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He walked slowly across the moonlit field, placing each foot carefully to avoid stepping in mud too deep. Beneath the grass, he could hear running water as it made its way across the swamp to the lake. He felt that she was watching him from Virgo--watching him even as he watched the full moon.
Death and memory swirled in his mind. "To be forgotten is worse than death." Freya, in Final Fantasy IX. Or "When I am gone, I would rather people ask why I have no monument than why I have one," from the otherwise mysterious Cato the Elder. And he thought of what he might be able to do to leave his mark on the world.
Immediately, source code leapt to mind; but the hundreds of names in the Linux documentation were just as unfamiliar to him as his own name would be to millions of others if it were there. He doubted that he could acquire the fame to reach history books, like Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds. So the part of the world that would make him money was worthless. It seemed fitting.
He could live in a small town, constantly doing good and donating money to various projects, to be permanently remembered as someone rich who lived in a small town. He could live in a big city and be forgotten with the millions of other nobodies, just another dreamer who was going too far.
No matter what he thought, he didn't seem to get anywhere useful by affecting the material world. So the only thing he had to live for was to help others. He looked back over his shoulder at Virgo. He'd already touched one life, and that had brought him the best thing he had ever felt: love. Money was easy to squander and forget, and having a statue didn't imply permanence. But love....
Peepers down the road tugged at the edge of audibility as his foot met something solid. The neighbor's driveway. With one last look at the moon, he turned around and began to head back, watching his shadow slink across the grass ahead of him. Love....
Love wasn't permanent. But it was sweet enough that he didn't really mind. Besides... if he touched a life, and she touched another because of him and so on, then it wouldn't be long before he had changed the world. He blew a kiss to Virgo and smiled to himself, wondering if she would ever know. He went back inside and quietly returned the knife to the drawer.
An eight inch French chef's knife, to be exact.
No matter what I do, my name won't matter to the world just because it's in a Help file somewhere. If I donate so much money to a village that I get a park named after me, people will look at the sign and say, "Who?" ten years later.
BUT... I don't need my name to matter. Even if I change the world anonymously, it will still be changed. "I am only one, but still I am one; I cannot do everything, but still I can do something." (Hellen Keller)
(There used to be a comments form here. However, having seen what I get when I make it easy to comment, that form has been indefinitely suspended. I can still be reached by email at <loonxtall@hotmail.com>. I apologize for any inconvenience.)
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