"An Oral History of the Apocalypse".

Paula Stiles


Summary: A historian interviews Methos about his 1000 
years as Death on a Horse.

Disclaimer: Davis/Panzer Productions, Rysher 
Entertainment, and Gaumont Television own the Highlander 
universe. I am also cheerfully quoting one of Smirnoff's 
"No Imperfections" ad campaign commercials, and making 
absolutely no financial profit from it, whatsoever. I 
wouldn't be making any money off of this, even if the 
following interview were real.




AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE APOCALYPSE

Pierson [waving a hand in front of the camera]: A video 
camera? Huh.

Monterey: Um, yeah. It came in useful when I taped some 
interviews of RPCV's for an article last year.

Pierson: RPCV's? You mean the United States Peace Corps?

Monterey: Yeah, yes. They call the ones who have finished 
their service "Returned Peace Corps Volunteers". They've 
got these three goals, and the third one is to tell 
people about their experiences after they get back. So, 
they don't ever call them, um, "ex"-Volunteers, because 
they're seen as remaining members of the organization, 
even after they finish their service. Kind of creepy, 
that....

Pierson: Like the Watchers, you mean.

Monterey: Yeah, come to think of it. Anyway, I did the 
video bit because people who are immersed in different 
cultures like that--they pick up these non-verbal habits 
like [claps a fist into an open palm, then spreads hands 
slowly] that, for example. That's a very common 
Cameroonian version of a shrug.

Pierson [sticking his tongue out at the camera and 
crossing his eyes]: Really? Interesting.... I wouldn't 
rely too much on that here, though. It's been, um...well, 
it's been a really long time since the period you want to 
talk about. I've changed quite a bit.

Monterey: Yeah? How do you--No, wait. Let me--let me just 
get a time signature in on this first [faces camera]. 
Um...this is Alice Monterey, PhD postgraduate in the 
Department of Greek and Latin, University College London, 
interviewing Adam Pierson--AKA, Methos--November 21, 
2005, at 15:01 Greenwich Standard Time--yeah, that 
oughtta do it....

Pierson: Now--Alice is it? Can I call you Alice?

Monterey: Sure. Should I call you Adam? Methos? Mr. 
Pierson? What?

Pierson: Adam is fine. Yeah, that should be fine. You 
said you talked to Joe about this?

Monterey [laughs]: Yeah. Yeah, I did. I guess the 
Watchers must be pretty desperate this year if they want 
to recruit me. Not that this is for the Chronicles.

Pierson: No? What is it for, then?

Monterey: Well, I got to talking to Joe one night about 
how it was difficult doing any social history for longer 
than the previous century or so because everybody who'd 
lived then is dead. You lose all these nuances--things 
that never, ever get written down. Then, I got caught up 
in that mess with you and the Watchers last year, and 
found out about Immortals.

Pierson: Joe had you translate that email I sent him?

Monterey: Yeah. He needed somebody on the outside. He 
didn't trust the other Watchers with it. Anyway, we got 
to talking after it was all done, and I was saying that 
it seemed a shame that when an Immortal dies--well, you 
lose all of this unique experience, all this oral history 
that nobody else has. So, Joe, I think, got it into his 
head to talk to you about it--

Pierson: And here we are.

Monterey: Yes, here we are.... I'm just curious--why did 
you agree to do this, anyway?

Pierson [meditative pause]: I'm easily amused?

Monterey [laughs]: Huh. I've heard that about you.

Pierson: From Joe, no doubt. Seriously, though--that 
trouble with the Watchers that you mentioned from last 
year? Well, I noticed at the time that my story--my 
voice, you could say--did not seem to be heard very much 
in that affair. People make all sorts of assumptions 
about me, all the time. If, as you were saying, something 
were to, well, happen to me, this is one way to correct 
that problem, I think.

Monterey: Fair enough. I take it that you and the 
Watchers are not currently on good terms.

Pierson: You could say that. I am now officially an 
excommunicate Watcher, which is a step up from a 
renegade, my previous status, I suppose. At least I'm not 
being hunted, anymore. Not actively, at any rate.

Monterey: Well, just to let you know--you get a copy of 
this, of course, and the Watchers don't, not during my 
lifetime. And I'm not telling anybody about it. Aside 
from the fact that I don't want to end up in a psych 
ward, well, people shouldn't have to suffer for telling 
their own stories, you know?

Pierson: Yes, well, I have written some things down....

Monterey: Yeah, but I'm sure you didn't write down 
everything. Joe says that you tell these amazing stories 
at the Bar. It's much easier to free-associate verbally 
than in writing. I'd just be using this--well, you know 
what it's like. You just finished a PhD at the University 
of Paris, right?

Pierson [laughs]: Yesss. My advisor was beginning to get 
pretty skeptical about my ever submitting my thesis, for 
awhile, but I did finally defend it last winter.

Monterey: And now you're teaching?

Pierson: Off and on. My personal life's been a bit 
chaotic, lately. Plays Hell with the resume, I'm afraid.

Monterey: Yeah. I hear that. Well, basically, I would 
just be using these interviews  as a sort of check 
against what archaeological and literary evidence we now 
have. If I had an overall idea about how things really 
happened back then, it would help me stay on track better 
in formulating some methodological theory about that era.

Pierson: Ah. It's an intriguing idea, but you know, I 
really don't remember things that far back nearly as well 
as people assume that I do.

Monterey: That's a common thing in oral history. People 
don't ever remember things exactly the same way--not even 
eye-witnesses to the same event. Don't worry about it.

Pierson: I could be lying through my teeth throughout the 
whole thing, too, you know.

Monterey [laughs]: Ulterior motivation is a pretty common 
element of oral history, as well. 

Pierson: Okay. So, now that we've worked our way through 
the methodology of this project--what do you want to 
know?

Monterey: Is there anything that you want to start with?

Pierson: Mmm, not offhand. What do you know already?

Monterey: Not much, really. I understand that you're 
about 5000 years old--at least, that's how far back you 
remember.

Pierson: Yes.

Monterey: And that you were one of the Four Horsemen of 
the Apocalypse for a millennium back in the Bronze Age. 
You were Death.

Pierson [muttering]: Huh. 'Not much'. Thanks, Joe.

Monterey: Sorry?

Pierson: No, don't worry about it. Not your problem.

Monterey: Okaay. And I understand that the other three 
Horsemen are recently (relatively speaking) deceased.

Pierson [quietly]: Yeah....They are.

Monterey: Is that going to be a problem for you? I don't 
want to reopen old wounds.

Pierson: Nono. That's all right. Let's move on, shall we? 
Are you going to have a problem with, um, interviewing 
somebody out of the Bible? Any religious issues about 
that?

Monterey: Not really, no. I understand that the Number of 
the Beast--

Pierson: 666, you mean?

Monterey: Yeah, that. I understand that that was a secret 
code for Nero. So, no, I'm not easily freaked out by 2000 
year old propaganda, you know?

Pierson [laughs]: Got it. Good point.

Monterey: I mean, God, if you've got a Smirnoff's Vodka 
commercial with the Anti-Christ getting his 666 tattoo 
taken off and turning into an angel....

Pierson [laughs harder]: Oh, yeah! I saw that one. A 
*lecherous* angel.

Monterey: "Would you like another cherry, Brother 
Damien?"

Pierson [deep voice]:  "Mmm, you read my mind, Sister."

Monterey: Arf. You do that a little too well [both laugh 
very hard].

*Pause, while interviewer and interviewee get themselves 
back under control.*

Pierson: Meanwhile, back at the Horsemen camp....

Monterey: So to speak. Um, now, you said earlier that you 
didn't remember everything exactly, that you didn't have 
total recall?

Pierson: Well, no, of course not. I'm only Human. As far 
as I know, the only real difference between Immortals and 
Mortals is that we heal faster, that we can survive fatal 
wounds--

Monterey: Except for a beheading.

Pierson: My, Joe has a big mouth, doesn't he? I'm gonna 
have a talk with him about that, I think. Except for a 
beheading, yes. And, oh, yes, we're sterile, and nobody 
seems to know where we come from. We are all foundlings.

Monterey: And then, there's the Quickening.

Pierson: Well, true, there is that. But you know, that 
could just be that we have very, very active--I dunno--
central nervous systems, maybe. But no, everything else 
is pretty Human. So, I really don't have any extra space 
up here [taps head], you know? I forget things all the 
time. I just can't hold onto it all when I only have 
space for a century's worth, or so.

Monterey: So, remembering yesterday's breakfast is a 
pretty low priority, I take it?

Pierson: Hell, remembering *today's* breakfast, even 
while I'm eating it, is a pretty low priority. It's not 
as though I'm going to die of malnutrition, now is it?

Monterey: No. I suppose not.

Pierson: I mean, don't get me wrong. I do remember meals 
from 3000-4000 years ago, some of them quite clearly. 
It's like a story, though, that I heard once, not so much 
like a memory. It's like what I've heard people say about 
their childhoods. You remember images, sounds, but not 
events coherently strung together. Some memories stay 
with you, the way that fossils are preserved in the 
ground, and others are lost forever. You don't know why, 
and you probably never did.

Monterey: Do Immortals remember their childhoods?

Pierson: Well, I don't. I don't have any childhood 
memories at all. But that's just me. Something happened 
during my first Quickening that blocked everything that 
came before. Maybe I took a head on Holy Ground. I don't 
know--

Monterey: That's bad?

Pierson: What?

Monterey: Fighting on Holy Ground is bad?

Pierson: Oh, yes. Every Immortal treats Holy Ground--any 
Holy Ground--as a neutral zone. Nobody really knows what 
would happen if one of us took a head there. But it's a 
very strong superstition, that's been passed down since 
before my time, that whatever would happen would be bad. 
But from what I've heard, yes, most Immortals do remember 
their childhoods. I don't think that our memories are 
built any differently than Mortals'. It's just that, 
after a full lifespan or so, some sort of relativistic 
time dilation sets in, you know? Maybe it is to 
compensate for the fact that our brains aren't really big 
enough to hold more than that.

Monterey: So, if it's not important to your survival, 
it's not worth remembering.

Pierson: It is not just about survival--I may tell people 
that, but that's not exactly what I mean. I like life. 
Survival is enjoying life as well as prolonging it. If 
you're not enjoying yourself, then what is the point? I'm 
not sure that other Immortals, younger Immortals, always 
get that. They think that it's all about taking heads, 
gaining power. Well, I did that for a long, long time, 
and I did not learn a thing from it.

Monterey: Have you....um.

Pierson: Yes?

Monterey: Have you had a lot of, um, Challenges?

Pierson: You mean, have I killed a lot of people?

Monterey: You don't have to answer the question if it 
makes you uncomfortable.

Pierson: You want concrete numbers?

Monterey: You remember them all? Really?

Pierson: You sound surprised.

Monterey: Well, 5000 years. That's a long time. And for 
1000 of those years you were in a pretty violent line of 
work. I mean, if you only took one Challenge per year, 
that would be, uh, 5000 challenges, yes? And I take it 
that you went on a lot of raids as a Horseman.

Pierson: Oh [laughs]. Oh, yeah. That was sort of our main 
modus operandi, you could say.

Monterey: So, even if you killed only a couple of hundred 
people per year--that would be a fairly low figure?

Pierson: Mm, it depended on the year. It would make a 
half-way decent average, I suppose. I did recently take a 
200 year hiatus from taking any Challenges.

Monterey: Okay, granted. But if you killed a couple of 
hundred Mortals per year during your time as a Horseman, 
that would be--what? 10,000? 20,000?

Pierson [looks at the floor for over a minute before 
answering]: God, it sounds so cold, saying it like that, 
doesn't it? I suppose it could have been more than that. 
Not any less, though. Not 5000 Challenges, either. Maybe 
around 1000, or so. You know, I honestly don't remember. 
It all runs together in the end...and those aren't 
exactly the memories that I like to hold onto, you know?

Monterey: No. I suppose not. So, how did you join the 
Horsemen, anyway?

Pierson: Ohhh, that's a long story--not a very pleasant 
one, either. I guess you could say that I had a nice, 
long nervous breakdown, and then took my sweet time 
recovering from it.

Monterey: Uh, okay. Was this a really long time?

Pierson: The breakdown? Oh, yes. About two centuries, I 
think. I'm not sure. At one point, somebody whacked me 
over the head and threw me in a bog for a few 
generations. That's when I lost track. I'd been--oh, how 
do they put it now--'fragile' for a good century or so 
before that. So, burying me alive for several decades 
pretty much finished the job.

Monterey: I see. How did you hook up with the Horsemen?

Pierson: Well, Kronos met me right after I escaped the 
Bog People (no really--don't ask). He helped me get some 
distance from the situation, you could say. He was.... I 
don't know what Joe told you, but really, Kronos wasn't 
all that bad. It wasn't all bad--well, *always* bad 
between us. At the beginning, you know, Kronos was the 
moderating influence in the Horsemen. He was a killer, of 
course, but he had limits. Me, now. I was profoundly 
claustrophobic from being in that bloody bog. I heard 
voices. I was convinced--really, really convinced--that I 
was Death. I thought that the voices were my henchdemons 
reporting to me from all across the land [laughs]. I 
believed that I could talk to the dead. Can you believe 
that? Talk about a poster child for Bronze Age thorazine. 
I scared the Hell out of the three of them--Kronos, 
Silas, even Caspian. They'd just do whatever I told them 
to, at first, because I think that they feared that I'd 
fly into some sort of frenzy and go for their heads. I 
wouldn't have, of course. They were my brothers. They 
were the only stability I had left.

Monterey: So, you lived in a tent all the time--

Pierson: Mostly outside, as much as I could, in the 
beginning. I got over the claustrophobia, eventually. You 
can get over most things--even being a psychopath--in a 
thousand years, if you work at it.

Monterey: And you formed the Horsemen?

Pierson: I had the idea, yes. I made the decisions, yes--
in the beginning. Over time, though, things changed.

Monterey: What things?

Pierson: Me, mostly. I got better after five or six 
centuries. Once I began to think clearly again, I lost 
that berserker edge. Maybe Kronos had gotten so used to 
the way I'd been before--I dunno. Odd, to think that 
rationality, being in control, can seem like a weakness 
when you're completely out of control. Maybe I made 
*them* crazy, my brothers. I still wonder about it. I 
just haven't found any real answers, yet.

Monterey: Do you miss them?

Pierson [stares off into space]: Yeah. Yeah, I do. I miss 
them a lot.

[pause in tape]

Monterey: So, how did you leave?

Pierson: What, you mean the Horsemen?

Monterey: Yes. How did you decide to leave them?

Pierson: Well, we were always a loose-knit group, you 
know. *I'd* wander off for decades at a time. Ironically, 
I had a rather better reputation on my own than as a 
Horseman.

Monterey: Really? Why?

Pierson: Why did I wander off, or why did I have a better 
reputation?

Monterey: Well...either one.

Pierson: Oh, I don't know. The others drove me a bit mad 
from time to time--especially Caspian. On bad days, it 
was all I could do not to just take his head and be done 
with it. He was so irritating--serial killers really are 
not as much fun company on a daily basis as they are for 
two hours on a movie screen, you know. I got bored. I 
wandered off.

Monterey: And your reputation?

Pierson: Well, on my own, I suppose I looked like an 
easier target, while still looking just dangerous enough 
to be competition. So, every time I rode through some 
pathetic town or city, I'd get stick from the local 
authorities. I don't much like being bullied--never did--
so whoever came after me usually ended up dead. Whoever 
they'd been making miserable in that settlement tended to 
see me as a hero for that. Call it the 'Mad Max' 
phenomenon, if you will. I guess, in a violent world, I 
made for a pretty useful nutter, sometimes. Human beings 
are funny.

Monterey: What do you mean?

Pierson: Oh, you know, the value judgments that we make 
about people, based simply on their relative usefulness 
to us. Useful? You must be a hero. Not useful? You're a 
waste of space. Dangerous? You are evil, and you must be 
destroyed. It doesn't have anything to do with any 
objective measure of good and evil.

Monterey: Hmm. Pretty cynical, that.

Pierson: Pretty realistic, too.

Monterey: So, you left the Horsemen....

Pierson: Oh, yes. That. Well, governments were becoming 
more organized. You couldn't just ride down into the 
Mediterranean from the steppes and pillage at will, the 
way we once had. Rome and Carthage were on the rise. 
Greek civilization was in full bloom. Compared to Rome or 
Athens, living in a tent started to look pretty 
unappetizing, I suppose.

Monterey: This was when?

Pierson: Oh, first or second century B.C.E., I think. 
Yeah, around then. Anyway, I went down to Rome and got 
caught up in the culture down there. Hard to believe 
where they'd got to, considering that we'd sacked the 
place only three centuries before, but I liked their 
energy, their drive. Of course, then I led that slave 
revolt--

Monterey: Excuse me?

Pierson [grimaces]: Oh. Right. Why am I surprised? Joe 
tells you all the gory details about my being a Horseman 
of the Apocalypse, but conveniently forgets to mention 
that I was Spartacus for three years. Thank you, Joe.

Monterey: You? Spartacus?

Pierson: Now, *there's* a common reaction. He was 
supposed to have been a Thracian, you know--southeastern 
Europe? That was just south of where we rode for most of 
a thousand years. [pause] Is it really that unbelievable?

Monterey: Um, okay, fine. Anyway, you led a slave 
revolt....

Pierson: Right. And after that, well, I just lost my 
taste for killing for awhile. I still liked the 
Mediterranean, though. So, I went down to Egypt, and fell 
in with Julius Caesar. Nothing remarkable.

Monterey: And the other Horsemen? What did they do?

Pierson: Well, eventually, Kronos came looking for me. I 
was in Greece, studying, by then, not at all interested 
in going back to rape and pillage. Kronos insisted, so I 
poisoned him and tossed him into a well.

Monterey: Why didn't he come after you when he woke up?

Pierson: Oh, I hammered a cover over the well's mouth and 
eventually set a bunch of monks to guard it. [Monterey 
looks skeptical] Hey, it worked for a thousand years. You 
can't do much better than that.

Monterey: And the other Horsemen?

Pierson: They wandered off, I guess. I didn't go looking 
for them, and Silas and Caspian  weren't nearly as 
persistent as Kronos.

Monterey: So, you didn't kill him.

Pierson: Kronos? No. Oh, I made a few half-hearted 
attempts, but no. I could take  Caspian's head without 
too much sorrow. Killing Silas--that hurt. I really liked 
Silas; he had a gentle heart. I even tried to talk him 
into running off with me after we all got together, but 
he just wasn't interested. In the end, he died calling me 
a traitor and that  damned near killed me. Taking out 
Kronos would have been ten times worse. That would have 
been, oh, just impossible.

Monterey: Why? Because he was your brother?

Pierson: Oh, yes. I know it sounds mad. I know, really I 
do. It's just that...well, the legend of Cain, of his 
being marked for killing Abel, that's very old. It goes 
back almost to my time. And I suppose it just seemed a 
far worse crime to me to kill a brother than it was to 
let him kill others. And I was hardly a virgin in that 
area, you know? I didn't have any moral high ground to 
stand on, I'm afraid. Sorry.

Monterey: So, what you're saying is that your moral code 
didn't allow you to judge, or kill, members of your own 
family, no matter how much damage they were doing to the 
surrounding society?

Pierson [looks taken aback]: Well...yes. I mean, I know 
that I should have stopped Kronos, that killing him when 
I did have the chance would have saved many, many lives. 
It's just that...I couldn't.

Monterey: You know, this is just a stab in the dark from 
what I've learned about societies back in your, um, 
period, but.... Well, I'm just wondering why you are 
judging yourself, and allowing yourself to be judged, by 
cultural standards that didn't even exist until about, 
oh, 250 years ago. Don't you find that a bit odd?

Pierson [disbelieving laugh]: Odd? Uh, what do you mean?

Monterey: Well, the personal moral standard that you seem 
to be projecting here is downright biblical--pre-
biblical, if we're being pedantic. That's a very 
decentralized, tribal, communal code. Very violent, very 
unforgiving, very final. Expecting somebody with that 
code to just change over to a universal, kinder and 
gentler, humanistic code of morals--just because some of 
the society around him has decided that that's the way to 
go--seems anachronistic. Even cruel.

Pierson [defensively]: Well, we can't have the Four 
Horsemen rampaging around 20th century Europe, now can 
we? We have to learn to adapt.

Monterey [slowly and thoughtfully]: Adapt? Yeah. Change 
our basic natures? No. [pause] Don't you agree? [longer 
pause] Adam?

Pierson [sighs]: Ask me in another 5000 years.

Monterey: I can't. I'm only Mortal.

Pierson: So am I. Ask me then--if we're both still 
around.

Monterey: But for that I'd have to be.... Is there 
something you're not--

Pierson: You know, we've been at this for awhile. I'm 
getting a bit of a headache. Why don't we call it a day, 
go get a beer down at Joe's?

Monterey: But--

Pierson [smiling crookedly]: I'll buy you dinner. We can 
talk some more then. I want to hear more about your 
thesis.

Monterey: Um, well, okay. End of interview. The time is 
15:33 Greenwich Standard Time....

END

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