Response to Highlander

I just knocked this up in about a grand total of thirty minutes, including editing. It's much shorter than the things I usually write, but I still like it. It's for Writing Club at school: we were supposed to write a response to a scene in a movie. So, here it is. I just thought I ought to share.

It’s a lazy Saturday. I’ve finished the brunt of my homework, leaving only a project on Islam and some study questions on Great Expectations for later. My cousin Seth is coming, and I have a million and one things buzzing through my head: clean the bathroom, dust the main room, empty the dishwasher, so on. My mom is leaving to go to Wal-Mart or one of its clones and, despite the fact that my head is so busy, I pop my favorite movie, Highlander, into my temperamental VCR.
I’ve been teased countless times for loving this movie so much. In fact, the number of times I’ve been teased is nearly proportional to the number of times I’ve seen the film. It’s a violent story, very much unlike the cult-classic comedies that I usually watch. However, amongst the blood and gore of a never-ending battle amongst immortals, a tearful subplot with a theme as ageless as time itself unfolds.
In the Scottish highlands, Connor Macleod, one of the immortals, falls in love with a beautiful young woman named Heather. Together, they live what was considered in the sixteenth century a fairly normal life. Their love is as flawless as they could hope for it to be. But, eventually, their love must come to an end.
Connor is lying on his back, holding the frail frame of his bonny Heather. His timeless, forever youthful brown eyes never once leave the aged, wrinkled face of his love, even though she asks him to look away. “Let me die in peace,” she begs, her voice quiet, raspy. In answer, Connor pulls her into a secure embrace, pressing his cheek into her frazzled, white hair.
“I don’t want to die,” Heather confides, clinging to her husband. Weakly, as if her words could anchor her to her failing life, she states the obvious: she wishes she could live with Connor for forever, wishes she could have bourn him children, wishes she didn’t have to go, wishes, wishes, wishes. Connor quells his own emotions just long enough to see her into her afterlife, the one place he can never follow.
“Where are we?” Heather asks, her head resting tiredly against Connor’s chest.
“The highlands, my blossom. Where else?” he answers, a smile playing on his lips. He then describes where they are, then where he wishes that they could be: a place where they could be together forever. Heather holds on to his words for as long as she can, but eventually loses her feeble grip and, in the warm, strong arms of her husband, falls asleep for the last time.
“Good night, my Heather,” Connor whispers tenderly, tears welling in his eyes.
No matter how many times I watch Highlander, no matter how ridiculous the story may seem to others, this scene infallibly rips me apart. Not only is it a tragic happening in itself, but it also reflects what happens to everyone who dares to fall in love. All things die: there is no exception to this. Not even love escapes. Even if a couple resolves to stay together for the rest of their lives, even if they love each other until the day one of them is destined to go on to whatever happens after this lifetime, their love will still die. The memory of their love will linger on for forever: the happiness that it brought as well as the pain. But the love still dies. However, even though this death causes every lover to mourn at some point in his or her life, most would rather have that memory, a memory of feeling a way they had never felt before, than to have never loved at all.

This scene breaks my heart every time I see it. I can identify very strongly with Connor, in a way: even though I have never been loved by someone I love (I mean the love between lovers, not agape or the love for my mother or friends or anything like that), I have felt the pain of losing someone. To be more accurate, I've felt the pain of not ever having that someone. I've loved him since I've found out who he is, and even though he's dead, I cannot let the love die. Well, it can never die: it never lived in the first place. Sad, huh? I try so hard to forget about it, but I never can, atleast not for long. Perhaps I should just stop feeding my love: stop listening to him sing, stop looking at pictures, stop watching him. It's a false love, anyway. He doesn't know who I am. I'm not even the only person like myself, even though I feel like I am. Pathetically enough, I'm in love with a dead man. Still. I'll try not to blog about it anymore; I've said it many times. Repeating it isn't helping. I just wish that there was someone out there that understood. It's not a teenage crush. It's not a celebrity infatuation. It's not a stalker-esque fascination.

I know what it is. I've admitted it. I'm not in denial. I just wish that I could have been given a fighting chance. Maybe I did have one at a point, but I guess I threw it away.

Stupid, stupid Grey.

...

I'm going to go ahead and sign off now before I confide just a little too much. I'm an open person, but there are some things that, well, to be honest, you people don't really need to know. Sorry. Anywho, peace, much love, all that jazz, and I'll try to get back on soon.

Grey

PS: My internet has crapped out: I'm only able to do this by working through the "back door" of my computer. So no picture: I don't want to test my luck too much by logging on to Photobucket. I'll try and pull one up when my computer decides to work 100% again. -_- I hate technology.