Helga (unedited)

Chapter 7: The death of the immortal

Perfection is the greatest lie of them all; there is no such thing. There are only the long streaks of that when you exist between them, you seem to believe, be deceived that they are perfection. Perfection is a matter of how long you choose to remain in something before it begins to crack. Streaks are meant to be broken. The driest desert succumbs to the tears of the darkest sky, and the same is applicable with all things I guess. Is it the greatest movie of all time, or is it great for only those few hours? Is the song the best, or would you come to loathe it if you were forced to listen to it for eternity?  Once we get used to something, do we start to take it for granted.

‘What’s the problem?’ I routinely asked of Helga. She had not been her usual terrifying self. The fire that displayed in her eyes was pale blue, touching and rotating with green. Obviously, she was feeling weak.

‘It’s nothing,’ she returned in the bluntest of voice ‘don’t concern yourself with me.’

She told me that I shouldn’t bother myself, but I was a fool, addicted to the well-being of others. Here’s some advice: don’t be a hero (ine), you’re only implicating yourself in dangers you have no business in being a part of. And, the people that you heroically try to save don’t take a minute out of their lives to try and help you when you’re in need-so why bother? When I tried to insist on helping Helga, neglecting her warning, she turned supernova and nearly ignited me like cotton in flame. I feared for my life and hated her the more, but why should I have hated her, she did warn me.

‘You’ll get hurt if you get too close to the sun,’ she said. At that instance my words were paraffin to her sun. No good could come from it.

‘Aright! Damn! Now I know never to try and talk to you when you’re like this,’ I retaliated. Although dangerous, she was weak, pathetic, and vulnerable, I’d never be stronger than I was at that moment. Whatever it was, it must’ve been intense. I’d never seen the demon so humbled.

‘Do you believe in immortality?’ she asked.

The question was odd. Usually when people speak as such, they are planning on sacrificing you for some cult or something.

‘Like when you live forever?’ I dumbly questioned the question.

‘Not like, but actually when you do actually live forever?’

‘I don’t know. I guess it’s probable if you can control fire.’

‘Well it’s bull! Immortality is flawed,’ she returned. I could see that someone dear to her was going or was already gone and I could only place my flammable hand to the glow that shone on her shoulder.  I don’t what it was, but when I placed my hand there I felt as sympathetic as ever. Tears began to stream down her pink cheeks.

‘I don’t much about life and death,’ I comforted, playing on the hunch that she was losing someone ‘but I guess we need people to die so that we can live. There are people that you need and there are people that you want. I do not know much about these people’s purposes in your life, but the common factor is that eventually they come to die in the halls of extinction. But don’t take it as them leaving you; take it as them just leaving. If this immortality thing is fake, atleast you’ll eventually get to die as well.’ Okay, not the best speech ever, but I had to give her something. She automatically picked it up as crap, but atleast she spent more time crucifying my anecdote than being more depressed.

‘Get your head outta your ass. You really shouldn’t give motivational speeches,’ she said.

‘In what way was I motivating you?’ I returned, somewhat at eased with a bruised ego ‘I was ensuring that you don’t go supernova and end up obliterating our precious Mercury.’

‘Thank goodness,’ she sighed.

‘Why the sigh?

‘You aren’t one of the idiots that uses the word ‘decimate’ inappropriately,’ she said ‘Decimate means to kill a tenth of something and many fools  use it in the wrong context.’

I really couldn’t care less as to what decimate really meant, but so long as she was distracted...