I've been spending a lot of time in the museum rooms since Humbug died.
I may be new to this whole immortality thing, but one thing is certain - we all go through the same stages of eternal old age. My tenure, mercifully, will be shorter than those before me, but there's still a lot of insight to be had from reviewing what went before. The stuff I wasn't around for.
Life goes on above stairs. Little Mata Hari is a beacon of brilliance. She actually taught herself to walk! Can you imagine such a thing?
I quite like that. It goes against convention and almost sticks it to her parents, who wanted to teach her to walk the way they saw fit. But not our Mata, she's going to teach herself. She's a very independent little girl. Often softly speaking to her teddy bear, Pinkerton, about secret things.
Of course, she's friendly when the family wants to spend time with her. For some odd reason, the daycare has ceased to have business since she was born. Granny is distraught and hovering between retiring or quitting and starting again to bring more toddlers in. Either way, there are no lack of playmates for Mata Hari in her toddlerhood.
Immortality is a lonely thing. You think of all those you've loved and lost and can't have back. We all spend more time in silent, independent introspection than I was ever aware of in my mortal days.
And we find ways to entertain ourselves to make up for it. Eden, for her part, has caused a romantic epidemic in Monte Vista with wayward love spells.
I wonder if anyone remembers her childhood. I wonder what the house was like in those days. I wonder if that little rainbow bird in the photo had a name.
I feel like that about everyone, really. And one day, Allegra will too. If she's able to supermax without being attacked every five minutes by lovesick spell victims.
My sweet daughter will experience loss ahead of the rest of us, and she knows it. She recently had her adult birthday. Being a little party animal, I'm surprised she let it sneak up on her, but the poor thing has a lot on her plate these days.
She knows her husband is at the end of his life, and it's hard to choose between her requirements and spending as much time with the man as possible.
No one is more aware of it than he is.
And again, I think of loss. My dad died when I was a teen. Mata's might die before she's even a child.
We all wonder what her life will be like. We know it's time to tear down the wedding chapel, but it's such a painful thing to do. So final. So bleak.
In a way, it's the same reason we keep such a record of other things that have gone from us. Things many don't remember.
I wonder who invented the photograph. It's something I should know, isn't it? I know who invented the montage, I know who invented the camera obscura, but actual carbon plate photographs? That one I've never looked into. Granny might know.
But, like I said, we're all waist-deep in our distractions from the overbearing stretch of forever.
I wonder if it's easiest for her or worst. I wonder how well she even remembers her days of mortality. Most of all, I wonder what she was like when she was young. I can't even imagine her being anything but a Granny, blinked into existence with gray hair and infinite wisdom.
My actual grandmother, however, doesn't seem nearly as old to me. Sure, she looks like a grandma, but she is always so entrenched in advancing herself, even at hundreds of years of age.
What must she have been like without a single maxed skill. Just a helpless child playing chess with her grandpa. A toddler begging for baths. A teenager worried through the school day that someone left the stove on.
And before that? Who even painted the portraits and sculpted the sculptures before Mona Lisa took over? I realize I don't actually know. I realized recently that I'd never even been in her room. She was astoundingly beautiful, wasn't she?
We're meant to make pictures in our minds, right? That must've been the fundamental concept behind the creation of a camera. We look in mirrors and wish we could capture it, right? Everyone is fascinated with their own reflection, even babies.
Even people who won't die are inclined by nature to leave a legacy.
And one day, when Mata asks the questions that we've all wondered, I want to be able to answer them. I want Allegra to be able to answer them. Her childhood is just a breath away, and she's already whispering thoughts and concerns in her sweet baby voice into her mother's ear.
It's time to build her room. It's time to record another life. It's funny that all of this is only just hitting me now, after I should already be dead and gone, don't you think?
