Favuxo awoke just as the last bit of the sun finally rose into full view above the eastern horizon. He felt refreshed, as though he were starting a new life -- and he knew that he was. What surprised him was that he was experiencing a pleasant feeling -- a sort of relief -- despite knowing that he would soon die, would never again be able to leave his body, and would never again communicate with another favuxian. He supposed that the new experiences, the totally new way of life that he was gaining, had temporarily blocked out all that he had lost. For the first time since his youth, he was increasing his understanding rather than simply increasing his knowledge.
The view of the sunrise from the window of his motel room had caught his attention. He realized that although he'd often been at locations on planets where it was the beginning of the day, he'd never enjoyed a sunrise. It seemed ironic to Favuxo that, after longing for billions of years to see stars explode, he could find it fascinating to watch a star coming back into his view after being blocked out by a planet for several hours. After all, it would burn without change for billions more years.
Startled by a noise in the room in which he thought himself to be alone, Favuxo turned around to see a cadopeken standing behind him. He assumed that it had come through the wall and then changed into physical form, just as he had once been able to do -- just as he had been able to do the day before.
The cadopeken spoke out loud to itself in its native language, its face displaying surprise. "Where is the weapon of this one? Why has it not killed me?"
Favuxo responded: "I don't have a weapon," he said. He was unprepared for this strange occurrence and, before he could stop himself, he had responded in cadopeken language. Favuxo immediately realized, of course, that this was a language that as a human he should not have known how to speak. The cadopeken backed into the wall, startled, but recovered quickly enough.
"How is it that you know our language?" it asked.
Favuxo was unsure how he should respond. He knew that his provided false identity as an unemployed former auto worker would be of no use to him. As hard as he thought, he could come up with no reasonable explanation for his knowledge of cadopeken language.
"You've no doubt forgotten how to speak it now," suggested the cadopeken, apparently amused by Favuxo's long pause. "You must not be a human, but rather someone disguised as a human. Humans do not have the technology to have visited Cadopek and studied our people."
"I am a human now," Favuxo explained, not expecting his story to be believed, "but I was until recently a member of a species of no physical form, much like you have partially become. Individuals of my species have observed Cadopek constantly since long before the beginnings of your species. I had telepathic access to the knowledge collected about cadopekens. This is how I learned your language. I recently reached the age at which it is customary among my people to become a member of a mortal species."
"What news can you bring me? What has happened on Cadopek in the last century and a half?" The cadopeken seemed genuinely eager to hear what Favuxo knew about the planet, almost convincing Favuxo that he had believed the story that Favuxo had told him. Favuxo was unsure if it would be wiser to continue to tell the truth or to invent a more pleasant lie at this point. The cadopeken could never know the difference. He would undoubtedly not live to return to Cadopek.
In trying to think of what to say, Favuxo found that he felt so uncomfortable creating lies that he had no real choice. "When I last visited," he began, "I discovered that the planet had been reduced to rubble. All cadopekens were dead, with their corpses scattered across the landscape." Favuxo knew as he finished saying this that he ought to have been far less direct about the matter, and that the cadopeken no doubt thought him to be a cold, heartless being. He wished to go back and change his words, but knew that he could not. Instead, he continued: "Your species destroyed itself in a conflict between energy beings and non energy beings, a larger scale version of what we see here on Earth."
The cadopeken vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Favuxo to focus his gaze upon the wall. He waited, hoping that the cadopeken would reappear. It would not.
When Favuxo left the Blue Sky motel that morning, he chose to take a long walk around the city in order to familiarize himself with his new surroundings. Block after block he saw burnt remains of buildings, along with scattered human bodies. About half of the bodies he saw appeared to have been killed by energy blasts. The other half were riddled with bullet wounds.
Favuxo found that he could understand, even if not agree with, the human reasoning for destroying all of the energy beings. It had been in his mind all the time while he had been talking to the cadopeken that at any moment, if angered, it could have ended his existence. Thinking back on the situation, he could see that the logical thing to do (wishing to protect his life) would have been to run away and escape from the energy being, or kill it if he had possessed a weapon. Flight or fight were the only options open to a being trapped in such a vulnerable body.
Sometime slightly after noon, Favuxo entered a fast food place. He didn't feel especially hungry, but his body had somehow lead him there anyhow.
While standing in the long line, Favuxo's thoughts again turned to death. He had not thought that his situation in life could change how he viewed death -- he thought death after all to be a very constant thing. Yet, despite that, it no longer frightened him so much as before. In facing death, Favuxo could no longer rationalize calling it an enemy. He no longer wished to control it, or to make it predictable. He'd begun to understand that his desire to control it had instead allowed it to control him, just as it was controlling so many of the humans. Death was not Favuxo's enemy to be conquered, it was not his wild animal to be tamed.
"May I take your order?"
Startled out of his meditation, Favuxo realized that he had arrived at the front of the line. "A double whopper meal, please, with fries and a coke."
"Would you like to super size that?"
He thought about it, carefully. "Yes."
As he sat down to eat, it came into Favuxo's mind for the first time that death cannot matter as much as life. He'd derived his fear of death from the fact that death would end his life; yet now he wondered how it could be possible for avoiding the end of something to be more important than that something itself. He concluded that the end cannot outweigh the totality. Favuxo thought again of what the Elder had said, but from a different perspective: "By its very nature, death cannot exist. Life approaches death, but can never reach it. Death is the end of life, and is therefore impossible without life. If something is impossible to reach, who can say that it exists?"
As he ate, Favuxo watched the television. He was beginning to enjoy the program when the picture disappeared for a moment and was then replaced by a drab news studio: "We interrupt this program for breaking news... Just a few moments ago, a group of heroic citizens trapped several dozen energy beings that were holding a meeting in a small park here in San Carlos. The citizens closed in around the beings, and we believe that all of the creatures were destroyed. Although most of these valiant citizens lost their lives to the bullets coming from the opposite side of the circle, this is another large reduction in the numbers of the energy beings. United Nations sources are confident that the entire infestation will be eradicated by the end of next week." The picture of the anchor person faded away, but the message remained.
Favuxo set out again to continue his exploration of San Carlos. As he walked, he began to notice a beauty in the city previously hidden to his senses. The bluish-gray sky seemed dazzling that afternoon, and the sounds of passing cars were oddly comforting.
"Beautiful," he muttered aloud. "Beautiful city."
Unbeknownst to Favuxo, a young man had been walking along only a few feet behind him. "What did you say?" the man inquired.
"Oh. I didn't notice anyone was around. I was just talking to myself, commenting on the beauty of this city."
"That's what I thought I heard, but it seemed a rather unlikely thing for a person to be saying. You aren't from around here, are you?"
"No."
"Where are you from? I'd like to be sure to stay as far away from there as possible, if it makes San Carlos seem beautiful by comparison."
Favuxo remembered that he was supposed to be from Detroit, but he still did not feel comfortable using the false identity provided for him. "I'm from some place... far away. It doesn't matter."
The man looked curiously at Favuxo for a moment, as though suspecting that an interesting story might lie behind the face, and then spoke one final comment: "Huh." He walked away, leaving Favuxo to continue his exploration alone.
Favuxo did not stop to eat dinner, and thought nothing of it until his stomach began to protest during the late evening. Despite the growling sound his stomach was emitting, he suppressed his hunger by telling himself that he would eat something later that night. He wanted to see as much of the city as possible before retiring. He wanted to familiarize himself with his surroundings -- he wanted to understand them. Other types of hunger would need to be satisfied before the physical hunger.
Pausing to admire it, Favuxo saw that the sunset was even more brilliant than the sunrise at which he had marveled that morning. He realized again that he previously never would have found it interesting. Such simple things had never given him pleasure. More precisely, he now understood, he had never before given himself pleasure when viewing such simple things.
Favuxo turned a corner and found himself on a small, dead end road. Exhausted from his day of walking, he sat down and rested on the edge of a lawn. He had not anticipated such tiredness, being in only his second day as a human. It was immensely frustrating to him that such a simple thing as changing his location had become so strenuous, although he also found that there was much in the universe which could not be seen at his more familiar pace.
Looking up, Favuxo observed that the sun had completely set and the sky was darkening. The planets Venus and Jupiter were visible, but no stars. He inspected each planet for a few moments. They were different from what they had been a few days earlier. They were more distant, more mysterious, more fascinating.
Above the distant roar of automobiles, Favuxo could make out the constant beat of cicadas all around him. They formed an invisible yet still tangible mass, enveloping him. After he'd been sitting for a few minutes he heard a louder sound directly behind him: "Meow?" it asked.
Favuxo turned to look at the visitor, picked it up, and then spoke to it softly. "Do you ever look at the sky, cat? When there's no bird, no movement at all? The stillness of it..." He paused for a long while, in thought. "I have to go, cat. I have to continue searching, even though I've no idea what I'm searching for. Perhaps that doesn't matter anyhow... perhaps the search is what matters, perhaps the search is what I'm searching for."
After a few moments more, Favuxo set the cat gently down on the damp grass and began to walk away, back towards the bright lights of the busier streets. The cat meowed at him again. He turned around to look back at it. "You think I should stay here, don't you? A part of me wants to. I have a strange premonition that danger, or death, is out there. Fate always waits just ahead, just out of view, at the edge of the darkness." Favuxo knelt down and petted the cat for a minute more, then stood again. "My destiny was set long ago. Whatever it is, I must go meet it. You belong here, I belong somewhere else."
Hoping that there would be a motel somewhere nearby, Favuxo began to walk. Many of the streets were strangely quiet, but he eventually came to an especially brightly lit area where he could hear human voices. Looking towards the source of the light and noise, he saw a pile of charred automobiles and human remains blocking the street. A half dozen people were dragging bodies to the side of the road and forming a large mound out of the dead.
Favuxo walked over to the pile of bodies, and stood there watching the people work. If they recognized his existence, they gave no sign of it. One of the workers spoke loudly: "Hey, Brian! You got here before I did. Did the people kill the energy being when they fired all these bullets?"
"Nobody stuck around to tell me, and I hear it don't leave no mess when you shoot an energy being."
There was a period of silence lasting perhaps five seconds before the other spoke again. "Sure wish it worked that way with people. I'd be home by now." He thought for a brief moment. "Sure seems like a waste if they didn't kill the thing. All these bodies..."
Another worker interrupted: "If they didn't kill it, maybe the problem was that all these people got in the way."
Stretching his tired body, Favuxo looked in both directions. From where he was standing, he saw no motels. It had become very dark outside of that small circle of street lights, so he could not see very far.
Favuxo was about to continue his search when he saw an energy being come through the wall of the building next to him, no more than five feet away. He noticed it at the same time as several other humans, and they began to shout... they began reaching for their guns.
Favuxo observed that his body was stationed on a direct line between the energy being and the group of workers. In that instant, Favuxo entirely understood his situation. He knew there was no time for escape. The people and their weapons had a mission to accomplish, and they would not endanger it for the sake of his life.
The guns ejected their bullets in unison. The energy being, recognizing its situation but not willing to accept it, wildly projected a ball of energy out of itself. As the energy being died an instant, painless death, the unguided energy ball struck the mound of human remains and set a small but rapidly expanding fire of cloth and flesh among them. A dozen bullets became lodged inside of Favuxo. He stood staring straight ahead for a moment, then collapsed into the now burning pile of bodies he'd been standing above. Although he appeared to be, he was not quite dead.
As the pain and fire washed over him, Favuxo reflected upon his life. The events of the last several months changed as he thought about them. He no longer felt angry, upset, or depressed about what had happened to him. It was all for the best, that he be taught a lesson by the universe before his time ran out. Once it had caused him grief to realize that he, like all others, was subject to the unpredictable nature of the universe. That idea changed since he'd become a human, becoming something somehow comforting to him.
Thinking of them now, as an outsider, Favuxo thought favuxians to be a foolish species. Hoping that unlike all other favuxians the Elder could hear his thoughts even now, Favuxo addressed him: "Elder, realize what misguided creatures you favuxians are. You yourself are especially foolish, having been the architect of such a society. You spend your lives in constant fear of losing control. You fear death so much that you feel you must kill yourselves. By creating a structured life to give the illusion of importance, you miss the true importance of life. You miss the experience of life itself."
Favuxo briefly wondered if the Elder had any idea of what the true value of the Inabilin had been for him -- how being a mortal had made things clearer. Soon, Favuxo was no longer able to wonder.
Favuxo's blackened, flaming arm briefly rises up above the pile, and then falls back silently into the blaze which illuminates the night. A few minutes later, what remains is a glowing mound of indistinguishable ash. It cools quickly, becoming invisible in the blackness of the night.
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