From the outside, he was an average John Doe. A little rough around the edges, but otherwise plain. Deep-set eyes that seemed to tell a different story each time you looked into them. Skin still tight, a faint skip in his step. The man never seemed to age.
No one saw what lived behind those soulful eyes and practiced expression of contentment. He was becoming a spiteful man. He did not know exactly what ailed him, or why he felt this sudden urge to distort his own reality. He had loved the world. He had been lucky enough to witness history unfold—turn after turn, century after century—always placed at the right moment, in the right place, as if carried there by the winds of fate.
Those winds used to whisper reassurance.
Now they whispered caution. Unreachable, undeniable, inescapable.
He was tired. For the first time in all his lives, he wanted an end.
For centuries he had believed the human spirit to be indestructible. He had convinced himself that the fire inside him—the hunger for wonder, for beauty, for experience—would never burn out. He believed he would never know true despair, never feel fear of the unknown, never taste malice or heartbreak deeply enough to break him.
He was wrong.
Insight, he realized now, was not an eternal flame. It was a flickering candle. And candles could be snuffed out.
Sleep no longer brought rest. Demons disturbed his dreams. Sometimes they followed him into waking hours. Intrusive, deviant thoughts pressed against his mind.
What was happening to him?
A malfunction? A misfiring of something ancient inside him?
He tried to escape his own head, if only for a while. Dragging his feet, he made his way down to Lonigan’s Railroad Diner—the usual haunt of the town regulars. It sat just off the overpass near the old railway tracks, a place frozen somewhere between decades.
“Ayy, Wesson! Yer gonna wear holes through them old boats of yours. Pick your feet up! What happened to that skip of yours, eh?”
Ronnie shouted from across the street, already half-lit for the morning.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Wesson replied. “Just tired today, I guess.”
“Well perk up, buttercup. You ain’t gettin’ any younger. Life’s here and now—live while yew can!”
Ronnie grinned, joy manufactured by alcohol and painkillers. Wesson knew the difference between real happiness and borrowed euphoria.
Live while he can?
He had been alive since the beginning of time. He had seen the good, the monstrous, the mundane, the extraordinary. He thought he could never tire of this magnificent world.
But lately he had begun to fear eternity.
Immortality no longer felt like a gift. It felt like a sentence.
Inside, the diner was quiet. A couple shared morning coffee. Two men leaned over paperwork in tense discussion. A family of four laughed over breakfast, unaware of how fragile such moments truly were.
Wesson took a seat at the half bar beside a man reading the newspaper and eating cherry pie.
“Hey there, Wes. The usual?” Rhonda asked.
She was the kindest woman in town. Fifty-seven, never married, never had children—yet she mothered everyone. She had a softness to her voice that once warmed him.
Today, it only made him sad.
He saw it now. The melancholy beneath her smile. Had it always been there? Had everyone always been carrying quiet despair, and he had simply been too enchanted with existence to notice?
“Actually,” he said slowly, “just a beer today.”
Rhonda blinked. “It’s ten-forty-three in the morning.”
“I had biscuits earlier. Not hungry.”
A lie. The thought of food turned his stomach.
She studied him longer than usual. “You’re dimming, Wes. I’ve known you a long time. That light in your eye—it’s fading. Everything alright?”
He forced a smirk. “Just nerves about the new position at work. Forty-three years old and anxious about telling men I’ve known forever what to do. A little pathetic, huh? Mr. Nerve over here.”
He tried to make it charming.
She didn’t laugh.
“I just don’t want you to get down on life like the rest of us,” she said quietly, setting the Heineken in front of him. “You’ve always had this… hope. Don’t lose that. If you lose it, we’re all in trouble.”
Life is too short, she added.
Too short.
If only she knew.
The beer went down easier than expected. Then another. Then another. Eventually she cut him off and insisted on driving him home during her break.
He lay in bed that afternoon staring at the ceiling.
For centuries he had known the truth of himself. Each life was temporary, yes—but he carried the memory forward. Knowledge accumulated. Lessons stacked. Progress built upon progress.
He endured because nothing was ever truly lost.
But now something inside him shifted.
A certainty.
This life was different.
This one was final.
Even if he were to return again, he would not remember. The chain would break. All his past lives would scatter like dust—separate souls, separate stories. The continuity that made his existence meaningful would be gone.
This would be the only life that counted.
And he had wasted it believing he had forever.
Real fear settled into his bones for the first time in all his centuries.
Not fear of pain. Not fear of death.
Fear of finality.
He understood now why humans clung so desperately to distraction. Why they numbed themselves. Why they chased noise, pleasure, chaos. The unknown loomed too large when faced directly.
He considered ending it early.
But now that death felt permanent, he found himself too afraid.
So he would do what the rest of them did.
Drink.
Distract.
Decay slowly.
And meet his maker like everyone else—ordinary at last.
If you are interested in reading more short real life fiction stories, check out the section of my site called Worthwhile Reads.
If you are interested in reading about a variety of different subjects such as mental health, inside the minds of disturbed artists, the importance of being an introvert, importance of body language and non-verbal communication, the importance of mental rehearsal and imagery, the power of our minds, mindfulness, metaphysics and the cosmic world and how all the great genius’ of the past have tapped into this power to achieve seeming miracles, addiction, abuse, the effects loneliness and so much more, please check out some of my other posts:
