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.”
