Unless

Originally written Saturday, December 10, 2005 (continued)

“What were you eating?” I asked.

“Meat. A lot of it. Raw whenever possible,” he responded. “I’ve been trying to follow my instincts. I’ve really only had folklore and movies to go on, and I don’t know how much is true and how much is just embellishment.” I’m sure he’s learned by now that the “instincts” take time to develop. There’s an important period of transition that one really needs a guide for. Fortunately, Trudy seemed to be taking up that mantle. Also fortunately, much of the folklore does apply to reality, and the embellishment isn’t likely to hurt: for instance, if he felt like going out and getting a coffin to sleep in, the only loss would be to his interior décor.

“Makes sense, but when wasn’t raw possible? Just out of curiosity.”

“Like when I’m with my family.”

This wasn’t a wow moment with quite the impact of the one he’d already given me, but it was nonetheless a key piece to the puzzle that was Moshe, or at least the version of himself he was peddling. I elicited a wordless oh, jeez, what next? response, which I suppose is what prompted him to explain:

“My parents live across town. I see them every week or so.” He sighed, and his forehead pinched up into a bundle of creases between his eyebrows. “It’s not like I can tell them what’s been happening to me. But I can’t just disappear on them, either.”

“And you’re not worried that ten, fifteen years down the road, they’re gonna start wondering why they only see you at night, or in your own house with the blinds drawn, not to mention why you still look exactly the same as you did at… how old are you?”

“Thirty-two. I figured I’d worry about that when the time came. By that time they’ll have been seeing vampire me for fifteen years and know it’s OK.”

“Unless, of course…” I said, using the phrase without planning on having to finish it. There’s always an unless involved when young vampires plan for the future. The rest can go without saying because it’s universally understood. However, all rules have exceptions, and I was getting used to Moshe being the exception to more than a few. And when I failed to see the slightest glimmer of comprehension in his face and realized he was simply waiting for me to continue, I asked Trudy, “You haven’t told him?”

There was a little irritation in my voice that Trudy picked up on, and she became defensive. “God, Marya, I only learned all this about him two days ago. I kinda thought getting him off the junk food was first on the to do list. It’s not like I was gonna make like Little Miss Bite-and-Bail” (There we go again with adopting my less admirable phrases. I need to remember not to be witty in front of her.) “and leave him to figure it out on his own.” She finished tauntingly, “I mean… unless.”

His patience had turned to mild anxiety. “Unless what? What is it?”

Feeling a little like an oncologist delivering an unfortunate diagnosis, I said, “You’re gonna change.”

“I already did.”

“You’re nowhere near finished. Your body is permanent now, but your soul’s still temporary, or parts of it are. It’ll cohere for a while, but eventually, without a living body to support it, it’s going to deteriorate.” I think I was annoyed that Trudy hadn’t gotten around to mentioning this yet more because I hate giving people the short version almost as much as I hate hearing others give misinformation. The full explanation is more complicated than anything I felt like getting into at the time and extends well beyond vampire ontology. It challenges most people’s prior understandings of how “souls” work (the word itself irks me; I only use it as a compromise between the Judeo-Christian concept and the Grey Orchid one, and even I—out of laziness—use it in a couple of different ways with different contextual meanings), and that means either starting from square one with the epistemological reprogramming or trying to piece the important parts together into a confusing collage. So I did what any good academic does when she needs to be selective about her thesis. If you can’t explain, disclaim. “I mean, of course, that’s kind of a simplistic way to put it. If you want to sit down and get the full run-down sometime, I’m game, but most vampires get by just fine not even knowing the details. For now, the important thing is that the internal you is essentially the same as it was when you died, but at some point pieces of it are gonna start to disperse. For most, the soul lasts about as long as a normal human lifespan, since that’s what it was designed for in the first place. But you never know. It could just as easily start to go tomorrow.”

“You said parts of it? What parts?”

“Generally, the ones that give you a sense of connection with others around you. Moral agency, responsibility… pretty much everything except for stark self-interest. Which means if it happens during your parents’ lifetimes and they’re not expecting it, you could end up hurting them a lot more at that point than you’ll worry or scare or confuse them by coming clean now. The one who did you is probably a perfect example.” By this time, I’d entered full educator mode and had forgotten to perform empathy. In fact, I was bordering on the clinical, and he seemed to have noticed. In particular, when I used phrases like “without a living body” and “when you died,” the creases in his face grew just a wee bit deeper. I doubted whether that aspect of his predicament had really hit home yet.

“You said you weren’t a vampire.”

“I’m not.”

“This just seems so crazy that you know so much more about me than I do.”

I love it when they say that. I knew (but didn’t care) that I was smirking when I said, “I know much more about many things than most people do. You’ll get used to it.”

The events of this day to be continued...