Off the Grid
There are forgotten people in this world. Death and Destiny are not infallible creations.
Sarah Mostley was born in the galley of a ship at war in the middle of a thunderstorm in 1545 in the month of October. Her first cries were lost amongst the shouts of men fighting, the clash of swords, cannons firing, and the splintering of masts.
The dark sky tore the world in half with lighting. Thunder rolled the ocean tighter into fists of hard water that punched holes through the wood of ships already weakened by war.
Soldiers and pirates alike screamed their last screams on blood-soaked decks as salt-water tentacles took their bodies to the depths.
Amidst this chaos two floors down, Sarah’s birth-scream was indiscernible. Her mother died. Sarah was found in the wreckage and taken for plunder by the attackers before the ship sank. The port was close. She was given to an orphanage immediately after docking. The orphanage christened her Sarah Mostley for her habit of nearly finishing any given chore.
At the exact hour of her birth, a volcano eruption, an earthquake, and a tornado had spiked the planet’s body count into the millions. Those were huge numbers back when Earth’s population was less that one billion.
Souls shot out of the Earth like steam from the spout of a kettle.
The agencies of the afterlife were clogged with queues.
During the storm and battle that had camouflaged her birth, the powers that be had not recorded her entry into this world.
She was nowhere to be found in the heavens-wide abacus of existence.
Sarah Mostley’s birth had not been recorded. Because of this one simple fact, she had not been given a ‘best before’ date.
Sarah was immortal.
Over the years, she discovered her nature through stabbings, beatings, and the sheer passage of time.
She had the completely rational fear that to bring attention to her possibly unique condition would be to alert the skies to her presence. The misplacing of her astrological file was a mistake in book-keeping that could be rectified in a moment, she thought.
She wasn’t wrong.
Over the years, she had accidents. She healed at the same rate as humans. The only difference was that she healed completely and without a scar.
Over the years, she had accidents. She gave birth to fifteen children thanks to the faulty birth control throughout the ages. She left them with orphanages to give them the same chance that she had in the world. She did not keep track of them.
Over the years, she had accidents. She fell in love and was married nine times, each time more bitter and heart-rending than the last. Always, she had to run before her youthful appearance was remarked on and eventually feared. She’d been burned at the stake once and didn’t relish the idea of repeating the experience.
She kept her head down, didn’t say much, worked at whatever one of the countless jobs she’d mastered, invested wisely, and let the vacuum inside of her grow.
Until she met Daniel.
There are sixteen immortals walking the earth. Daniel was another one like her.
It was something that they revealed to each other almost subconsciously over the course of their six year courtship. Little slips in references to times long gone by. The ageing of regular humans that they’d grown so accustomed to wasn’t happening when they really looked hard at each other. The mirror looked back at them unchanging.
They laughed and cried when the revelation finally hit them both over a chicken dinner.
Unfortunately, Sarah became pregnant by Daniel. At the moment of her child’s conception, all was quiet on earth. If only things had been a little noisier.
Sarah’s regular pregnancies before had been recorded without incident. Back then, in the records Above as on Earth, lineage had been mostly patriarchal. There was an assumption on the part of the forces at work that since she was alive and giving birth, her file was probably somewhere.
Even with Daniel as the father, the baby would have gone unnoticed if an Agent of the skies had not been bored.
The glistening power of the love between Daniel and Sarah shone like a diamond. Their child would surely grow to power by being loved while being given the power to trust and defend.
The agent in the sky idly glanced at the books to briefly look at their histories.
Imagine the agent’s surprise when instead of a complicated, impossibly recursive, almost fractal family tree folding back through time, he came across a page with a drawing of a tuning fork on it. A capital Y with parallel lines shouting out that something was very wrong here indeed.
The left tine said Daniel. The right tine said Sarah. The one lone tine pointing down with no end to it said Jack.
Two immortals were about to give birth to another immortal.
Agents were rewarded for discoveries like this. Agents were promoted for discoveries like this.
The agent in question weighed out the merits of destroying such a blindingly powerful love while ending the life of what would surely be an exceptional child. To protect the three of them, all he had to do was close the book and keep his mouth shut. To alert his superiors, all he had to do was walk up the stairs to head office.
He came to a decision.
He walked up to head office.
Daniel and Sarah went to sleep in each other’s arms.
In the morning they were gone, listed as missing, and in time forgotten.
tags
Sarah Mostley was born in the galley of a ship at war in the middle of a thunderstorm in 1545 in the month of October. Her first cries were lost amongst the shouts of men fighting, the clash of swords, cannons firing, and the splintering of masts.
The dark sky tore the world in half with lighting. Thunder rolled the ocean tighter into fists of hard water that punched holes through the wood of ships already weakened by war.
Soldiers and pirates alike screamed their last screams on blood-soaked decks as salt-water tentacles took their bodies to the depths.
Amidst this chaos two floors down, Sarah’s birth-scream was indiscernible. Her mother died. Sarah was found in the wreckage and taken for plunder by the attackers before the ship sank. The port was close. She was given to an orphanage immediately after docking. The orphanage christened her Sarah Mostley for her habit of nearly finishing any given chore.
At the exact hour of her birth, a volcano eruption, an earthquake, and a tornado had spiked the planet’s body count into the millions. Those were huge numbers back when Earth’s population was less that one billion.
Souls shot out of the Earth like steam from the spout of a kettle.
The agencies of the afterlife were clogged with queues.
During the storm and battle that had camouflaged her birth, the powers that be had not recorded her entry into this world.
She was nowhere to be found in the heavens-wide abacus of existence.
Sarah Mostley’s birth had not been recorded. Because of this one simple fact, she had not been given a ‘best before’ date.
Sarah was immortal.
Over the years, she discovered her nature through stabbings, beatings, and the sheer passage of time.
She had the completely rational fear that to bring attention to her possibly unique condition would be to alert the skies to her presence. The misplacing of her astrological file was a mistake in book-keeping that could be rectified in a moment, she thought.
She wasn’t wrong.
Over the years, she had accidents. She healed at the same rate as humans. The only difference was that she healed completely and without a scar.
Over the years, she had accidents. She gave birth to fifteen children thanks to the faulty birth control throughout the ages. She left them with orphanages to give them the same chance that she had in the world. She did not keep track of them.
Over the years, she had accidents. She fell in love and was married nine times, each time more bitter and heart-rending than the last. Always, she had to run before her youthful appearance was remarked on and eventually feared. She’d been burned at the stake once and didn’t relish the idea of repeating the experience.
She kept her head down, didn’t say much, worked at whatever one of the countless jobs she’d mastered, invested wisely, and let the vacuum inside of her grow.
Until she met Daniel.
There are sixteen immortals walking the earth. Daniel was another one like her.
It was something that they revealed to each other almost subconsciously over the course of their six year courtship. Little slips in references to times long gone by. The ageing of regular humans that they’d grown so accustomed to wasn’t happening when they really looked hard at each other. The mirror looked back at them unchanging.
They laughed and cried when the revelation finally hit them both over a chicken dinner.
Unfortunately, Sarah became pregnant by Daniel. At the moment of her child’s conception, all was quiet on earth. If only things had been a little noisier.
Sarah’s regular pregnancies before had been recorded without incident. Back then, in the records Above as on Earth, lineage had been mostly patriarchal. There was an assumption on the part of the forces at work that since she was alive and giving birth, her file was probably somewhere.
Even with Daniel as the father, the baby would have gone unnoticed if an Agent of the skies had not been bored.
The glistening power of the love between Daniel and Sarah shone like a diamond. Their child would surely grow to power by being loved while being given the power to trust and defend.
The agent in the sky idly glanced at the books to briefly look at their histories.
Imagine the agent’s surprise when instead of a complicated, impossibly recursive, almost fractal family tree folding back through time, he came across a page with a drawing of a tuning fork on it. A capital Y with parallel lines shouting out that something was very wrong here indeed.
The left tine said Daniel. The right tine said Sarah. The one lone tine pointing down with no end to it said Jack.
Two immortals were about to give birth to another immortal.
Agents were rewarded for discoveries like this. Agents were promoted for discoveries like this.
The agent in question weighed out the merits of destroying such a blindingly powerful love while ending the life of what would surely be an exceptional child. To protect the three of them, all he had to do was close the book and keep his mouth shut. To alert his superiors, all he had to do was walk up the stairs to head office.
He came to a decision.
He walked up to head office.
Daniel and Sarah went to sleep in each other’s arms.
In the morning they were gone, listed as missing, and in time forgotten.
tags