The Price of Immortality
By Cybra

Disclaimer: Mickey Mouse belongs to Disney.

Mickey Mouse gazed down from a balcony at Cinderella's Castle at the people wandering about Disney World's Magic Kingdom. Some of those people were laughing; almost all were smiling. Not even Florida's unforgiving noonday sun and humidity could bring their spirits down.

Mickey, however, was not smiling.

To the rest of the world, the mouse was perfectly content with his immortal life with its eternal youth. After all, it was something that human beings had sought after for millennia.

Mickey hated his immortality.

While the world changed about him, the mouse grew older only in years. His body did not feel the touch of time. But as human friends aged and decayed before his eyes, he would feel in his soul all seventy-seven years of his life and then feel an overwhelming sense of pity for not just those people but the human race as a whole.

Humans barely had a chance to experience the wonders of their world before they passed on to whatever lie after death. A family would bring their children to the parks. Then, a blink of an eye later, those children brought their families to the parks. Another blink of an eye, and those same children were now old men and women who visited the parks with grandchildren.

Mickey remembered the faces—if not the names—of the children whose parents brought them to meet their favorite Disney characters. He would even recognize some of them later in the cruel cycle and remember just how little time those children truly had.

Some had an even shorter time on Earth, as the Make a Wish Foundation constantly reminded him.

Mickey knew, in his heart, that Walt had not wanted him to gaze at humanity and regret the fact that—no matter what humans did to themselves—he would always remain. However, there had been nothing his friend and creator could do to stop the cancer that had grown inside of his body, which in turn had forced Mickey to accept that humans did not live forever as he had subliminally, childishly believed.

And when Walt died, he took a large piece of the mouse with him.

In his seventy-seven years of life, the mouse had seen nations rise and fall, leaders change numerous times, and multiple wars. He had watched these people live and die all around him. And he was continually reminded that he had hundreds, maybe even thousands of years left to watch as these things repeated themselves over and over and over.

Sometimes, Mickey really wished he could be with Walt.