Chapter I
I reached the island two months ago.
The ship was only half afloat by the time we made shore, and we were filling with water faster than we could bail it. Even the words "made shore" seem an incredible euphemism, in retrospect. "Spilled ourselves onto the shoals" seems an infinitely superior description, partly because of its truth. The boat I was in, was piloted by the most incapable imbecile that has ever had the fortune to call himself a skipper. He started the voyage from Beirut by disemboweling the dock we were anchored to, and leaving half the crew behind. When we managed to untie the mooring rope from the stern, we made some speed, and skipping lightly over the occasional gastronomical accident, we were prey to no further unfortunate occurrences. Until we landed upon the island, that is.
I was the only member of the ship's party who was going to remain on the island; I was a passenger for that very purpose. The others were only present to oversee the export of the island's coconut oil batch. I stepped out onto the beach, my feet devoid of footwear - my slippers had been thrown overboard along with all the water we bailed. The sand was warm, and stuck to my feet, but was easily shaken off, and as I made my way towards the island's center, the turf changed from sand to short grass. The last I saw of my until-recently shipmates, were their frantic attempts to collect the coconut oil that they had remarkably efficiently spilled into the boat, to replace the water it was until recently filled with.
The island was exceedingly pleasant. It was a watercolor of the average person's impression of a tropical island. There were no grass skirts, no crude circular mud huts, though. The people were modern enough. There was no drastic culture change, and if the truth be told, it might even be said that they had no culture, in the way we think of it, at least. I saw no deities, no temples, no rituals, no elders. Their was the culture of life. To live was their tradition, and to exist, their purpose.
But I hadn't been there for long enough to understand any of that. And I had other things on my mind. I had come to the island for one purpose only, and that was to enter the island's center.
It was the legend of the people that lived in the center that drew me there. They were supposed demigods, blessed with the gift of immortality, who had created a paradise on earth, in their twelve-mile circle. Outsiders hadn't been let in, ever since they first barred their doors five hundred years ago, fearing that the presence of unblessed beings might somehow rid them or their immortality. The only mortals they allowed inside, were the island Shamans, the universally respected elders of their people. They had no Shamans of their own. My being there was a singular chance - it was partly because of the favor I conferred upon a Shaman who was visiting the Yellowstone Park a year ago.
Chapter II
It had been a bleak December, in every way possible. The only way to alleviate the gloom seemed to me to be to convince myself that the gloom was my own fault, and not of the world I was surrounded by. I made it a habit to walk down the wet streets at night, slowly, not pausing, not slowing. Steady, and purposeless, trying doggedly to keep up with my shadow, cast by the streetlights. Streetlights - exceptional markers of solitude. Reminders that the day has grown dark enough for you to require artificial lighting. Not like lights in the house, where everything is lit, like some artificial daylight. They stand outside where you can see just how dark it actually is. So dark, that everyone has retreated to the comfort of their homes, in a blaze of light and warmth, surrounded by people, and things. And yet here you are, outside, in the dark, standing under a streetlight, looking up, and wondering why it is you're here. And with every streetlight I passed, I'd stop and wonder, and then I'd go on, to the next streetlight.
I came across the Park quite by accident. It was not that I knew not of its existence - no, a monument as large as the Park was nearly impossible to miss, especially if you lived in the same town. Island Village, in Wyoming, bordered the Park, although it was hardly a comfortable distance. It was only weekends that I could afford the six-hour walk to the edges of the park. Yellowstone lake was another hour away. If I'd wanted, I could have driven myself there in just above half an hour, but driving had lost its appeal in the previous months. Vehicles seemed pretentious, frail. I could never answer why I'd rather drive than walk, and always felt too tired to drive. So on the Saturday that I did in fact make my way over to the lake, it took me seven hours. It was well past sundown when I finally got there, and the pines had receded into their silhouettes. But the lake, in the moonlight, seemed as iridescent as it did in the day. Perhaps it was the reflection of the stars, and streams of cosmic brown lining the sky, but the image seemed to come from within the depths of the lake itself, as if it was projecting itself onto the sky, and not the other way around.
I had but a minute of reverie, when I saw a figure flailing in the water, off the adjacent bank. It seemed he was in need of assistance, so I ran around, his way, and dived in to help, after taking off my jacket. He continued to frantically paddle before I reached him, at which point he gave up trying to float. He was a terrible swimmer, but he was thankfully unlike the other kinds of drowning humans I've had the occasion to rescue, who put me in as much danger of drowning as they were in, with their frantic paddling and flailing during the rescue. He stayed still until we came to shore, at which point he crawled up a few meters, and limply fell to the ground. I was not worried - it was but the exhaustion of trying to stay afloat for so long.
"Why did you not call for help?"
He paused for a few seconds, breathing heavily before he answered. "I found it extremely unlikely there would be anyone else about, and I did not wish to disturb the silence. It is remarkable, yes?" He looked around before going on. "Some would call it beautiful, but I would not. It would be an insult, would it not? To somehow imply that we are capable of even slightly comprehending its true nature, that it is low enough to be grasped by us?"
I didn't answer, and he didn't seem to expect one. We stared at the opposite bank for a while, and I sat down beside his rock after a few minutes. A period of silence passed, before he asked me,
"What draws you here?"
I considered. "I don't know, really. It's not the silence - I could just go to sleep; and it's not the... I don't know. I've done so much, that now everything feels like so little. I'm quite the opposite of the people who have a purpose. I feel like I've passed my purpose long ago. But that's not even what troubles me. Any purpose I can think of having fulfilled seems so... inconsequential. I'd ask, why? Why do any of that? To whom, to when will it matter? What if we were meant to simply exist? And so I started coming out here, because what better way to exist, what better place than here? You get a scope, really, of the vastness we're in. Lie down, and you can see infinity. Look down, and you'll see the infinite. I don't quite know what I'm saying. Do you?"
He laughed, a short exhalation of breath that seemed to contain all the mirth in the world. "If it's not too much of a stretch, I might even say I understand better than you might think." He paused for a moment before saying, "August the next, come to the island of Azathoth. I for one, must get going - I can't have all the time in your world, can I?"
He stood up, and walked away, into the pines behind us. I didn't follow him.
Chapter III
The heat grew as I neared the center. Through the tops of the trees in the distance, I could make out the faint outline of the upper edge of the wall. The trees were exceptionally leafy for their sort - denser than any I'd ever seen before, and quite a bit taller as well. I had left half my supplies in the Shaman's hut, which had been empty when I had come to it. I started my journey in the late afternoon, and judging by the distance I had yet to cover I suspected It'd be noon by the time I'd reach the center. The sky was already dark at four, and it seemed nightfall at six. I was in the forest, nearing its inner edge by now. I'd seen no animals, save birds and squirrels, and given the Island's geography, I was not surprised. The island was the remnant of a volcano, that had killed the people who lived on its slope, until 700 BC. Underneath the ground I walked upon, were the buried remains of the previous civilization, preserved in the ash that killed them. The ash, however, proved a blessing for the people who would come to live on the island. They were farmers, to start out. They discovered the ash's incredible effects n their produce soon enough, and soon their livelihoods depended almost solely upon it. The ash was a natural resource, and the Thothians a fair people, so there were no squabbles arising from greed. they used as much as they needed, and it was enough for the entire populace. But after the Blessing, the Blessed claimed the source of the ash - the crater of the volcano - for their own, for they were no longer equals with the other Thothians. No, they rose above by an immeasurable distance, for was it not the very father of their gods who had chosen to descend upon their humble lands and bless them? And of course, such a valuable commodity as the ash needs must be preserved for the use of such divine people, and so they built a great wall about the Island's center, and were forever disappeared from the outside world.
It had taken the direct command of a Shaman to make them grudgingly acquiesce to having an outsider walk their lands. I knew I was unwelcome as soon as the gate guard set eyes on me. I had to take off my jacket, and I was covered in a rough shawl of nettles, and given a lump of putrid, smoke-emitting embers to hold, to purify the land even as I walked upon it. After half an hour of preparations, I walked through the main walls, taking care to duck below the low arch, and laid my eyes upon the city.
It was absolutely horrible. I had conjured up visions of a spiritually advanced populace of sentient beings, who had brought heaven to earth, and lived in the very dreams we did not dare to dream. And to immediately dispel those visions, the reality of the place rushed out at me - a decrepit collection of old mud huts, in varying states of disrepair. There was not a soul to be seen on the streets, and not a sound to be heard, save for the breeze of the heat. The occasional sign of modern progress showed itself; a neon light on a hut, a shattered fluorescent light on the ground. The demographic of the place was nearly identical to that of the island outside - almost no children, and absolutely no aged members of society. The only glimpses of life I managed to find were the occasional silhouettes of people prostrate in the houses, seemingly asleep. There was simply no movement. There were temples everywhere, scattered like some disregarded cobwebs in an old stairwell. I walked about the city for an hour before deciding I had seen enough. This, then, was a city of the immortal, if such a thing even existed. There was no beauty in the solitude, no solace in the silence. There was no air of vitality, no feeling of the infinite. There was only the unmistakable stench of a purposeless existence. The ground was dry, and unkempt, patches of dying grass marking untrodden paths. Roofing tiles littered the sides of the houses, and the smell of the embers I held in my hand permeated the whole of the city. The sky above was a startling grey, devoid of stars or a heavenly presence of any sort. It seemed almost impossible that these were a blessed people, that they were somehow immortal.
It was with disgust that I handed the cloak of nettles and the embers back to the gatekeeper. He no longer possessed any aura of wondrous mystery - he was simply a product of the barren city I had seen. He was not a being worthy of any more reverence than I would afford a beggar. I was even angry at him, possessing an unreasonable notion that I was the victim of some practical joke of his, that I had somehow been duped into believing, and hoping for wonders. As I passed through the wall, my anger changed to an oddly affecting disappointment. I supposed I had hoped to receive some sort of respite from my own despair, and I had instead been led into a city that personified it. I didn't have to duck when the arch came. My head was bowed enough to allow me an unhindered passage.
I found a small horse awaiting me upon exiting the outer perimeter of the wall, beside it, the Shaman on a larger, black workhorse. He had a strange, calm smile.
"I trusted you would welcome a horse for your journey back."
Chapter IV
We sat in his hut, each with a mug of a strangely intoxicating infusion of coconut and Bolat fern. We watched the fireplace for a while. It was never awkward, not talking to the Shaman; he seemed to mirror whatever you happened to be doing, a dialogue in actions. And so when I looked at him, ready to talk, he knew.
"What did you find?"
"It was nothing like I expected. I suppose I shouldn't have. Expected, that is. Are they really?"
He sighed. "Immortal? Yes, they are. I don't suppose you know the full story, however." "Yes, " he sad in response to my entreating glance. "I shall tell you."
"In a time long ago, barely in the grasp of human memory, lived a people on this very island. They were a barbarous people, sinners, and pillagers, ravagers of the land. And Azathoth, being displeased with them, called upon the mountain to release its great flood of fire, and buried the people under the ashes of the fire. The mountain cooled, and in the years after the waters rose about the mountain, came another people, a peaceable, hard-working group of farmers. They settled upon the island, and tilled the lands till they were again green, and flourished. But one day, a native found a cave, in search of water. In this cave, he read the inscriptions of the earlier people, and their sparse talk of Azathoth. The man felt the greatness of the father of the gods, and so created a small temple in his hut, where he would teach anyone who was willing to be taught of Azathoth's greatness. He spoke of life and death, he spoke of living and dying. He spoke of the land and the heavens, and to all who listened, it seemed as though Azathoth himself was speaking through him. He was the first Shaman of the Island of Azathoth, and the knowledge he created is revered even to this day. He meant well by his teachings, but there were young men on the island who saw an opportunity in what he spoke of. The young men were dishonest, and turned their backs upon honest work, and so under the guise of prayer to Azathoth, they created temples, and would spend the day in complete sloth, chanting verses in praise of the Father of the Gods. Following their example, numerous men and women renounced work and did but pray. And so, there were two kinds of people on the island; those who believed in honest work to please Azathoth, and those who believed in futile, lazy prayer to appease their god. After seven generations had passed, Azathoth again descended upon the land, to see what had become of his creation, and when he saw, he was passing wroth with those, who in the the name of prayer, forsook true labor, and so, he cursed them. He cursed them with immortality. But he gave it in the guise of a blessing, and those who received it were passing glad, and scorned at he others, who Azathoth had cursed with shortened lives, for they had renounced prayer altogether. But when he saw that in their very work was their devotion to the Father of Gods, he gave them the Bolat fern, that they must partake of it but once in their lives, and need no bread or water for evermore. But greatest of all his gifts to them, was the gift of wisdom. And so they understood, without agitation, when the immortals walled themselves in the centre of the island, and when they claimed the ash for their own."
There was a pause for as long as a minute, during which I stared down at my cup, subconsciously trying to discern the separate ingredients in the tea. "How long do you live for?"
"We go through an entire lifetime in five years."
"How do you... do anything? Ho do you get anything done?"
He smiled.
"It is as you said the other day. Why? When you have little enough of anything, you begin to do one thing - prioritize. What is the most important immediately comes to the front, and stays there. Our shortened lives are a blessing, and we accept it with gladness. We are content to live, to be part of this world we share. We feel no need to speed up progress, simply because we have asked all the right questions before we began. We simply are, and we are happy. It is not an aimless life, nor a restrictive one - it is one of the utmost of free will, but informed free will. The immortals have the rest of their lives to do what it is they want. Their lives are an endless cycle of wanting, and doing it later, and seeking stimulation, and doing it later, and finding purpose, and finding it later, simply because it makes no difference whether they do it now, or in forever. They are a cursed people, truly. "
I pondered what he had said. "Less is more?"
"Less is more."