The Will To Live Is The Essence of Life Itself

December 13th, 1659

The candle light flickers as I write hastily to you, jotting down my many thoughts and memories recalled from today, this week, and this treacherous month. It’s been a terrible winter; brisk, icy, deathly cold. My mare had her first foal yesterday in the barn, but our livestock has perished. The blizzard wiped out half of our town’s crops, and it’s killed many. However, despite the freeze, I was able to salvage potatoes from our crops. Curious. 

I awoke this morning to the sound of clacking teeth, sparkling fire and the scent of something cooking in the sitting room. I then remembered that today was my birthday, and I decided not to descend the stairs. I lay in bed, knowing what father would do; order me to do things he could no longer do, lead a monster hunt, muck the stalls, brew a pot of tea. I hadn’t any real expectations for my birthday. I never did. I’m certain that if my mother were still with us, she’d pay a great deal of respect to her only son’s birthday. My father, however, did not even glance at me. Birthdays had been known to me as nothing more than an ordinary day, but I had been disappointed. On the day of my 17th birthday, I had asked for a stallion; one to charge up hills, push through the winters, and breed with my mare. But all I received was a riot act about God and the Devil from my father, and a biscuit for my dinner. 

I couldn’t be more ready to flee this horrid prison. I have heard, memorized, remembered and recited all of the verses and prayers I had been forced to learn, been made a fool of if I paused, stuttered, or hesitated. And today, of all the damned days, my father decided to ignore my wishes, order me around his needs, and drag me to church once again. 

I hated church; I never understood why God would damn his people, his children to a place of fire, despair, and death. I despised my father’s use of his power to turn the town into an insane, blistering, heated infantry. He lead them to believe that the sweet old lady who’s pot of flowers landed on someone from the second story of her home was the work of witch craft. He lead them to believe that the man who shouts profanities from his roof at passer byes is the work of the Devil. However, I could not agree with his observations. In this society, this way of living, we’ve been forced to think that anyone who is different than us is evil. I am different. Most definitely different. I have dreams, premonitions, thoughts, powerful emotions. Even as I write, I feel immense emotions rush through me like a waterfall. However, I’ve learned to conceal it. I’ve become one of them. 

I suppose it isn’t all bad. 

Happy Birthday to myself, and farewell wishes to all,

Carlisle

©Copyright 2011 Mystic Harbor

*sits at my desk in my study, Chopin Nocturnes playing softly in my ears, recalling my day and past as I begin to write in my journal. I title the entry with the date and become lost in memories*

   August 30, 2011

Death is apart of life. Of course, we’ve all been raised to believe that.

As had I.

But for my kind, death cannot touch you. Death is but a mere memory. Those we love and cherish pass by in death while we live on. Our lives are endless.

This eternity of endless madness drags on and on. We are not able to eat, sleep, drink or do anything enjoyable that humans can do. It does get tiring after a while. Blood. The salty crimson delight that some of us devour without a second thought. I suppose if I was a dreaded human eating vampire that I’d enjoy life more sometimes. However, despite my agitated state I find myself in sometimes, I never look back and doubt the choices I made.

If I had, indeed, never left the Volturi, there would be 1,000’s of lives lost because I wasn’t there to save them.

That’s one thing I am proud of. That someone’s life is better made because of me. That I saved that sickly child in 1920 with pneumonia, who would grow up to have a family, children, and begin a generation.

However, I find the thoughts entering my mind when I swiftly break an Elk’s fragile neck, why I do this.

It’s as easy as breathing air when I walk into the hospital… My sanctuary. My place of study. I do find my sense of smell an excellent diagnostic tool when I work. I am able to find things normal physicians would never be able to. I can catch things before they are much to late, and treat them.

But then again, the thoughts enter my mind.

Why do I do this?

I found myself thinking this today when I was in my office at work, having just arrived home from a trip to Port Angeles.

Why do I do this?

And whenever the thought enters my mind, I shake my head, holds my temples and think to myself,

I do this because it is who I am.

This job is not simply a choice that I made… To enroll in medical school because my mother and father wanted me to… Or because I fancied Biology in school…

It is because the very fabric of my being, my very core, orders me to do this. I am made to do this. To sit in this office, sign charts, and head off to the next exam room to visit my next patient who is healing from a traumatic auto mobile accident, receive a page from the ER of a child with a broken limb because they fell down a hill… This work is who I am.

It is almost as it is…. Water to a human is medicine to me. Without it, I cannot survive.

I suppose it’s just the way it is, really. Esme makes it that much easier for me to exist eternally on this ever changing planet.

~Carlisle

© Copyright 2011 Mystic Harbor

He circled me, and I could hear the anxious, almost aching tone in his voice. 

“Won’t you consider it, Carlisle? You could be great.” 

I clenched onto the arms of the chair, annunciating my last statement clearly.

“No.”

“You’ve learned so much, Carlisle. Consider the possibilities you could have here. If you’d just give in…”

“There is a greater purpose than living off of the dead, Aro. Forgive me, but I cannot see how that is truly living.” I looked to him, and caught direct eye contact with his blazing red eyes. 

“So, you’d much rather live off of animals?” His tone was hysterical. A loud laugh boomed from him, and I jumped. 

“As much as I have enjoyed and learned greatly from my time here, I feel it’s my time to move on.” I cleared my throat, standing, “I’ll just begin packing, then?”

Aro’s face dropped and he put his hands to his lips, quietly thinking of his next statement. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, but then he spoke, “One last gesture, as a… Farewell gift..” He gestured toward the door, which opened slowly. 

I smelled it before I saw it, and I was horrified at the sight. A woman, a mother, pregnant with a child was carried in and dropped onto the marble floor. She was screaming and begging for help, sprawled across the floor, clenching at whatever life she had left. Blood dripped from her scalp, her neck, chest and torso. 

“Signore, ti prego, aiutami! Gentile signore! Per favore!”  Her strained voice filled my head, and I couldn’t bear to look at her. I took a step back as she reached for my feet, unable to help her. 

I looked to Aro, his heated, hungry eyes on mine, “End her suffering. It’s your last final chance, Carlisle.” 

I looked down, placing my hands behind my back, “I will not end her life. Finish this, Aro.”

And so he did. With one quick snap of her neck, the woman’s suffering ended, and Aro sunk his teeth into her. 

I turned around, and without a goodbye, left to my chambers where I gathered my belongings and quickly left, horrified. 

After Volterra, I went to France, then to Germany, and by 1800, I left for America. 

I cannot truly imagine what it would have been like if I stayed in that horrid place. Who I’d be. The thought chills me to the bone. I still hear that woman’s screams in my memories. 

All’s well that ends well, I suppose. 

Carlisle 

© Copyright 2011 Mystic Harbor

The day has begun to end with another sunset. I’ve watched that same sun for nearly 400 years, and I never tire of seeing the end of the day. This time grants me the opportunity to begin a new “day”. Dusk is the time when I can pick up my lab coat, or take it off. Greeted by my family, or waved at as I drive off the long, secluded road toward town. Being a physician has given me a purpose on this earth. It has given me a reason to see the sun set and rise once again every day. I’ve been able to watch the stars form different shapes, moving across the sky like a cluster of tiny memories. As a boy, I’d stare up at those stars, placing a single strand of memory from my eternal existence in each one. It pulls me into a state of awe as I stare up at those same stars today. I feel as if each one is a little guardian watching over us in our lives. They see the joys, the struggles, the pain, the happiness… They see birth, death, and years of what our planet earth has been through.

I could ignore the sun each morning, shun it, and hide in a blanket of my own self pity… or I could embrace the sun, dance in it, and smile when I see it.

I feel like I have accomplished something in this eternal existence. Even if I am damned, regardless.

Carlisle