Only Once

The Ramen Shop

The first memories he had in life were of blood.

For the longest time, he would consider this fact the defining difference between himself and humans. He would look at the men around him and think, well, yes, they are not me, because they do not remember the blood. At one point in his existence, however, around his 100th year or so, he realized that perhaps this was not what separated him from them. Perhaps, he thought, they did remember. He couldn't know, after all, since he'd never asked. So, one night, he turned to his son--who at that moment was sipping wine and rather occupied with thoughts of war--and asked him, "What do you recall of birth?" The son, who hadn't expected his father's decayed corpse to suddenly talk, nearly choked to death on his drink.

A day's worth of ceremonies and formal verbiage later, he would finally get his answer. "I cannot remember," The son said nervously. "Lord Father, I do not think anyone can."

Disappointed yet complacent in this outcome, he remained still within his marble throne and stared ahead, aware of the sunset despite having no eyes. "Where is your brother?" He'd ask, remembering that the woman had given birth to two.

The son, avoiding his father's gaze, sank further onto his knee. "He is dead," he replied.

"By what means?"

"Self-inflicted departure."

"By what god's order?"

The son hesitated.

"None."

He did not comment. It was unknown if his ensuing silence was a result of the absence of his lips or perhaps disappointment. The only thing that was known, or at least would be known until having been forgot, was that he did not speak another word again. Even when his last son lay on his deathbed, old and sick and without honor, he did not say a thing. It wasn't that he did not care, but rather that time passed exceptionally fast when he slept, and before he knew it several centuries had come and gone. He would blink and entire generations would just disappear, gone from all minds and memories except his own--and perhaps those of the gods. They never forgot anything, which was rather impressive considering how much went on. 

Maybe, he once speculated while listening to Hebrew preacher, maybe it was because of their memory that the gods did not kill mankind right then and there. They could do it--and quite easily at that--but they did not. They willingly chose to let themselves be fought over, lied about, cursed, and discarded. There were so many gods that had been completely lost to time, so ancient that the cultures who worshiped them had been completely buried in sand--yet still, they were silent. Curious, he'd once traveled to a sacred place and received the chance to ask why, to which a god replied, "Humans are just too entertaining, and eternal life would be so boring without them. Now, repay me with your obedience or I shall turn you into a bug." Those words exactly.

Such was how he carried out his life: he would hibernate for several centuries, wake up and explore, complete tasks for the gods in return for knowledge, then sleep again. Throughout his journeys, he began to find that asking strange things was made much easier if he looked like a man. Not all cultures were welcoming towards a creature like him, after all, and frequently he was attacked with spears and arrows and all manner of weapons due to the misunderstanding.

So he reformed himself, devoted a century of sleep to sculpting flesh and bones that were attractive to the human eye. He even changed his voice and taught himself how to smile, even fabricated a personality of charisma and charm--all for the sake of getting along. And it worked. It worked so well that his human form was welcomed into the homes of countless cultures and painted onto their walls, scrolls, and pottery. Poetry and history was written about him. He even earned himself a role in several holy books simply because he was active and there--and loyal to the efforts of the gods writing them, of course.

Just like that, thousands of years came and went. Civilizations rose and fell, wars began and ended, lifestyles spread and disappeared. Technology gradually advanced to a point where he nearly couldn't believe it--he'd fallen asleep before the industrial revolution and woken up to a computer in his face--and transformed the world into something more. This was the age he had the most trouble adapting to by far, but it was also one of his favorites, as well as the reason why he'd chosen to go walking down that particular alleyway during that particular night when the rain was so heavy it silenced an entire city.

He entered the alley rather abruptly and side-stepped into the nearest available building, leather oxfords squeaking as they came into contact with the tile floor. He closed the door behind him and pressed him back up against it, eyes closed and lips parted as he fought to catch his breath. Human bodies were so weak; he'd only been running for ten minutes yet his chest still felt as if it were about to burst. 

When he'd first acquired this a fleshy form all those years ago, he'd been concerned with how frequently it ached and tired. So he approached a well-known physician and asked them what was wrong, only to be given a warm pouch of ajwain because they'd misunderstood his poor Sanskrit. He didn't appreciate it at the time, but at the moment he wished that sack was in his hand. Warm ajwain would have been rather nice to have in his current condition, even if it didn't do much more than elicit nostalgia. In fact, anything warm and distracting was welcome; he was freezing cold and dripping wet, and the shop he'd just stepped into wasn't exactly warm.

He pursed his lips and looked around, making eye-contact with a curious customer who'd witnessed his grand entrance. Realizing that he probably just made a scene, he hastily remedied the situation with the very same charming smile he'd used to get out of executions in the past.

 "There's quite a storm out there," he said, brushing some dripping strands of hair away from his face. "I'd go so far as to say it's raining cats and dogs." His voice was deep and warmed by a British accent that made it all the more inviting, so much so that he'd been asked on multiple occasions if he was a talk show host, or perhaps a narrator. It was almost as if it had been tailored specifically for the citizens of the United States, a people who found the accent exceptionally convincing.

Almost.

"Is it always like this here?" He asked, walking over to a bar stool near the curious customer and sitting on it. The monochrome fabrics of his suit scrunched together, releasing a couple more droplets of water onto the floor. Dissatisfied with the state of it, he promptly unbuttoned the jacket and took it off, folding it and laying it across the stool beside him.