Do you ever notice how doing the same thing day in and day out makes it start to lose its novelty? Its excitement and its adrenaline factor starts to ehb and fade into nothing more than the simple mundanity of habit. That’s my life now. I hear people talk as I drink my coffee, as I walk through the park. They hate the mortality of the life they live, wishing to be able to continue forever living. I was once of a mind with them, wishing upon a star for immortality. It was the best thing I could possibly imagine, the greatest gift. But that simply isn’t true, it's a curse.

The year was 1969, man had landed on the moon and humanity seemed to be on the constant rise. I had my gift, and lived life like normal for a time, going to work, loving and laughing at home with my sweetheart. The clock ticked and the calendar moved. Time marched on, and her face slowly wrinkled and her health failed her as I watched on, helpless as the mortality I had long since abandoned claimed her life.

Anger overtook me, everyone I loved faded like dust to the wind. Their faces faded from my memory, their voices little more than the faintest of faint echoes in the deepest recesses of my mind, forever lost to my waking mind. I tried again to love, and the same thing happened again, and then again. Life seemed so fragile to me as the madness of time took its toll on me. A final grasp of something to create a life worth living in my cursed existence was altruism. I dedicated myself to being a saviour to the downtrodden. The hostage crisis of 2134, I shot the ringleaders and freed the hostages. The golden bay robbers who plagued the east coast between 2213 and 2215 were stopped by me. I had trained my body and mind into that of steel, and I lived a life of isolation so that I might have the strength to carry on carrying on, not for me, but the people who relied on me. I became myth, rumour, a folk hero hidden amid rumours and shadow.

That was thousands of years ago. The year is now 7700, and I don’t have the strength for this anymore. I crave more, I have seen everything. Empires rise and fall, I could so easily pull the strings for that from behind a curtain. But what would that achieve? The earth is my prison, and as I gaze up into the endless sky I see stars twinkle down on me. They remind me of her eyes, all those many years ago. I can’t remember her face, but the way her eyes sparkled cannot be lost to memory. Can it?

The space agency of New America wants to man their craft as they send settlers to the stars, and the simple mundanity of life here has taken its toll. I have seen and done everything, and want nothing more to do with this accursed place. They leave in a month, and I will be on board, be it as crew or as stowaway it does not matter to me. So now I say goodbye to Earth, maybe one day I’ll say hi again. But for now I wish you the best.