“A genius is the one that understands he is just a humble human being”

Why did it have to come to this for me to understand how right you were? No, I do not think that this meaningless life gives us the right to hope, to believe that something better awaits us just around the corner. We ignore the truth, my friend, and we are heavily punished for this right when we least expect it. The moment you think you have finally overcome your fears and you can start over without any regrets, you are swept away from your own universe by this evil force called destiny.
Did you really believe, Hytion, that you are too good for this cruel and unjust world? You often told me that the secret of success lies in having confidence in yourself, without any external factors, without any pathetic interactions with a much too harsh society. You were too dour with your own thoughts. A strong personality cannot be changed, it cannot be influenced by anything at all; a clear judgement can’t be clouded; obviously, it is impossible to find a weak spot with someone who doesn’t have one.
Belated advice but I do understand it. Anyway, how could you fall into the deepest traps of life despite knowing them so well? Maybe too well! You forgot to mention the most important cause of spiritual insecurity, that subtle self - destruction, that intellectual harakiri called love. All things considered, I do not really believe you loved her. You are too strong to love. Obviously, it was a sudden weakness that you could not control. I contradict myself, I do not understand, you don’t have any faults, you can’t have! even though you’re here...
I remember the first time we met. We were two young students, yearning for knowledge, trying to achieve greatness through philosophy. I can’t believe 15 years have already passed since then; but life has kept us close to one another, for better and worse. We were like brothers; at least I used to think so. Now I sadly realize that I do not know you at all. You must be too complex for me. You are like an elusive shadow that hides deeper and deeper every time you think you finally reached it. You know I often enjoy departing from the lame day-to-day life and try to aspire for greater ideals, to understand my purpose on Earth. Naturally, you do – you are omniscient. You reached such a level of intelligence that no one could talk to you anymore. You became an alien in your own world, my friend.
Always in search of an absolute truth, you realized there wasn’t one. You eternally hoped that you were created for a glorious goal; that somewhere out there in the sky’s emptiness, there is a He, a Creator with whom you will find a way to communicate, to obtain at last the answers you were searching for. You knew that dying can be a method of doing so, but you wanted your fellow beings to understand; the human race had to progress, to be aware of its goal on Earth.
Even so, you proved to be wrong, you lost exactly when you thought you were at your strongest. You couldn’t resist the temptation to fall into the lowest form of self-destruction – passion. Always preoccupied of the meaning, the symbol of our life, you ignored the opposite sex, you thought you were untouchable, too much of a realist to love. You disregarded the fact that you could be drawn by her life-style, or her innocence. She made you forget everything and fall in love head over heals with her.. It was then that you began to loose yourself, to die slowly and unknowingly.
Therefore, all your high ideals vanished in the blue eyes of that girl. It is the only detail that I remember, I can’t even think of her name. But you always told me it isn’t that important; it’s just a way to individualize a unique entity. Anyhow, people are much more alike than you think: they all smile when they are happy and cry when they are sad.
Nevertheless, Hytion, you are unique. You were able to grasp a truth that many can’t dream to realize. People are so insignificant in this gigantic world that we do not know more than a mere ant, that after all there is no point in trying to discover its secrets. Others and others will be revealed, so you will never get to the bottom of this, you will forever fight for a lost cause. Every new horizon opening before your eyes will only make you see what a fool you are, trying to continue.
All in all, you have a clear conscience – you gave it a try. You considered it is better that way than living your vapid life without even wondering “what am I doing here?”; “why was I born?” ;”what does the word “death” actually mean?”. Rhetorical questions that we will probably never answer. But life seems too pointless to even bother to live, yet we are alive, yet we exist. Someone thought it had the right to place us in this titanic universe to do something; this is why I tend to think we may have a purpose in this tiny, little existence because otherwise we wouldn’t live at all.
You were always outraged when it came to this issue. I mean, were we even asked if we wanted what was in store for us? Did we have the choice to refuse such a cruel fate? Can we have the strength to continue knowing that we are heading towards an endless road? There is no other possibility and we have to take this chance without arguing about it. We need to improve our livelihood and be better, and better, and better, until we are able to obtain the necessary technology to overcome these barriers that surround us and reach for the stars.
These are just a few of the things you taught me, Hytion, and now you are standing breathless in front of me without the power to express your thoughts, to make me understand why you did it. It has been a fortnight since I haven’t slept a wink. Every time I close my eyes, I picture your image when they got you out of that tedious flat. You looked so helpless; you were nothing more than a common person. Your body was still warm and blood was streaming from your neck in a steady flow that really scared me. You appeared to be more human than ever that day. Your late reflections meant nothing to me during those moments. I couldn't make out anything; they seemed so strange and distant. I could hear them though, but lost in my head, in an ambiguous Hebrew.
Oddly, I suddenly remembered that girl that had twisted your mind in the last year of your existence. Was it that you came to think you are no use to science anymore because you had been defiled by the ordinary vices of the crowd? Or did you have the feeling that you failed to fulfil your destiny and couldn’t take it anymore? Oh my God, that’s it! She was the one who killed you...
The most curious thing is the fact that I never considered you so weak as to commit suicide when you found yourself in a situation you couldn’t handle. You were much too proud to let a small inconvenience ruin your lifelong dream to study human nature till the end. You should have spent more time studying yourself. I think the climax of your decadence was the moment when you realized you were no different than any other, you were just a feeble human being that felt extremely sorry for itself and could not escape from this labyrinth it was trapped in.
Perhaps it wasn’t her fault after all. Your need of perfection finally got to you and when you acknowledged that you were not faultless, that you committed several mistakes and permitted her to interfere between you and your genius, you couldn’t handle it anymore and chose the easiest way out.
It is interesting that you wanted such a brutal death. A person with your mental strength wouldn’t have chosen the horrible physical torture you wished to suffer before you collapsed. On the other hand, sticking that knife in your throat was pretty common. I would have expected something more vivid from your wild imagination.
I often wonder whether you told her of your intentions. How did she react? I tried to find her many times but my search was in vain. She disappeared into the thin air, it’s like the Earth had swallowed her; absolutely no trace remained of her existence. The more I think about it, the more mysterious your death becomes. You couldn’t have done it. You were always saying that only cheaters choose the easy way. You wanted the humanity to benefit from your research, you were too proud to let them down.
On reflection, maybe I overrated you, but I knew you so well that I didn’t think you could be so unpredictable. That was indeed the biggest mistake in your life, you seemed excessively dull to some people. Not to me! I admired you; I respected you as a friend and worshipped you as a god. But frankly, all your work was in vain because you chose to die, to get out without presenting your ideas to the whole world. Why did you do that, my friend? Why did you do that?

I kept asking myself those questions for hours and hours as I was sitting at my friend Hytion’s grave. Everything was so quiet that I could hear the birds sing. They were singing the song of death, of loneliness. And I couldn’t help but hear them while I still had flashes of him and his work. He was a philosopher, a believer in greater truths. He had that terrible idea that he could make the world a better place for us to live in. I only now realize how pathetic it sounded...
And so I sat there, beside his cross underneath which a coffin was buried. And in that coffin, an extraordinary man was slowly becoming food for the maggots. Nevertheless, he was astonishing and I didn’t want to change my opinion of him for nothing in the world.
This is why I didn’t have the courage to open a note I had received in my mail from Hytion, before he died. I was afraid that he would tell me he was overwhelmed by fear and had panicked. I couldn’t stand the idea that he may fail my expectations and he will prove to be unworthy of my dreams.
Appearances are everything, he used to tell me. It doesn’t really count if you are exceptionally good at something or not. It only matters whether you were able to convince the others of your skill. Was it the same to him? Maybe underneath that sober figure there was a frightened and insecure person who stood defenseless against the gigantic rage of life.

“You must think less of me now when you saw I had the cowardliness to kill myself when things went wrong. But, my friend, you do not know the half of it. You remember that girl I used to date? I bet you believed that I foolishly fell in love with her and forgot all about my work. I couldn’t indulge myself into lay pleasures. You didn’t know my goal was far beyond that. It is true that I started to doubt myself and started to admit the fact that I may die before finishing my quest. This is why I thought of a replacement; and what better one than my own flesh and blood.
So, my plan all along was to become a father. She got pregnant causing me to ask myself whether he was going to be a child prodigy like me. My genetics studies were showing encouraging signs and everything was perfect. I felt secure. I knew now once again that a connection between Men and the Gods will be made. The work I spent 15 years in will not be in vain. Even if I won’t succeed, it will be taken over by my successors.
But yesterday everything changed. It was the most horrible day of my life. Doing a routine check at the hospital, I found out I had a brain tumor. The doctors gave me only a few months to live. I was devastated. The whole world seemed to collapse around me.
In my agony, I was senselessly walking on the road when I saw a beggar. Naturally, I tried to explain to him that I will die before completing my task on Earth, that humanity may never surely know it’s origins, although I was so close... In that moment, with a sad look on his face he asked me: “Do you have any food?” That’s when it struck me. Why do I want to help a world that doesn’t want to know? How can I enlighten someone that doesn’t even think about his or hers path in life? Everything I fought for all my life was useless. I needed to stop my research right away. It was clear that the human kind didn’t deserve the effort. They care too much about their daily routine to achieve spiritual greatness. What a fool was I to think I could change the natural order and turn humans into something they are not.
Blinded by rage, I only thought of destroying absolutely everything related to my past beliefs. And then, I remembered about the child. Something had to be done about it. The future goal of my unborn was already compromised and I couldn’t stand the idea of him living in this narrow-minded world. Killing her was rather easy. I will never forget the shock she had when she saw the sharp blade of my knife...As a last savage act, I buried the body deep in the woods so no one could ever expose me. You know I always hated being reckless.
Next morning, I woke up completely changed. The sun wasn’t up yet and at the light of a candle I could see my reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t me, it was a monster, an insane murderer that had no regrets. I had never imagined I could become such an animal. And I wanted to be above everyone, to lead my species on a lighted way to heaven. A beast lies in each of us, but mine overcame the angel. By committing such an atrocity I had upset the spirits, I couldn’t reach perfection; I didn’t deserve it. I was doomed to die. There was nothing left for me on this world.
After I have finished this letter, I will no longer be alive. I’ve chosen to die by the same blade that killed my future son. Anyway, in the name of the friendship we once had, I will ask you one more favor: burn this letter and along with it the memory of Hytion... “