A Conversation Beneath The Steps On Immortality
Drums thundered, the clash of iron echoed across the square. Golden banners quivered in the air, and above, a heavy layer of cloud hung like a curtain prepared for history’s stage. Yet beneath the stone steps, a few figures drew close, voices low, never colliding with the tumult of the crowd.
They were no ordinary men, but like symbols stepping out of ancient texts:
One draped in furs of the cold, carrying the breath of northern coniferous forests.
One whose eyes concealed both water and fire, whose breath was heavy with the toll of a bell.
And a brief listener, sharp light glinting beneath a black hat.
Their topic was not swords nor borders, but immortality.
“Seventy years old—still a child.”
“With so many forces at play, people today may even achieve immortality.”
“Perhaps to live to one hundred and fifty.”
“…If so, our shadows will outlast empires.”
What they spoke of as “immortality” was not merely the extension of lifespan. It was more like a metaphor:
The persistence of regimes.
The prolonging of power.
The defiance of death and succession.
Before the grand stage of armies in formation, they whispered of delaying decay. Like two ancient statues plotting how to deceive time itself. But time only sneered. It became a silent wind, brushing past their shoulders, stirring the banners. It knew: no matter how earnestly they spoke, immortality was a mirage. Even if one truly lived to one hundred and fifty, they would bear only a longer loneliness, a heavier debt to history.
The conversation beneath the steps would, in the end, scatter with the wind.
But that shadow would remain—
for there, they spoke not only of immortality, but revealed their fear of the end.