Humanity (11 page)

The cameo pendant hung from a gold chain.
The cameo itself was of blue and white stone, etched into the form of a mother
holding a baby.

I took the necklace. “This isn’t useless.
You could trade it sometime for something you need.”

“I told you, I try not to go near enough
to humans that a trade would ever be possible.” He was shuffling through
 
his backpack, not looking at me.

I frowned. Why would he give me something
like this? Because he was attached to me?

My stomach tingled, and I quickly put the
necklace on, wishing not to unnecessarily dwell on the subject with him.

He stood, and I noticed his mouth twitch
as he looked down at me; he offered me his hand.

“Can I have a few minutes before we take
off?” I asked, letting him pull me up.

“Sure.”

“Er, private moments?”

“As long as I’m within hearing distance,
you go for it.”

“Okay. Sit facing that direction.” I
pointed into the forest, and was amazed as he followed my instructions. It
wasn’t really necessary for him to be sitting, but I figured we might as well
not waste his small amount of energy while I was busy.

I quickly used the restroom, got a drink
of water, and rinsed my face.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

“Good.” He stood and turned to face me.
“I heard what sounds like a group of squirrels in that direction.” He tilted
his head southeast, away from the stream. “Fairly close, I think.”

“Squirrels?” I arched my eyebrows.
“Great.”

“It’s food,” he replied, pulling out his
gun and starting toward the sounds he’d heard.

I followed, because I knew he expected me
to. Why I cared to do what he expected, I wasn’t sure. I truly didn’t want to
be alone so shortly after my “encounter,” though.

I kept an ear cocked, listening for
whatever Gideon had heard. Soon came the sound of feet skittering above us in
the branches.

Gideon aimed upward and let out six
successive shots. Two squirrels dropped.

“That should be plenty, eh?” he asked me,
walking a few steps to scoop up the fallen bodies.

We cooked them, then ate them; we started
walking south again.

“I was thinking about your story last
night, before I went to sleep,” I said, lifting his necklace to the light to
study it before tucking it into my shirt.

“Oh, good. What conclusions have you
drawn?”

“That love can be a strong motivation for
doing things.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Well, you’re right. But that wasn’t the
point.”

“What was the point, then?”

“How about another story?”

“No. You need to tell me the point of the
first story.”

“What if I told you this new story will
help you understand the point of the old story?”

I sighed. “Fine. It’s not like there’s
anything else to talk about.”

“Once upon a time - ”

“Why is it always ‘once upon a time?’ Why
don’t you just launch right into the story?”

“Fine. There were two brothers.”

“You know what? I don’t want to hear this
story. Your lack of creativity is depressing.”

Gideon was silent.

We kept walking.

“Why can’t you just tell me the point of
the story?” I burst out.

“The point of the story is forgiveness.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Really.”

“Yes, really. Love motivated the father
to
forgive
his son. How could you
miss that?”

“Forgiveness. Kind of like you want me to
forgive you for killing my parents?”

“Yes.”

“Too bad there’s a piece to your formula
missing.”

“Which is?”

“Love as motivation. In fact, you’ve got
quite the opposing force, since love was the motivating factor in my desire to
kill you.”

“So you can’t forgive me because you
loved your parents too much.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s very reasonable.”

“I know. Why are you so agreeable about
it?”

“I can respect that you loved your
parents.”

“Not enough to kill you, apparently,” I
mumbled.

“Not killing me doesn’t mean you don’t
love them enough. It just means you’re a decent enough human being to see that
I shouldn’t die. I killed them out of the need to survive, not because I’m
evil.”

“So why didn’t you kill Alice and I?”

“Who?”

“My friend. She was the one who dropped
down beside me when you started shooting. You didn’t even try to shoot us – you
only fired five times, once for each of the others.”

“As I’ve told you before, I don’t kill
unnecessarily. Killing you and your friend wasn’t necessary for a few different
reasons.”

“Which are?”

“Alright, let’s talk through the scenario
strategically: there were seven of you in the clearing: three men and four women.
I was starving and very low on strength and energy. To get to that doe, I had
to kill the men, because I could definitely not get past them on my own in my
weakened state. That left four women, which was a little too many to have
attacking me as a group. You and your friend were the smallest, and the least
likely to fight me for the deer once I came to claim it. So, I shot the other
two women and left the two of you alone.”

“We had guns. How did you know we
wouldn’t shoot at you?”

“Because you didn’t know how many of me
there were. You had no clue as to whether someone else would fire on you if you
moved. It was the perfect setup for me to run and get the deer with minimal
lives lost.”

“
Minimal
.
Eighteen people died so you could eat that deer!”

Gideon flinched. “I didn’t kill all of
them; there was some confusion in your numbers.”

“Which
you
caused.”

He stopped walking, turning to face me.
“Candace, I was starving. Remember the conversation about the trees? Just
because the tree is beautiful and alive doesn’t mean I choose the tree over
myself.” He turned away and started walking again. “Is there anything I can do
to convince you I had no choice?”

“You did have a choice. You just chose
the most selfish option.”

“So you would have let yourself starve to
death, rather than kill eighteen humans to eat?”

“Possibly.”

“Ha. Let’s just see what your natural
preservative instinct leads you to do next time you’re faced with that exact
same scenario. And what about those squirrels we just ate?”

“What about them?”

“They were alive. We killed them so we
could survive.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Why? Because they’re not human?”

“Well, yeah.”

“But you’ve seen humanity, Candace.
Humanity is destructive. Humans aren’t worth anything more than any other
creature on this planet. How many animals have you killed in your life so you
could survive? Way more than eighteen, I’d wager.”

His words nagged at my chest. Some part
of me felt the truth of them, the understanding that humans were no better than
animals, and to kill an animal
might
be just as bad as killing a human.

But it wasn’t. It just wasn’t.

Gideon kept talking. “Besides that, what
have your motivations to kill humans been? Because I’d certainly say that your
killing of those people who attacked me was selfish. As was your desire to kill
me.”

I gaped at him. “
What
? That was most certainly not selfish.”

“Yes, Candace, it was.”

“I did –
was
doing that – for my parents.”

“Candace, I’m sorry to say this, but your
parents are
dead
. They don’t need
anything anymore, and they most certainly don’t need you going around killing
people. You killed my attackers because you wanted to be the one to kill me,
even though the only reason they were going to kill me was in hopes of getting
something I might have, something that would help them survive – a life in
sacrifice of three lives. But you killed them because you didn’t want them to
kill me – because
you
wanted to kill
me. You wanted to kill me because you hoped it would somehow make you feel
better about your parents’ death. And
then
you decided not to kill me because you found that it might be easier to live
with
me than to kill me. What part of
that wasn’t selfish?”

My chest was on fire at his words; anger
blazed through me. He had no right to say that. None at all.
He’d killed my parents
.

“You’re no better than me, Candace. We
are just two individuals trying to get through life here on earth.”

I stopped walking. When Gideon noticed,
he stopped, too. But I didn’t look at him. Instead, I just turned around and
walked away.

I walked several yards off – far enough
away to make me feel like I had some distance. Then, I climbed a tree.

I settled in between its branches,
listening for any sign that Gideon had followed me.

There wasn’t any.

This might have scared me, the thought of
him walking on without me, but I was too angry to think about that at the
moment. I just sat there, my whole being burning. If he disappeared while I was
gone, that might be for the best anyway.

I was angry at him for saying what he
had, but mostly because he was right. It
was
selfishness that had motivated me to kill those people. It
was
selfishness, my previous desire to kill Gideon. And that meant
he was also right about me being no better than him. I had nothing to hold
against him.

But I still couldn’t forgive him. It hurt
too much.

I sat in that tree for about an hour. The
anger faded, and then I just wallowed in the pain of loss; I missed my parents,
and it hurt to know there wasn’t anything I could do for them. Even killing
Gideon wouldn’t be for them.

Of course, this meant Gideon was also
right about my love for them. It
wasn’t
lack of love that kept me from killing him. Maybe I
was
just a decent human being, like he’d said. Maybe it’d been my
lack of selfishness.

Or, like he’d also said, maybe it had
been my change of desires – my selfishness turned toward a different desire:
the desire not to be alone.

I sat there, alone, basking in the
aloneness that was both a fear and a desire; it was so rare that I managed to
be alone, but there was also the fear that it might, one day, become permanent.

Then, finally, came the anxiety that
Gideon might be gone.

I climbed down from the tree, returning
to the streamside.

There he sat, his back against a tree as
he watched the water. He looked up as I approached, then stood.

“That took you long enough,” he said,
stretching his back.

“You didn’t leave,” I commented, falling
into step with him as he began walking again.

“I’m attached to you, remember?”

“I thought maybe my selfishness would
have finally convinced you to go your own way.”

“The point of what I’d said wasn’t that
you’re selfish. It was that self preservation is a requirement of life, and it
was an instinct both of us have.”

“Self preservation?” I didn’t see how
that connected to my selfishness.

“In your case, the preservation of your
mental state.”

“Ah. So I would have self imploded if I
hadn’t decided to follow you that first day?”

“Possibly. You didn’t have it in you to
let me go.”

“Would I have self imploded if I had
killed you at the carnival?”

“Probably not. However, you recognized
that it might no longer be your best option – that’s self preservation.”

“I kind of hate you.”

“Haven’t you always?”

“Well, no. I started out hating you; that
faded to dislike, and then to a general neutral feeling, then to a slight
preference for you. Now, however, I’ve returned to hating you.”

“That’s quite the degree change. Why?”

“Because you always seem to be right.”

He took my hand right then, without
looking at me, and continued to walk; he interlaced his fingers with mine.
“That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, you know.”

“I know. But it’s definitely an annoying
thing.”

“It’ll be less annoying when you’re a
little older.”

“No. It’ll always be annoying.”

“As long as it doesn’t motivate you to
leave me.”

“Because you don’t want me gone?”

He smiled, still looking ahead rather
than at me. “I enjoy your company. Remember?”