Immortels

Jesse: Do you remember when I told you that I was 104 years old?

[Winnie nods]

Jesse: Well... it's the honest truth.

[Winnie looks confused]

Jesse: I'm gonna live forever. I'm never gonna change. The same with Miles and Tuck and Mae. Something happened to us. I mean, as far as I know, I... I'm gonna be 17 until the end of the world. It's the spring, Winnie. Something's wrong with it. It stops you right where you are, if you'd had a drink of it today, you'd stay just like you are...

[Both hear a rustling noise. They turn around to see Miles]

Miles: Don't you wish he'd told you... before you kissed him? Did he tell you that immortality isn't all the preachers crack it up to be?

Jesse: Hey, leave her alone, Miles!

Miles: Well, now, you wanted her to hear it Jesse-boy. She's the first person you want to tell the truth to.

Jesse: You just don't want me to have what you lost.

Winnie: Stop this... both of you. Tell me... the truth... I wanna know.

Miles: [Miles nods and walks over towards Jesse and Winnie] We all had a drink. Except for the cat, and that's important.

[the rest of the monologue is told in flashbacks of what Miles is saying]

Miles: The water tasted like... heaven. It floated over your tongue like a cloud. Tuck carved a T in the trunk and we moved on west to find a place to settle down. We put up a house for Mae and Tuck and a little shed for Jesse and me. That was the first time we figured there was something... peculiar. Jesse fell thirty feet and landed on is neck. He was up on his feet before Mae could work up a good cry. Didn't hurt him a bit, no broken bones... nothing. But that's not all... not by a long shot. Things began to happen. Some brush-poppers mistook Mae's horse for a deer. Thing is, the bullets didn't kill hime. Barely even left a mark. Then Tuck got bitten by a rattle snake, and you know what... he didn't die.

[laughing]

Miles: But the cat did, of old age.

[Somberly, touching the ring on his finger]

Miles: And Miles got married.

[Whispering]

Miles: Bo. Little Anna.

[Out loud]

Miles: Tuck figured it early on. It was the spring. We all drank from it, even the horse. It had to be... the source of our changelessness. I begged her to come back... to me and find the spring and drink from it. The children, too. It was our only hope... to be together. She'd made up her mind that I'd... sold my soul to the devil. And she left me. She took my babies with her.

[Angrily, with tears in his eyes]

Miles: Everyone... pulled away after that. There was talk of witchcraft... and... black magic. I went lookin' for wars to fight... and I saw brave men die at Vera Cruz. And then Gettysburg. Thousands of them in the blink of an eye.

[Crying]

Miles: But not me. I couldn't die. Like Little Anna. The influenza took her before she was fifteen. And Bo. He'd be almost eighty now if he were still alive. And my sweet... my sweet young bride. She died in an insame asylum. Old and alone. But I'm still here... I'm still here.

[Unable to say any more, he just cries. We turn to Winnie, who is also crying. The screen fades to black]