The stars are
beautiful tonight. I cannot help but notice. Beautiful and alluring and
mysterious when you're planet-side and looking up at them. Sometimes if you
stare at them long enough, you get the feeling that every answer to every
question ever asked is out there somewhere. Just waiting.
I don't
remember how long ago it was that the two of us stopped trying to destroy each
other. A few years… perhaps longer. Now that I think of it, I can't recall a
time we have ever seriously tried to do away with each other beyond a few
incidents right at the beginning. It was like we knew even back then that we
were more than just enemies. Perhaps it was just a sense of kinship we felt
with each other. We were both so alike – although neither of us would have
admitted it at the time – both outcasts among our people. Both obsessed beyond
reason… with each other.
He was the one who
made the first overture of friendship, surprisingly enough. I guess I should
have seen it coming long before it happened, because I often saw the way he
would look at the others, the way he would speak to his sister, with a hint of
near-desperate longing in his voice. He wanted to be a part of them, he wanted
them to accept him and see that he could contribute and make them all better
than they were. He wanted to save their miserable lives…
They needed a
savior… but they didn't WANT one.
As I think of
it now, perhaps there was just something else in him that they saw and
recognized – and perhaps feared as well. A reason they had to hate him. He was
better than they were in every sense of the word. And I know it now like I knew
it then – but did not want to admit to myself either. They didn't deserve the
Dib. It was as simple as that. Like a bird among fish, he could not teach them
how to fly. They could not see the world as he saw it.
It was their
loss, really. And my gain.
Hesitant and
unsure, so unlike his normal way of approaching me, he came up and sat at the
same table as me during lunch. He said nothing. I said nothing. We just sat
there in a silence that was no longer seething with angry emotion. It was…
companionable. As days passed in this new routine, we slowly started to talk.
It was a bit strained at first, and as always laced with our uncomplimentary
nicknames for each other. Gradually even those lost their bite, becoming almost
affectionate.
More time
passed and things changed between us. Some physical changes, as the Dib hit
puberty and soon came to tower over me. And I… I on the other hand had noticed
a pleasant side effect of living on this particular ball of filthy dirt. After
all, it was a fairly low-gravity ball of filthy dirt. I did not gain size in
bursts and leaps as the human did, but rather, slowly and gradually over long
periods of time. I doubt I could ever have matched him anyway. Not in a human's
lifetime – although the growth has shown no signs of stopping over the years, it
proceeds at such a slow rate that it is scarcely noticeable to the naked eye.
There were
other changes too… not really bad so much as faintly disturbing to me. I don't
know when it was that the Dib made that final jump in emotion towards me. It
had been obvious for ages that we were dependant on each other. So much so that
the thought of not being around the human was enough to arouse an almost
physical pain of depression in me. But it was different for him. I didn't know
it though. Not until he told me himself.
He'd been
wanting to for a long time, he said. I don't know how long, and it makes me
wonder now. As far back as that first tentative overture of friendship? Longer?
When I was confused at his cryptic words, he reached out a hand to me. There
was fear in his eyes. I recognized that. I didn't understand why it was there –
or what that strange other emotion lingering in his _expression was. Not until
he leaned down and pressed his lips against my own.
I barely felt
it at first. It was only the merest brush of contact… and then it burned.
Burned worse than the cursed water on this filthy planet.
It was the
first time in years that I'd struck him down. And I remember the _expression of
utter shock on his face. He loved me. The poor, pathetic wormbaby loved me. And
I broke his heart. What choice did I have?
My words were
harsh, my voice even more so as I told him it was hopeless. That I was Irken,
and that I could not possibly love a foolish stinkbeast. That I, ZIM, was
incapable of feeling such a weak emotion. I didn't say he had startled me, or
that I could not let myself become attached to someone I would outlive by
centuries. I did not say I was afraid. Nothing frightened Zim.
For a while I
thought that would be the end of our friendship as well. But he surprised me by
being more resilient than I'd thought. Things went on as they always had and
gradually the whole incident faded from memory, recalled only here and there
when he would look at me in a certain way, or get a certain tone to his voice when
he spoke.
So things were
good between us. For a while...
To this day,
I'll never know why the Tallest took it into their heads that I was a threat to
them. Perhaps they had noticed the increase in my height and f eared it would
continue. Whatever the reason, they wanted to test me. `A test of your loyalty,
Zim. If you are truly an invader, how can you refuse?' And I agreed like a good
little Irken. Agreed without ever asking what would be asked of me. If Dib had
been in my shoes, would he have done the same, or would he have questioned
first.
But to be Irken
is to obey our leaders without question.
Why did they
choose Dib, of all the filthy humans on this pitiful ball of dirt? Maybe
because of all the times I had spoken of him in my reports. Over all this time,
something must have slipped to make the Tallest think that Dib and I were less
than enemies.
`Kill him.'
I couldn't
believe it. I still can't. Nor did I need to believe, or even THINK about the
command I was given. The Tallest gave me a task. I had to carry it out no
matter what the cost.
He must have
known something was wrong when I contacted him, because he came to me without
question. But it wasn't until he came into my lab and saw me face to face that
he knew what it was. I saw a look come into his eyes, without even any word
from me, and it pained me as much as that single, hesitant kiss he had given me
on the day I broke his little human heart into pieces.
I thought he
would ask why. I thought he would DEMAND to know why. That he would leap and me
and shriek his betrayal, and tell me how I was a piece of horrible alien filth.
I think I could have handled that.
When it didn't
happen, I told him flat out that I was going to kill him, trying to goad a
reaction from him. He still said nothing, and so I demanded to know if there
was something he wanted to do or say first, or any special way he wanted me to
end his pathetic human life once and for all.
The look in
those amber eyes behind their thick lenses is something I shall never forget,
not even if I live to be taller than even the Tallest. `Just… pretend, Zim…'
It was obvious
what he wanted, and even though I might have refused – SHOULD HAVE refused –
there could be no denying the Dib-human this one last pretense. So I took him
in my arms, kissed him… and I told him I loved him. And the Dib smiled at me.
SMILED.
My hands were
shaking as I raised the syringe. One simple injection and it would all be over…
painlessly. The Tallest could make me kill Dib, but I would be damned before I
would hurt him again. He held out his arm to me, and he was unperturbed by any
of it… that small smile still gracing his face. Already he was as serene as the
twinkling pinpoints of starlight in the sky. I envied his poise.
Our eyes were
locked – magenta to amber – as the needle finally met his flesh. Even then he
did not so much as quiver, and I was so unsteady I am amazed I was able to keep
my feet. I have killed before in my career as an invader, but I have never done
it in such a manner, watching the light fade from those eyes and feeling a
gnawing of emptiness in my gut that grew with every passing moment to follow.
Then it was
over. Where once there had been a person who had been an integral part of my
life, there was nothing left but a dead…thing. It could not be reconciled that
this still, silent thing was the same as the boy who had once threatened to
expose me to the world, or the young man who had given me that tender, longing
human kiss beneath the stars. But it was. Dib was gone. Gone. And this thing
was all that remained. There was no going back now.
I didn't say
goodbye. I just couldn't force myself to say those words. I still can't… but
I'm beginning to realize that soon there will be no choice.
Gone is gone,
Zim…
Yet as cruel as
the death of the Dib was to me, fate still had one more dirty trick to play.
When I contacted the Tallest to tell them of my deed, they seemed startled at
first. They hadn't expected it of me, I suppose, knowing what the human had
been. And when it finally sank in… they laughed.
They laughed at
ZIM. And then they told me the truth. All of the truth, without regard to my
feelings or thoughts or even that I had just killed the most important thing in
my life for them.
A lie. All of
it was a lie.
I lost Dib over
a lie and a few moments of my superiors' petty cruelty. It is only the fact
that I FOUND Dib over that same lie which keeps me clinging to what dregs of
sanity I can claim to have.
Yes… the stars
are lovely tonight. Dib loved to look at the stars. It was one of the things
he'd confided in me long after we'd stopped being enemies and started being
friends. He dreamed of visiting them someday, of seeing other worlds, different
from his own but no less beautiful. I could never really share his wonder
though, not I, who had lived among the stars for so long. I feel as though I'm
looking at them through new eyes now.
Dib… there's
nothing else I can do for you now. And there's no comforting lie I can offer to
myself the way I offered one to you when you looked at me, and pleaded with me
to `pretend, if only for a moment'.
No. I'm wrong.
There is one more thing I can do. That I have to do.
It's why I'm
out here among the stars right now.
Slowly I pat
the small object sitting beside me. An urn. It's a silly human tradition that I
found while spending time on earth. When someone dies, the body is reduced to
ash, and the ashes scattered somewhere. Usually in a place significant to the
person while they lived. Even now I want to keep them. It's all I have left of
my old life. All I have left of the days of being an invader. The Tallest want
nothing to do with me anymore, and I'm not sorry to say the feeling is mutual.
I guess that makes me banished. I don't care.
I want to keep
these ashes, but something in me knows that doing so is clinging to a past that
burns me worse than all the water on this planet where I died. Invader Zim is
dead. So I must find out for myself who and what I am now. And in order to do
that… I have to let go.
Carefully I
reach up and activate my protective air shield, opening the Voot Cruiser and
going out among the stars, the urn still tucked tightly against my body. It's
almost over now. And now, at last, is the time for goodbyes.
The earth
didn't deserve you, Dib. No one on that filthy ball of rock and dirt deserved
you. They gave up their right to you a long time ago, when they rejected
everything you offered. And I don't deserve you either. Like them, I had my
chance and I rejected it. It burns… it still burns…
Unstoppering
the urn, I reach into it, scooping out a handful of the precious ashes, letting
them slide from my fingers. I do this handful by handful, until there is
nothing left inside the ceramic container – or inside me for that matter. I
feel so empty now.
But free. I
feel somehow free. A last gift from the Dib, I suppose. Is THIS how you thought
it would feel, Dib? You belong to the stars now.
As I get back
into my Voot Cruiser, I stop briefly to think about what I should do. I have no
home now, and only GIR as my companion. And I am no longer an invader. So, what
can I do with myself?
`Anything you
want…'
I feel the
sting of tears in my eyes and I smile through the grief. It is true. I can do
anything I want. Go anywhere I want. I don't have Irk anymore, and I never had
Earth at all. That leaves the rest of the universe out there for me to find
where I belong.
Or maybe… just
maybe… I belong to the stars now too…
…Goodbye Dib…