Elixir of Immortality

He spotted the land at last. It was there gleaming in the midst of the vast expanse of the sparkling blue ocean water. Fortune seemed to have finally relented and decided to place it right there for him. He had traveled many miles in anticipation of this one moment leaving behind his worried family, staking his reputation on this mission. Purportedly saner men had derided him and called his enterprise a lunacy. Now he had a chance to prove them wrong…

It did not take long for them to disembark on the island. His crew was thoroughgoing professional and left for the island as though they were heading out for battle. Little did they know what awaited them. Elsewhere someone was closely watching their movements.

They were in a clearing. Lofty trees and luxuriant vegetation greeted them on all sides. The explorer looked up at the azure sky with a seagull streaking past and smiled. He guessed he got more satisfaction that day than in all his life before it. It was as though he found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that his life and efforts represented. Everything in his life seemed to have found new meaning now. He had lived his life by his ideals and came to where he had always dreamed of being.

Suddenly someone in the touring party dropped dead without so much as uttering a scream. The attack was swift. It was bloody. The native cannibals could possess no mercy. The explorer’s crew retaliated with all their might. It only made sure the natives knew that they had subdued a formidably equipped foe that day. Having well-nigh decimated the crew, the natives wisely retreated before the reinforcements came rushing in.

The crew was left counting its losses. They cried out for their leader. Ferdinand Magellan was his name. He was lying there on the blood-drenched ground with a smile on his face, a smoking gun in his hands and a fatal arrow sticking out of his chest.

This semi-fictional account of Magellan’s death was written in response to a question posed to me on who I would want to be-a pioneer or a settler. I did not have to think twice about my answer.

However, to lead such a life and die by it if necessary requires a lot of gumption. Plenty of people start their life with a lot of idealism. But somewhere down the line, they get stuck in the quicksand of mediocrity and monotony. Indeed, it is much more tempting a peaceful life where you earn your bread doing a routine if not mundane job, raise a family, stack up your savings, buy a house…the whole nine yards.

I fervently hope that I do not succumb to it. Right now there is youth coursing in my veins. Someday, maybe when I am old and crumbling, and when I have to look back on the life I have led, I pray that there is the swell of pride that washes away all possible pain. I long for the ‘immortality’ that Greeks sought. I wish I could say, ‘Remember us’, the way Leonidas said it when he changed the course of history with his last stand.