The Inner Monologue

A most faithful and exact transcription of that long-suppressed oration, delivered by myself—an humble yet devoted Fellow of the Royal Society— unto my learned and esteemed colleagues, within the great and smoke-cloaked metropolis of London,
upon that day hallowed to our Lord, being Wednesday, the eleventh of June, in the year of Grace, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine.

My Esteemed Colleagues,

It is with both reverence and scientific curiosity that I stand before you today to present a most extraordinary subject—one that straddles the line between myth and observable fact. For centuries, tales of immortal beings have haunted our folklore, from the pages of Homer to the Highland ballads of my native Scotland. Yet what if I were to tell you that such beings do, in fact, walk among us? Not as gods or demons, but as men and women bound by laws of biology both familiar and profoundly alien?

Let us dispel, first, the most egregious of misconceptions: they are not truly immortal. Their longevity, though staggering, is not infinite. They may be felled by blade, pestilence, or the cruel whims of fate as readily as any mortal. And yet—they do not age. From the moment of their transformation (a phenomenon yet unexplained), their bodies arrest in the vigor of early adulthood. A man struck by this condition at twenty-five shall retain the countenance of twenty-five a century hence.

But do not mistake this for divine favor. Their flesh, though resistant to time, bears the scars of centuries. A sword wound earned at Waterloo, a burn from some long-forgotten fire—these marks accumulate, etching upon them a grim ledger of their years.

Their resilience, while remarkable, is often exaggerated. They heal no faster than common men—perhaps a quarter swifter at best—and disease may still claim them. Yet by sheer persistence, their immune systems grow formidable; having weathered plagues and poisons across lifetimes, they develop resistances unknown to ordinary folk. But this is no supernatural gift—merely the hard-won adaptation of a body forced to endure.

As for regeneration? Do not believe the stories of limbs regrown or brains remade. A lost arm shall remain lost. Their bodies mend as ours do—no more, no less.

And what of progeny? Here, too, legend errs. They are not cursed with barrenness. Their children, if they choose to bear them, are as mortal as any, though some whisper of a hereditary taint—a susceptibility to the same condition that granted their forebears such unnatural span.

Why does this matter? Beyond the thrill of the unknown, these beings—these Homo longaevus, if I may propose the term—offer a living window into the mysteries of senescence. What mechanisms halt their decay? Could their biology, once unraveled, grant even our frail species a reprieve from time’s ravages?

I leave you with this: Science has ever been the scalpel that dissects superstition. Let us wield it now, not to dismiss these wonders, but to illuminate them. For if immortality eludes us, understanding need not.

Gentlemen, I welcome your scrutiny.