[Gilmaved] Act4: Flowers of The Nile

chapter four
(Flowers of the Nile)

His name was Gilmaved and he was eternal. Her name was Galia and she was a daughter of Havi'lah. They met at the river of Pison and they fell in love. Gilmaved has never seen a woman before and her beauty had him spellbound. His loneliness was vanquished by her voice, her face, her touch. His memories of the garden and the Creator was lost in her warm embrace.

Gilmaved learned the ways of man. He hunted and tilled the land that grew nothing but clumps of gold. He built Galia a home and for years they were happy. He thought that happiness was eternal but he was wrong. Galia was growing old. The top of her hands were wrinkling and her eyes were drooping. They didn’t have any offspring even if they lay together every night. This made Gilmaved wary so he spoke unto Galia:

Beloved, it has come to me that I can not fulfill all my duties as thy husband. I can provide thee shelter, food and warmth but not children to accompany thee in growing old. I can not even follow thee into thy grave when the time arrives for death has forsaken me. Find a more capable husband than I.

 Galia obeyed Gilmaved and soon found a husband. Gilmaved left Hav'ilah. He could not watch her grow old. He could not watch her die. Once again, he walked alone.

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It has been fifty years since Sunggyu followed the other immortal beyond the bounds of Joson. He had no name, no past, no goals, plans nor direction. Sunggyu thought that he might as well be the same―floating like a ghost― since they were indeed like ghosts anyway. Alone. Lonely. Wanting to have the life that was taken away from them.

Spending the eternity with a man with no name could prove to be a task. Sunggyu didn’t know how to call him. If you don’t have a name for something or someone, it is hard to get attached. He didn’t know if they were friends or strangers sharing a sentence of eternity. He decided to name the man Dongwoo. He didn’t like the name at first. But after calling him that for half a century, he now acknowledged that it was his name as far as their relationship was concerned.

Sunggyu and Dongwoo’s relationship was highly based on silence. They shared shelter and the food they hunted, gathered and later on bought without exchanging words. Dongwoo never talked about anyone or anything that happened before Sunggyu found him. Dongwoo never talked at all, save for a few instances like the time he said “Move away” when he saw an arrow heading Sunggyu’s way. Sunggyu wouldn’t have died anyway since he was an immortal. That was the day they became friends.

It was on the midst of the slave trade that they found a young boy. He was about the tender age of twelve and had no master. He sat alone covered only in a small loin cloth, his open wounds being feasted upon by flies in the bitter cold. He was dying.

Sunggyu turned a blind eye on the child. He was all used to it. Death was nothing new to his eyes. He has seen it thousands of times before in battles.  And if anything, he envied those who get to meet death as repose. Dongwoo on the other hand couldn’t stop himself but to stare at this lonesome child. His eyes were of a sad shade of dark green and they were calling out to be saved. Dongwoo also needed to be saved.

He had no name back then. No identity. No sense of belonging to anyone or anything-- not even to the shackles that were binding his feet.  No one wanted to buy him. He was a frail and sickly child, not fit to work under the sun. He was beautiful but his face was sullen with all the hardships that he has been through in his young life. He had a mother once. But she died when he was small. Her memories are still the brightest stars in his dark dark nights.

Dongwoo didn’t ask permission, nor did he give an explanation to Sunggyu. He exchanged forty pieces of silver for the slave boy. He was the one who named him Sungjong. Dongwoo fed Sungjong well and treated his wounds that soon the child was well again. For the first time in his life, the slave boy felt what it was like to be cared for. He cherished every moment of it.

Sungjong looked up to Dongwoo as his new master and his new family. Dongwoo refused to be called master. They were equals, he said. Sunggyu had no choice but to accept the addition to the small entourage. It was better than being alone.

Alone. Forever. It still haunted him that they would have to endure an eternity like this. Like nomads searching for nothing in particular. They knew nothing of what they were, whence they came forth and where they will head to next. They lived each day just like the day before. It almost seemed that they were living in a loop; repeating the same old routine for hundreds of years, except that now they had Sungjong.

Dongwoo and Sunggyu watched Sungjong grow. He grew up fast and he became a very comely young man. He and Dongwoo became very close and they knew each other thoroughly. Sungjong believed that it was love. He has never known love before and it was a sensation so sweet, so wonderful to him. To this, Dongwoo reacted with fear and frustration. Sungjong was growing up but he and Sunggyu were not aging a single day. At this rate, it would be just a blink of an eye that Sungjong would come to wither and perish like every single mortal while they stay as is-- like frozen flowers of the Nile, never fading away despite all the sadness.

There came a time that Sungjong had to know: why Dongwoo refused to kiss him on the lips even as they knew each other; why Dongwoo and Sunggyu never aged; why they never get sick like him; why they keep living in the hearts of forests, away from other people; how they never go home with a single scratch from hunting wild animals. He wanted to know. He needed to know. And so, Dongwoo told him. Immortality stretched her arm beckoning Sungjong to her deep embrace and he was enthralled.

Sunggyu did not want Sungjong to be one of them. It is a curse, he said. In his eyes, it was cruel to damn another soul, to bind the man-child to this pitiful form forever. He was still too young. There is too much that he needs to experience and it would be selfish to deny him that, on account of one's own loneliness-- Dongwoo's loneliness. But Sungjong did not understand that. He wanted to be an immortal like his inamorato. He wanted to stay by Dongwoo's side forever, an eternal cherub bound by love. It was the least he could do for the person who set him free and gave him the life he never thought he'd have; the love he never thought he'd have.

Dongwoo wanted to make Sungjong an amaranthine. He was almost sure of it. There was something in the boy's eyes that he has waited thousands of years for. He could not wait a moment more. Sunggyu wouldn’t take part of it though. He believed that creating another amaranthine is a responsibility, a burden that the creator should carry forever--a responsibility that his creator did not want, and so he selfishly died. Sunggyu did not like the idea of stopping the normal course of like the way the traveler did to him but Dongwoo's loneliness was also his responsibility as his companion.

It was brief. It was fast. Sungjong laid motionless on the floor, overwhelmed as his senses washed all the colors and sensations over him. It was then that he saw with brand new eyes and felt the wind blow its cold scent on his face. Eternal youth, that was what he was granted. Forever at the age of sixteen, he was but a bud of a frozen in time; never to bloom, never to fade a way.

When he rose up, he saw Dongwoo waiting silently by his side. At last, he has breached the line that was dividing them.  But something has changed. It was subtle and almost unnoticeable but he felt it. Dongwoo's face was crestfallen. He did not move nor breathe.

He did not love him anymore. He did not understand why but the moment their lips touched, there was something in the older immortal that vanished as quickly as the change in the boy happened.

Sungjong  moved closer to his creator's side, arms warmly cradling the one that turned him into an eternal vision of youth and beauty. He did not want to accept it. He must be mistaken. His master, his creator, his lover would not dare look him in the eye. Pain, greater than any that he has known in his mortal years, clenched his heart.

"Why?" he asked him. It was the only word that would come out of his lips and it was enough to say his confusion and fear of what has befallen him. Dongwoo just shook his head and looked away.

He did not think it would be like this. Sungjong was supposed to be the one to end his solitude. He was sure. Almost. He saw it in his eyes. He felt in his warm embraces. But the moment that he gave him immortality, all his longing to be with this boy child vanished. Gone. Just like the morning star that shies away in the rays of the sun before it can reveal its beauty. Gone.

And Sungjong was there, an immortal created out of love that was gone in the mist, expecting him to take on forever with him. But he was not the one. Dongwoo waited for thousands of years but he was not the one. Regrets flowed through his veins as he wordlessly sat still.

Why? He too did not know.

“You are not the one,” he simply told him. He wanted to say sorry but he knew what he has done was beyond forgiveness. Like what Sunggyu feared, he has sentenced Sungjong into an eternity of solitude. Even as they all lived together, he knew exactly the kind of loneliness that Sunggyu always warned him about. It has haunted him for thousands of years. And now that he thought he found a way to end it, he just ends up cursing this innocent child into an infinity of desolation.

Sungjong begged and pleaded. But it was of no use. He wanted to cry but found that his eyes were dry. He would never cry again. None of them ever cried and only then he knew that the loneliest people never cried.

Many years after, he would still try to win back Dongwoo’s heart but it was already cold and hard as stone. He felt betrayed and cheated. He had a name, a home and people to call his kin. But he knew that he was alone. His love was not returned.