed at her because she got funny wrinkles on her forehead when she got so upset. He liked how she got so protective over him and wanted to take her in his arms and tell her how adorable she was but he decided against it; he was obviously getting carried away.

  Now Devin, on the other hand, had a completely different experience, and insisted on Elliot going back with him to Dwaraka, a most amazing and wealthy city port in Harappa.

  “Devin was venerated as a gift from the Gods, as an avatar walking among the multitudes.”

  “Avatar! Like the movie?” Michelle asked excitedly. Elliot answered that the movie had borrowed the word ‘avatar’ from Vedic scriptures. Avatar was a word to describe a living incarnation of a God born into the body of a human or animal. He explained to her that under Vedic beliefs Jesus Christ was also an avatar. Being God-like, Devin had quickly risen to power, and when he married a princess he established Elliot his right hand man. In India their kind had no problem being accepted. When Michelle heard the word ‘princess’ she swallowed hard. She contemplated that if Devin had taken a princess wife, then what would have stopped Elliot from marrying a royal as well? She realized that Elliot must have had many beautiful wives in his past, or at least many girlfriends, and her heart sank. How could a nobody, an ordinary girl in jeans ever compete with a beautiful Indian princess wrapped in miles of silk? When Elliot noticed Michelle’s sad expression he knew immediately what she was thinking about and decided not to mention Devin or his wife anymore and just continued the story of where he traveled to from there.

  Elliot told Michelle that eventually he decided to head back out on the road. And that was when he first went sailing and fell in love with the sea. On the water he felt safe, he felt the energy of the waves and for the first time it made him feel complete. He traveled the water trade routes, only this time he did so as the wealthy merchant himself. He had his own bodyguards, and numerous sales people strewn amongst the best markets. He traded and sold ingots of glass, which were just starting to become popular at that time and taught the Egyptian artisans how to perfect the art, even to the point where later scholars thought that they were the first to develop glassmaking. His main ports of docking were Dor, Surat in India and later on at Sabratha.

  “That’s how I met Kahl. He was working the trade routes from Sabatu in modern day Yemen all the way to lower Egypt. We became business partners and eventually good friends. It was only then that I learned that he too had the same abilities as Devin and myself. And we made a pact to search for others like us, and to search out the truth about who we really are.”

  “Did he know who his father was? Are you guys all brothers?” a very excited Michelle asked. Elliot let out a sigh of frustration and stretched out his arms and legs. He stood up and began to slowly pace back and forth while telling Michelle that they weren’t brothers, but what they did find out was that each one of them was not raised by his birthparents, and each one of them had a mother who died either in childbirth or from later complications. Michelle was about to ask if the same was true for the rest of the guys at the school, and Elliot answered that with a yes before she could even form the question.

  “Yes, every single one of us has a similar beginning, and each one of us has been searching for our genesis in every history, story and myth the world over.” Michelle was beginning to get a glimpse through the window of Elliot’s reality. Elliot was still searching, and the fact that he had lived for thousands of years and had magical powers didn’t change any of that. She was also realizing that she could never be there with him and share his feelings like his friends could. She could never understand how he felt and who he truly was. She was a human being, a lesser being without any mystery at all.

  Michelle nervously asked him if any of them had figured anything out about what they might be; if he wasn’t completely human, then was there another name for their type? Elliot laughed sarcastically and told her that they didn’t know what to call themselves but that humans had found many great names for them.

  “Monsters, daemons, Satan… and then there is the total opposite: Angels, Gods, Demigods. You name it we’ve been called it.” Michelle felt Elliot’s anger seeping out of him. She wanted to come up with a good answer for him, but she was just as lost as he was. She assumed that if Elliot kept talking about it he would somehow reveal the answer to his own mystery. Maybe the answer was there all along and just needed someone with a fresh mind to find it. So she asked him if he had ever returned to Eridu to try and find out more about his past. Elliot told her that he had never returned to his birth land once he had settled in the land of Canaan, and later in Israel. He told her that during those years many wars had swept over the entire region of Mesopotamia, and that the original inhabitants of many lands were no longer there. He told her that he himself had fought in some of those wars, and he proudly announced that he even served under Sargon the Great. He told her that Sargon was one of his kind, then added that many of the famous leaders in history were also no different than he and his friends.

  “A lot of times you’ll read a story about some leader coming from an obscure background with poor parents or no parents at all, and how he miraculously rose to power. That’s an easy way for you to spot people like me in the history books. It’s because we have no real fathers, and we’re always forced to come up with some story. I’m sure you studied about Cyrus The Great?” Michelle shook her head, and Elliot looked back at her confused. “What do you mean? Don’t you study Western History? He was one of the most amazing political and social leaders in the world. How can they not still teach his legacy?” he asked, obviously disturbed by her response. Michelle lifted her shoulders as a way to signal to him that she didn’t know what he was talking abou
t,

  “I’m sorry,” she said feeling bad. “I think maybe in College we can choose to study that History.” Michelle shifted the spotlight back to Elliot and asked him if he was forced to fight in any of the wars he had told her about.

  “I did many times, but it was more a question of preservation. I often met others of my kind when we were the only two left standing after a long, drawn-out battle. That was how we gradually discovered that there were others out there who were like Devin and myself. We ended up forming friendships many times, but at other times we just walked away from one another, only to meet a century later in another war. Michelle tried to imagine Elliot in some ancient fighting gear, and the picture of him as a great warrior floated in her mind until she realized that to be considered a great warrior one must champion over many, and she knew that that meant death to others.

  “So I assume you have killed many people?” Michelle asked in a somewhat demeaning tone. And yet she was afraid of the answer. Elliot looked down at his feet for a second, but then returned his gaze to look straight in Michelle’s eyes. He was not about to take any condemnation from a girl who had lived in the protective bubble of the United States of America her entire life. If she only knew how people had been forced to fight to survive during most of human history. There was no calling ‘911’ for help. Society had demanded its men to be strong and tough in order to protect their lands, their wives, and children, by the sword when necessary. Elliot saw most modern men as soft and spoiled, worrying about which car they drove or which sports team won on TV. They loved watching movies about tough guys, but could they do the same? They wouldn’t last five minutes against a real enemy, he thought. He laughed at the muscle bound gym rats that built up their bodies out of pure vanity, and he even derided the modern military, not because the individual soldiers weren’t sincere, but because of all the new political policies that put their lives at stake and prevented them from pursing the enemy as needed. He was familiar with all kinds of enemies from his past, and some of them were still out there. They had a much stronger resolve than the constrained soldier of today.