User blog comment:Doctor Ibrahim/The Fatekeeper/@comment-30014014-20161127220324/@comment-28358106-20161130043026

"Birth and death...yes.  I have seen them, the first and the last.  But not as you understand it."

He gestures towards an obelisk. ' "The purest memories are those tied with emotion.  Rote memories are cold and dull, little more than reactions.  However, memory, as it becomes one with the mortal heart, becomes part of the condition of the human soul.  When did the first death occur?  The answer is not so simple." '

'"Deaths of animals come and go at a furious pace, the deaths of the least no more or less important than the greatest.  Their lack of importance is due to one thing: there is no loss of sense of self, no realization of the inevitable rather than the immediate.  This, the first death came when man first understood that his existence was finite.  Had many died before?  Indeed.  But only when man's struggle against the inevitable began did his death gain any importance.  It was then that he understood that his actions would affect those who came after.  Then, and only then, did memory become tied to his soul, for it is memory that lives on.  Memory is the mark of progress of mankind.  It is his language against the groping silence of the black and infinite." '

"The first true death was not a man, but a woman.  A woman who, upon fleeing some savage, primordial wolves in the ancient past, hid her child within a tree.  That child watched his mother get devoured.  So strong was the impression in him that her memory stayed within his mind.  Through his subsequent years, he would protect his own not simply through instinct, but with the primitive emotion stirred in his heart.  He would teach his children about her through gestures, immortalizing her in their memories as well.  Thus, the first true death was recorded, for it was memory that held her past her own generation."

He finishes his speech. Aidlis snorts awake, having nodded off.