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“What did you do then?”
“I learned to control my bloodlust. I adopted the habit of buying blood from butchers. It was a lot less strange a practice at the time. Once I could trust myself, I went back to work. It is a cruel twist of fate that no matter how long you live, you will always need money. And therefore, have to work.”
“Did you do more transcribing?”
“It was a profession needed less and less over time. I worked as an archivist, a chronicler, eventually, a journalist. Then radio.”
She watched me with her head tilted, something unreadable in her gaze. But I suddenly needed to know what put it there.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“It’s just that… it seems like every job you’ve had—both before and after being turned—involved, well, connection. That’s just interesting.”
“Cataloging life and death or copying deathbed confessions doesn’t seem like connection to me.”
“Except you kept doing all those things after being turned. Instead of doing jobs more suited for your, you know, nocturnal nature.”
“What kind of jobs are those?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Morgue. Graveyard maintenance…”
“So I can only work with the dead?”
“IT, club bouncer, cam model…” She paused, looking up at me. “You could even do mask work if you wanted to be anonymous.”
“Mask work?”
“Yeah, you wear some kind of mask and model for the cameras. Or you could read spicy book scenes. You’d make a fortune.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You have a radio voice. Trust me, it would convert. You could be making millions.”
“What need do I have for millions?” I asked, shrugging.
“I guess when you’ve lived long enough, you’ve seen how money can bring out the worst in people.”
“You only need one lifetime to see that,” I said.
“Are people different?” she asked.
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Just different.”
“Some things come in waves: times of repression, fear, authoritarianism. Then it’s followed by freedom, experimentation, and creativity. But people… people have always cared about the same things. Family. Community. They crave stability, safety, and comfort. They may all speak differently, pray, look, and live differently. But humans are all essentially the same throughout the world and through time.”
“That’s… kind of comforting actually. Okay, another question.”
“You seem full of them today.”
“What is your favorite thing about humans?”
That was a big question.
But it had a simple answer.
