Chapter 10 Xolotl
Xolotl
In the thousands of years I’ve worked to balance the earth for humanity, I have never once taken a single bite of anything.
Why would I?
I don’t need sustenance, and I’ve seen where eating leaves them later, crouched in the bushes, moaning in misery.
No, thank you. But after eating this burger Whitney shoved in my face, I can understand why they risk it.
Eating is unlike anything I’ve ever done.
It’s not satisfying, like ending life. It’s not irritating, like most everything else.
It’s. . . I suppose humans would call it pleasurable.
That first burger was something I may never forget.
The second one wasn’t quite as good, but almost. But the next ten?
I’m not even sure why I ate them, except that I wanted to regain the feeling from the first. And now, I feel vaguely regretful for having eating anything past the first. My belly feels almost distended, and my movements feel a bit sluggish.
Not compared to a human, of course, but compared to myself half an hour before.
As we’re leaving, I realize that Whitney ate only one burger.
“Why did you only eat one?” I frown. “And hardly any of the fries.”
She laughs. “I’m small. I don’t need more than that, or I’ll get large.”
“Is large bad?” I glance her over. “You could be larger, and your body would exert more force on others. It might help you, with your vicious tendencies.”
“You just criticized that woman who was overweight.” She frowns.
“Larger and way too large aren’t the same.” She often makes no sense.
“Then, if I ate more, might I be able to defeat you?” She cocks one eyebrow.
I laugh. It’s a strange feeling, but I find myself having it more and more when I’m around her.
As we’re climbing back into the car, she continues. “The first burger’s great, but the others. . .they’re not as good. Right?”
I nod. “Diminishing returns.”
“Exactly,” she says.
But then it hits me. That same principle is exactly what I’m trying to teach her. Perhaps she’ll finally understand. “Right now, you’re trying to convince me not to fulfill my purpose of existence.”
“To massacre humans all over the earth.” She nods. “Yes, I am.”
“But I want you to think about this. Why do your humans value their short lives?”
She blinks.
“Because they’re short.” I smile, putting the car into reverse with a tiny thrill. I like the driving almost as much as I liked eating. “But when their lives stretch on and on, when they have no purpose, when they aren’t shaped by fear or a need to survive, what then?”
“They can find their passion.” She nods, happy with her reply.
“Wrong.” I clench the steering wheel. “They don’t do that. In fact, quite the opposite. When humans feel they have a long and uneventful life stretched before them, they waste it. When you get one burger, you savor it. When you get twelve?” I grimace. “They all feel like a mistake.”
She laughs this time. “Well, I can’t disagree there, but it was your first time. You’re learning. That doesn’t mean you deserve to die.”
I gesture around us, at the people lounging on their porches, the people arguing on the sidewalk.
“These people have quantity of life, but they have very little quality of life.” I shrug.
“If I start to put pressure on their quantity, their quality will also improve, because they’ll value it more. It’s just how life works.”
She remains unconvinced, apparently, glaring out the window, as a man flicks a cigarette at the ground, and then leaps across the sidewalk to slap a woman across the face.
“What about him?” I arch one eyebrow. “If instead of restoring balance, I acted as your human avenging angel, killing only the bad people, what would you think of my purpose then?”
“You think that would be wrong,” she mutters. “Because you’re supposed to balance things. Bad people, good people. Everyone dies.” She throws her hands up in the air with a strange look on her face. “You just indiscriminately kill them all.”
“You mock,” I say. “But the death of one good person, especially a very good person, can do more for a society than the death of many, many bad ones.”
“Because of how the other humans feel about it.” Now she looks curious. “That’s—I guess I didn’t credit you with understanding us enough to even think about that.”
“I have my purpose, and I believe it’s a good one, but I didn’t choose it,” I say.
“I’ve lived it for many, many years, and I’ve seen many iterations of society.
Some good, some bad, some happy, and some very filled with anger and sorrow.
What has been similar in all of the human civilizations is that you can’t simply remove the bad and watch good grow.
Goodness among humans requires cultivation, time, and care, and ultimately, it will always be repopulated with bad.
It’s in your nature to hurt, to maim, and to injure. ”
“But we help, too.” She folds her arms. “Not all of us hurt, maim, and injure.”
“Says the woman who introduced herself by firing on me eight times.”
“You had just burst from a mountain and were killing humans right and left.”
“It’s my pu—”
“Yeah, yeah, your purpose,” she says. “I mean, you could say my purpose as a woman was to pop out babies and repopulate the earth, but I can choose to do to it my way, and I can choose to do something different as well. Have you ever tried to think about what you were created to do, and whether it could be done better than you’ve been doing it?
” She drops her voice. “Or, maybe you aren’t needed at all? ”
So much for my insight about the burger correcting our disconnect.
“Where are we going?” She looks around in alarm.
“I need to be around fewer people—I can sense all the darkness and the teeming mass of people who are struggling, and my power cries out to me.” I tighten and release the steering wheel. “I promised you time, but I’m not sure how much more I can give.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh, well, what did you have in mind?”
“We did something you chose—eating—and I even tried doing it myself, though it’s against my nature.”
“Yeah, you really seemed to be hating it when you were demolishing those burgers.” Her lip’s twitching, which I’ve come to realize means she’s suppressing a smirk.
“Nonetheless, it’s time for us to work on your training a bit.”
“You know.” She lifts one eyebrow. “I hear Lake Tahoe’s close, and we could find a less populated area and—”
“Kill just a few people?” I dislike the desperation I feel, but in my entire existence, I’ve never gone this long without eliminating some humans.
She huffs. “No, that’s not what we should do.”
“Then?”
“I can work on using my water powers or whatever. I thought you’d be happy about that. How can I be a good general if I’m not able to weaponize the powers I pull from you?” She’s smirking. I’m positive that she’s smirking.
“A good general. . .” I splutter. I’ve almost given up on her being a good general.
At this point, I’m just going to have to settle for dragging her around without worrying she’s going to die and plunge me into another hibernation.
The problem is that the stronger she becomes, the more her death will impact me.
Instead of fixing my problem, I’ve worsened the damage she can do.
I might be almost as stupid as a human in this awakening.
“But after we spend time at this Lake Tahoe, I’ll begin my work again.” I nod slowly. “I’ve been patient, but it’s time. Three days is more than I can handle.”
She throws up her hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We said three days.”
“I’m changing it. The rest of today is all I can spare.”
That really sets her off. I almost enjoy her ranting. As we pass some area named Truckee, she starts talking about things I actually find interesting, about the brutality of the weather and the elements here. The depths to which humans will sink when they’re desperate has always fascinated me.
“You know, it’s too bad I don’t have it with me. I read this book about some people who got stuck here back in the eighteen hundreds—about the time you were last awake. They were trying to get over the mountains, but they were too late, and the snow came early.”
I skip to the end. “And they died?”
Her eyes flash. “Yes, that’s always the goal for you, right?
” She huffs and shakes her head. “Yeah, a lot of them did die, and some of them ate the ones who died so they’d live.
Actually, most of the ones eating the ones who died were mothers feeding the dead to their own children, because they couldn’t stand to watch them starve. ”
Before I might not have found that interesting.
After eating, and enjoying, my first hamburger, I can see where it might distress humans. “You do eat flesh. Is it really that different to eat human flesh than that of other creatures?”
She shudders. “To us, it is. But I guess when you get really hungry, when that’s all that stands between you and death.
. .” She sighs, staring out the window. “That book—written by a woman with a family of her own, a woman who usually writes fantasy and romance, about the real women who made those decisions—I think you should read it. I think you’d learn a lot about humans from it.
My professor made me read it, but it made the whole Donner party crisis real to me, instead of a disturbing historical anecdote.
” Her head snaps back to me. “We’re real, you know.
You see humans as weights on a scale to balance, but each of us has a life and a story. We matter.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.” She’s scowling again, like it’s on her to advocate for the entire human race.
“I think you don’t understand. I’m not here to annihilate all humanity.”
She growls. “But why do you get to decide who dies and who lives?”
“Who decides when I’m not here?”
“God?”
I shrug. “Maybe he made me.”
“He made you and sent you just to slaughter us?” She laughs bitterly. “No way.” She freezes. “Wait, did he?” Her eyes are wide when she turns to me.