Immortal Stories: Eve Read Free Page A

asking if his ancestors had arrived in the country as slaves, but decided this too was an unsavory subject. 
    It was difficult to keep track of the idea that the things which happened only recently in her mind happened generations ago for everyone else.  From her perspective, the present time they all shared was experiencing, at best, a temporary cease-fire.  There had been thousands of such eras in history, and at the end of them empires always fell and the savage nature of mankind always resurfaced, took what it could and destroyed everything else.
    She wanted to be wrong.  She had yet to be.
    “Do you work?” she asked.  It was becoming quickly apparent that normal conversation was going to be at least as complicated as understanding the fashion of the period.  Perhaps more.  She couldn’t steal appropriate conversational points from a store mannequin.
    “I do!  I’m a broker.  Not on Sundays, though!”  He gave a little laugh.  She wondered if this was a Sunday.  Days of the week were another thing she had to acquaint herself with.  They were recent concepts.  She understood them well enough, but the work-week notion, and specifically the idea of the weekend, was completely strange.  She recalled Sundays being of some importance to certain religions, and wondered if she should go to a church to see what kind of people she’d meet there. 
    It wasn’t likely to be as interesting as the coffee shop.  A larger congregation, perhaps, but with greater homogeneity. 
    “You’re a broker of… deals?” she asked.
    “You could say so, sure.  Stock broker.”
    She shrugged.  These words didn’t mean anything together.
    “What do you do?” he asked.
    “I don’t do anything.”
    “Dead-end job, huh?’
    “No, I don’t have a job.  I was thinking of getting one, though.  I’ve been traveling for a long while and had no need of a profession until now.”
    “I guess you have been.  And you’re settling down here?”
    “It’s where I decided to stop moving.  I haven’t decided yet whether to stay, I may not like it.  I only just arrived.  Everything is very loud to me right now.”
    He nodded, but without understanding.
    “But you have money,” he said.  “I mean you must, if you were traveling all that time.  Takes a lot of money to travel.”
    “No it doesn’t.  You just start walking.  Like those people over there, near the river.”
    “What do you do when you stop, people just feed you?”
    It had been so long.
    “No, I just… yes, I guess that’s true.  People just feed me.”  It wasn’t true, but a lie was easier.
    He nodded again.  “Okay.  Okay, that’s cool.  Did they just feed you here?”
    “No, I gave them money.”
    “So you do have money.”
    “I went and found some before I arrived.  But it will run out and then I’ll have to find a job, as I said.”
    “Or just… find some more money?”
    “I’m trying to do this without… traveling.  I’d have to travel to find more money.”
    “Honest to God, this is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.”
    “I’m sorry, it’s difficult to explain.  If I elaborated it would only create additional questions whose answers you would find even less satisfying.”
    “No, it’s okay.  It’s interesting, at least.”
    “I’m very sorry, Rick, this is more talking than I expected us to have,” she said.  “I hadn’t prepared.”
    He smiled.  “Okay, we don’t have to talk.  I can just finish my coffee and get outta here.”
    “Oh, but… I thought that much at least was obvious.  Perhaps I’m more out of touch than I realized.”
    “What, now?”
    “Perhaps you are spoken for?  That must be where my confusion is.  I should have asked before now, I realize.”
    “Am I…”
    “Are you beholden?  Monogamy is disorienting, but I can respect it.  Cultural norms are what they are.  If there’s a woman or a man you’re exclusive with…?”
    “All right, the conversation just