“Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
It is not boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
it is not selfish, not quick to take offense.
It is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil,
but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, and endures all things.
Love never ends.
Love never fails.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
But the greatest of them all is love.”
Corinthians 13: 4 – 8
Preface
Throughout time, the question of how we came into existence has been the root of our eternal quest for answers about our own humanity. Science and religion have constantly clashed violently, disputing the proof of truth and faith, and all the unexplainable aspects of how we were all created. Human and Vampire. Are we both merely an anomaly of evolution? Did an omnipotent being mold us in their image and scatter our souls amongst the earth like seeds to soil? Or was our conception something far more complex than even we can understand? Will we ever understand?
“Sometimes questions are more powerful than answers.
Where does it come from, this quest? This need to solve life's mysteries, when the simplest of questions can never be answered. Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream? Perhaps we'd be better off not looking at all. Not doubting, not yearning. That's not human nature. Not the human heart. That is not why we are here. This quest. This need to solve life's mysteries. In the end, what does it matter when the human heart can only find meaning in the smallest of moments?
In the beginning, there was discovery. A confusion of elements. The first snowfall of impossible change. Old lives undone, left behind. Strange faces, made familiar. New nightmares, to challenge sleep. New friends, to feel safe with. Only then comes control. The need to impose order unto chaos, through determination through study, through struggle. All in defiance of a thundering truth. To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose.
The Earth spins at a thousand miles an hour as we desperately try to keep from being thrown off. Like the first blush in winter, that signals a great migration. Is there any warning of their arrival? A sign, a single event that set this chain into motion? Was it a whisper in God's ear? Survive. Adapt. Escape. And if we could mark our single moment in time, that first hint of a prophecy of approaching danger..., would we have done anything differently? Could it have been stopped? Or was the die long ago cast? And if we could go back, alter its course; stop it from happening... would we?
When all seems lost, the future unknowable, our very existence in peril, all we can do is run. We are, if anything, creatures of habit. Drawn to the safety and the comfort of the similar. But what happens when the familiar becomes unsafe? When the fear that we've been desperately trying to avoid, finds us where we live? The earth is large, large enough so you think you can hide from anything. From Fate, From God. If only you found a place far enough away. So you run. To the edge of the Earth, where all is safe again. Quiet and Warm. The Solace of salt air. The peace of danger left behind. The luxury of grief. And maybe, for a moment, you believe you have escaped. And fate can find you anywhere. Or is the truth that you do not have the strength or cunning to hide from destiny? That the world is not small, you are. Can you ever escape? You can run far; you can take your small precautions, but have you really gotten away?
You do not choose your destiny, it chooses you. And those that knew you before Fate took you by the hand cannot understand the depth of the changes inside. They cannot fathom how much you stand to lose in failure...that you are the instrument of flawless Design. And all of life may hang in the balance. When evolution selects its agents, it does so at a cost. It makes demands in exchange for singularity. And you may be asked to do something against your very nature. Suddenly, the change in your life that should have been wonderful, comes as a betrayal. It may seem cruel, but the goal is nothing short of self-preservation. Survival. This force, evolution, is not sentimental. Like the earth itself, it knows only the hard facts of life's struggle with death. All you can do is hope and trust that when you have served its needs faithfully, there may still remain some glimmer of the life you once knew. Some individuals, it is true, are more special. This is natural selection. It begins as a single individual born or hatched like every other member of their species. Anonymous. Seemingly ordinary. Except they're not. They carry inside them the genetic code that will take their species to the next evolutionary rung. Evolution is an imperfect, and often violent process. Morality loses its meaning. The question of good and evil, reduced to one simple choice: Survive? Or perish?
To survive in this world, we hold close to us those on whom we depend. We trust in them our hopes, our fears... But what happens when trust is lost? Where do we run, when things we believe in vanish before our eyes? We dream of hope. We dream of change. Of fire, of love, of death. And then it happens. The dream becomes real. And the answer to this quest, this need to solve life's mysteries finally shows itself. Like the glowing light of a new dawn. So much struggle for meaning, for purpose, and in the end, we find it only in each other. Our shared experience of the fantastic. And the mundane. The simple human need to find a kindred, to connect. And to know in our hearts, that we are not alone.
When we embrace what lies within, our potential has no limit. The future is filled with promise; the present rife with expectation. When we deny our instinct, and struggle against our deepest urges, uncertainty begins. Where does this path lead? When will the changes end? Is this transformation a gift or a curse? For those who fear what lies ahead, the most important question of all - can we ever really change what we are?
We all imagine ourselves the agents of our destiny, capable of determining our own fate. But have we truly any choice in when we rise, or when we fall, or does a force larger than ourselves bid us our direction. Is it evolution that takes us by the hand, does Science point our way, or is it God who intervenes keeping us safe.
It is man’s ability to remember that sets us apart. We are the only species concerned with past. Our memories give us voice and bear witness to history, so that others might learn; so they might celebrate our triumphs and be warned of our failures. There are many ways to define our fragile existence; many ways to give it meaning. But it is our memories that shape its purpose and give it context. The private assortment of images: fears, loves, regrets, for it’s the cruel irony of life that we are destined to hold the dark with the light, the good with the evil, success with disappointment, this is what separates us, what makes us human. And in the end, we must fight to hold on to. It's destiny. For all his bluster, it is the sad province of Man that he cannot choose his triumph. He can only choose how he will stand when the call of destiny comes. Hoping that he'll have the courage to answer.”
- A compilation of monologues spoken by the Character Mohinder Suresh from the NBC series “Heroes”
In the vastness of the universe, what is the purpose of the silent bonds that tie us all together? What is destiny? What is it to exist? To die? To live? Are vampires truly immortal if they can perish? What truly separates our two kinds from being mortal and immortal? From godliness? From being human? From humanity itself?
What is the soul? Is it simply our fragile character, the one that separates us from everyone else, that makes is who we are? Or is it an unseen entity within us, captured inside the breakable prison of bones, and muscle and flesh? When we both die, when we cease to exist, do our souls cease to exist as well? Does it perish with the gift of immortality or did it really exist in the first place?
If we are so different, why do we both retain the ability to love? And why does that love, created and held above all other emotions, hold the power that it does? Is it simply stronger than even our own mortality? Or is it just an insignificant detail in our humanity, a particle of matter, that can neither be created nor destroyed, but instead merely exists in our bodies?
If you take that fragile step into being, into immortality…does that love follow you into existence? Even as a Vampire? And when you are a vampire, since vampires are immortal, does your love exist within you as long as you exist? Or when you finally cease to exist; does your love cease to exist too? Does it die with you? Or is love the only true immortal? Is it eternal, undying…forever?
