Protectors: time

    I got back to my apartment about fifteen minutes later.  I wanted to text the heir - Mari right away, but I forced myself to hold off.  Why was I so eager to speak to her?  Most probably it was because her friend had poked her nose into our conversation.  

    I pushed my bike into the communal garage, locking it up as I did.  The bike weighed over a thousand pounds so most people wouldn't be able to just walk off with it without my keys, but it was my favorite bike.  I took precautions.  I tucked my keys into my pocket and climbed the stairs to the second floor where my apartment was located.  My door I didn't usually lock, just because I didn't have many valuables with me.  They were all in one of the few places that I considered to be home in this world.  And believe me, that was not Pleighton.  

    Regardless, my apartment here was homey enough.  It was a studio, so the only separate room was the bathroom - not that I minded.  My bed was a futon in the corner, with a few chairs scattered around alongside my coffee table, and a T.V. on a desk in the corner.  My "kitchen" - though I hesitated to call it that - was a fridge, stove, microwave, and sink taking up about six feet total of one wall.  It wasn't much, but it was enough for my stay here.  The kitchen could use a little more something but I'd had worse.

    I set my bag down onto one of the chairs and took off my boots, leaving them next to the door.  After hanging up my jacket I sat down on my futon - which was currently in couch position - and turned on my T.V.  I set it to a music channel and pulled out the book I had been reading lately.  Life in Pleighton was boring enough that nothing had happened since I'd moved here.  Aside from stumbling across the heir.  

    Mari.  Her name was Mari.  My mind drifted off of my book and back to earlier.  It had been a long time since someone had gotten an honest smile out of me.    It wasn't that I was a happy person, just that life was repetitive and after a while you got to the point there not much made you really smile.  Not only that but she was kind.  That alone made me like her.  In this day and age too many people were selfish and egotistical.  Mari seemed like she was far more honest and caring than most of the people I'd been dealing with in the past thirty years, give-or-take.  

    I shook my head.  The world was getting darker with every passing year.  Even though we'd always come out on top, the Frights were sucking more of the light out of the world as time went on.  The way things were progressing, there was no telling what would become of the world in fifty years, let alone another eight hundred.  Something had to be done but for the life of me I had no idea what.  

    I shook my head again and set my book down, I wasn't paying attention to it anyway.  I laid down on my bed and rested one hand behind my head, staring at my ceiling.  I closed my eyes, preferring to listen to my music than dwell on endless circling thoughts that chased me most days.  Eight hundred years and it was always the same fight, the same problem, and still no solution.  There was only ever one issue that I set my thoughts to, and that was my immortality.  I often wondered what would become of me when all of this was finally over - if it ever would be.  Would I revert to who I had been?  Would I continue on, endlessly until the end of time?  I'd spent the majority of my life looking for answers and I still had none.  Nor did I know of any way to reverse this.  

    To become human again.  

    I didn't want to shirk my responsibilities.  After all I had signed up for them willingly.  However... life was long, eternity longer still than that.  Looking back it was bearable, what with the good memories and experiences I'd collected.  However, looking forward was a nightmare that I chose to avoid when i could.  I would never have a normal life, no matter how often I played at having one.  Even here, now, the job at the diner was just a way to pass time - as well as an alibi for why I was here.  I had more money than i would ever need.  I didn't eat much, didn't really need sleep.  I'd spent more nights on benches than in beds in the past few centuries and, to be honest, I often preferred it.  To be somewhere that I could watch time passing was almost euphoric occasionally.  It reminded me of why I did all of this.

    But still... it was nice to dream of growing older.  I laughed at that.  To think, there were thousands of individuals in this country who payed people to stop their physical aging, and here I was, begging for it, dreaming about it.  My face hadn't aged since I'd died.  Yes, my hair still grew and the sun changed the tone of my skin every summer, but no wrinkles or age spots had graced my face in all of these years.  Some days I hated it.  I envied those who had the chance to grow old with their families.  Those who found love.  In all of my years I'd never been able to allow myself to even tread those waters.  I never would.  I could never survive the death of someone that I cared for that much.  And that was what i hated most about my eternity.  That I would forever be alone of my own choosing.  

    I opened my eyes, reaching for the remote in order to change the channel.  The songs that had been playing were not doing anything good for my thoughts.  I ended up turning to a movie - that new Riddick one - before putting the remote down and sitting up.  I sighed, glancing at the clock to realize that a few hours had passed already.  I pulled my phone out of my pocket just to be sure I hadn't missed a text from her and saw that I had three missed calls from when I'd been at work still.

    After glancing at the number and listening to the messages that the caller had left, I dialed the number, pressing the phone back to my ear.  It barely rang once before the phone clicked and the voice came through the other end.  "Aley?"

    "Yeah, what is it?"

    "Geeze, why does it always take you forever to call back, Jen?"

    "Give me a break, Mike.  I was busy."  

    "Busy?  Doing what?!"

    "Working."  I grabbed the remote to turn down the volume on the T.V.  

    "Working?  Jen you're rich!"

    "Yeah, and?  You know I get bored."

    "Fine whatever.  Look Steven's been trying to get a hold of you for some props."

    I paused.  "Which ones?"

    "Well the movie's another Indiana Jones, so he wants some good artifacts."

    "What era?"

    "Man, i don't know!  He never tells me shit!  Besides you know him, he'll only do business with you."

    I rubbed my face, considering.  Finally I sighed.  "Fine, set up a time for this Sunday if he can make it to the prop house.  He gets six hours tops before I lock up again.  If he needs any more time than that, then he needs to set up another time later on."

    "Another time on top of the six hours or instead of the six hours?"

    "On top."  I could hear papers being shuffled on the other end.  "Also have him call me and read me a synopses so i can get an idea of what he's looking for."

    "Any specific time for that phone call?"

    "Any day between now and Sunday after five should work."

    "Got it.  Hey where's your job, man?"

    "A diner."  Before he could ask anything else I hung up.  It wasn't that I didn't like Mike, just that I didn't want to give away anything about the heir, even the name of her hometown.  

    Mike was the agent for my prop house.  I ran, owned, and made all of the actual transactions for the prop house, but Mike tracked down the companies and filmmakers who wanted to use them.  He also kept track of who had which props and when the expected completion date was.  I'd had to show up a few times to take back my props in person, but usually, Mike was spot on.  He'd been working for me for the past decade and he was probably the best agent I'd had.  He was a little hard to deal with at times, but then again, he was a product of the market.  

    I sighed again.  I'd have to block out my entire Sunday for the prop run.  At least I wasn't working, but if the heir wanted to do anything I'd have to refuse.  I blinked and shook my head.  It was Thursday, there was no way that I'd see her again by Sunday.  I'd just met her, and I doubted that she'd be willing to invite me to anything right off the bat.  Besides there was no telling if she would even want to talk to me within the next few days at all.  

    I looked at the screen of my phone again.  It had been three hours since I'd left work, with how high-schoolers were now, I'd expected a response already, to be honest.  I rolled my eyes slightly, hoping that she wouldn't use chat speak too much.  I understood it and could speak that way as well, but it irritated me to no end.  I could not - for the life of me - comprehend why writing conversation in shorthand had caught on en-mass.  All it did was make individuals less intelligent.  

    And don't even get me started on selfies.  They were the bane of my existence.  I avoided taking my own picture to begin with, lest anyone put two and two together.  Immortality was hard enough to explain to people I wanted to know about it, let alone the populace.  The craze of taking one's own picture obsessively was nauseating and nerve-wrecking all at once.  I was paranoid about someone taking a picture of me unawares and it getting around to people who knew me decades ago, only to see that I hadn't aged a day.  No, that was something I avoided at all costs.  I feigned shyness to balk at photos and protested group pictures, choosing to take them instead.  

    I cringed slightly at the thought that her friends would probably insist on seeing pictures of me.  Or even taking pictures with me.  The world today was far more self centered that in years past.  And capturing the moment on a screen was more important than remembering it and living it.  I sighed.  The world wasn't like it used to be.

    I slid my phone into my pocket before I stood up and grabbed my jacket off of the wall.  I pulled my boots back on and checked to make sure the door was locked this time.  I didn't want anyone walking in a the wrong moment.  After checking everything, I took a step forward and into my loft.  Not my apartment, but my loft in St. Louis, MO.  This... this was home.  It was small, not much bigger than the apartment in Pleighton, but it was two stories, with the second floor overlooking the first.  A spiral staircase lead up to the second floor loft, upon which was my bedroom and one bathroom.  Another bathroom was downstairs adjacent the guest room that largely went unused.  The guest room was accessible through the "dining room" per say - it was really just an open space dedicated to the dining table set.  The living room was on the opposite side of the loft, taking up a good chunk of the space with the furniture far enough apart that you could waltz between each piece and not brush any of them with your clothes, however, It wasn't so spacious that it felt stiff.  

    The kitchen took up about one third of the entire floor plan.  It featured a U shaped counter that was a breakfast bar on the open end.  The two sides that bordered walls had cabinets beneath as well as extended cabinets above.  The range had six burners as well as a griddle in the center, with a dual oven.  The refrigerator was a double door and double wide.  Even though I wasn't here as often as I was travelling... officially anyway, I always kept it fully stocked.  There was also a wine cooler, a dishwasher, a microwave, a double basin sink, and everything else you could imagine.  

    The crowning jewel of my loft, however, was that the entire outer wall was glass.  The loft sat at seven stories above ground level and the view was the perfect overlook of the Mississippi River.  The Arch was just visible to the left, standing tall above the building that blocked the view of it's base.  At sunset, my view was unparalleled, aside from those rare magical places on this planet where nature had crafted the perfect balance of beauty.

    However, this wasn't my final stop.  I'd simply come to collect my key to the prop house, which i never took with me while I was out travelling.  I walked over to the bowl on the kitchen counter where I kept it and plucked it out, turning around and stepping forward onto the stage of an old theater.  I turned around brushed the curtain aside, walking to the door to backstage.  I opened the door and stepped into what had become the home of my treasures.  After closing the door behind me, I gazed around me and took a deep breath.  I always felt lighter when i came here, breathing the air or eternities past.

    This, I could truly say, was my favorite place on earth.  Nothing compared to the millions of memories that lined the shelves in this room.  Nothing.  If there was one reason that I had to give for why I wanted to protect the world, this room would be it.  To most people, these were just props, to some artifacts or works of art.  Some might see them as pieces of history or a way to create history.  Still others could claim that they were moments of time captured in the material of each piece.  A few would see them as memories the way i did.  But they were so much more than any of that, more than all of it put together.  These items were why i believed in the human race. If we could create things as beautiful, as meaningful, as timeless as this... there was nothing that we weren't capable of.

    And this generation was making a mockery of everything I believed in.  Humans used to make such ungodly leaps of faith in science and art that the rest of the world thought they were insane.  Now they made six second videos and prank reels.  Humans used to seek to conquer the world, not to own it, but to know it.  Now they barely left their beds while watching life through a screen.  This - everything in this room - this was what it meant to be alive... not some mindless, time-consuming, drivel that was created to silence a generation.

    I sighed deeply as i began towards the cot that i kept here.  I flopped onto it, sinking into the fabric and staring up at the ceiling five stories above.  I closed my eyes and once more breathed in the smells of a lifetime.  Sometimes i could still smell the smoke from long dead fires, the salt from long ago voyages across oceans.  Sometimes all i could smell was the dust of centuries.  This time the air smelled stale.  That was my fault as I hadn't been here in months, much to my chagrin.  

    I rested my hands on my chest and allowed myself to drift off to sleep, feeling safer and more comfortable than anywhere else on earth.  In my dreams that night, friends long dead returned, rejoiced, reminisced.  Leonardo and Zephram welcomed me back into their arms as if no time had passed.  We spoke of everything that we had missed in each other's lives since we'd seen each other last.  Part of me knew it was a dream - Zephram and Leonardo had never known each other.  However, the rest of me didn't care.  I allowed the delusion to envelop me until i accepted it as reality.  All too soon, unfortunately, a strange buzzing in my pocked awakened my sleeping body enough for me to loose the dream.  I woke up to my alarm informing me that I had to get ready for work.  I immediately locked up behind me and stopped back at my loft - just long enough to drop off my keys - before changing and heading back to work.  

    Time was relative and fleeting, but oh so precious to waste.