Accidental Merlin

Chapter 2: For the walk is all there is

So that's how it all started, a drunken walk back to a conference hotel, a weird glowing stone and my powers acting on its own again.

I woke up in what can only be described as a blank space. I was surrounded by a sea of white: The ground was white. The sky was white. The horizon, white. White, white, white, white, white.

I chose a random direction and started walking, I don't know how long I walked for, but I walked until I couldn't walk anymore and then when I got tired I stopped, and took a rest. This became my routine, walk, stop, and rest, repeat.

At some point I started marking the number of days on my hand using a pen I found in my right trouser pocket. I stopped doing that when the ink ran out.

I kept walking, my clothes started to fade in colour. I kept on walking, my shoes were worn through, I kept on walking. I never stopped walking. I had a lot of time to think while I was walking. I thought about anything and everything: why I liked listening to jazz on TV but never listened to it on my stereo. Why Jenny Carpenter went out with Dean Smith when Dean was the most gormless stupid looking buffoon to ever set foot on earth. If we live in an infinite universe, then the laws of infinity state that another earth also existed in which everything that I did were also done by an exact replica of me, and if the universe started to repeat itself was it an infinity or just a massive Mobius loop back to the original. But mostly I thought about my regrets, of what I could have done to change my life to make me and those around me happier.

By this point I was convinced I was dead and this was my personal hell, walking forever, pondering the useless mysteries of the universe, and what could have beens. At some point I stopped needing to rest, I just never noticed. I just kept walking. I forgot how to think and I kept on walking. I forgot who I was and I kept on walking and kept walking until, suddenly, after I don't know how long I collapsed and slept. I felt my soul evolve, like I had finally realised some fundamental law of the universe, I felt the pain of bone deep tiredness, the pain of all those years of walking. But I also felt soul deep nourishment, better tasting than the best food I had ever tasted, more pleasurable than the best sex, it was rapturous.

I woke up to that blinding pure white light, knowing my torment had not yet ended. Suddenly I heard ... no more like felt ... something or someone near me, I sat up as fast I could, this caused my blood pressure to drop and I felt dizzy and had to lie back down again

"Careful there lad" I heard, the voice was that of a man, not young, low slightly gravely. There was a joyous undercurrent in his voice, but also something more ... profound sadness and loneliness.

I tried to speak up, but I couldn't remember how, it had been so long since I had to speak, I tried to remember words, they were there just out of reach. It was like I was a little boy again, in my grandma's back yard trying to pick mangoes, but they were just out of reach and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't jump high enough to reach.

The man helped me up and I got my first look at him, he looked to be in his late 60s, wrinkled, rugged, he liked to smile, he would have been very handsome in his younger days, he still was. I don't know why but he reminded me of my mom's cousin, Vikram, I called him Uncle Vicky, who was a colonel in the Indian army. There was something about this old man's posture that screamed soldier, and not just a soldier, but an officer. The most striking thing about him however were his eyes, steel blue with silver specks, they were mesmerising. There was an unimaginable feeling of patience, love, kindness but also unimaginable sadness and loneliness. It was as if he had lived a countless lives, loved and felt the loss of everyone he ever knew dying before him. This man in front of me was an immortal.

I don't know how I knew. He had spoken exactly three words to me and I had only seen him for the first time a few seconds ago, but I would have bet my life on it, this man was an immortal.