Mermaid Pirate Dispatch

“I need my blood back.” I’m a very patient man. I should be, after all this time. But the lady at the front desk was either not listening or not competent, or both.

“I don’t understand,” she said for the fifteenth time.

“What is there to not understand. Someone drew my blood for labs. I assume you still have some of it somewhere. I need it back.”

She looked extremely confused. “Sir, we don’t do that.”

I looked at her, sizing her up. I consider myself an excellent judge of character. She seemed like the kind of person who, if she believed me, could be trusted to keep the secret. If not, I had nothing to lose if I couldn’t get my samples back. “Can I trust you?” I asked.

“Trust me?”

“Yes, can I trust you?”

She looked at me blankly. “Sir, I’m afraid I really don’t understand what is going on here at all.” She looked lost, confused, and a little sad.

“Look, blood is everything, OK?” I began. She nodded her head. “How do I explain this?” I asked myself rhetorically. She had been trying my patience, and I couldn’t remember the last time I risked explaining this to someone. “Let me try again.” She nodded slowly, her eyes wide and skeptical. “Everybody dies, right?” She nodded again. “Well, of course they do!” I laughed nervously, feeling like a fool.

She leaned over to check behind me and make sure nobody was waiting. I turned around too. The room was empty. Good! But it wouldn’t be that way forever.

“OK, so with normal human blood, it is impossible to live longer than a hundred, maybe two hundred years.”

Her eyes got really wide. “Two hundred years?” she repeated.

“Well, not these days,” I said sheepishly. “I mean, if you really take good care of yourself you might live to be over a hundred, right?” I shook my head and slapped my hand to my face. “Ugh, sorry. I’m getting off track again.”

She nodded in agreement, bewildered.

“Alright, my blood is different,” I start. “Well, it was different when I came in to get my bloodwork done a few days ago. I made a mistake and forgot to…” I could see I was losing her. Her brow was furrowed and her lips were scrunched awkwardly to the side.

“Blood is the key,” I say as though announcing the winner on a gameshow.

She stared at me skeptically.

“Immortality,” I say. “It’s impossible with the blood most people have. But immortal people, we have different blood.”

She squinted her eyes at me. Her skepticism was kicking into overdrive. She slowly reached for her telephone.

“Wait,” I said. “Ask me questions. Let me try to prove it to you.”

“Sir,” she began. “Are you saying you’re… immortal?”

“Yes.”

She stared. “Why do you really want your blood back? Have you been doing drugs? We won’t do a drug test on your blood, and if we did, we wouldn’t report it to your employer unless they were the ones that requested the test.”

“No,” I said. “No drugs. I swear, if I don’t get my blood samples back and someone discovers that my blood is different, we could have a really difficult situation. This could mean wars and chaos and all kinds of terrible things. I really need you to believe me and especially need you to help me.”

She sat still staring through me for a long time. A long time. I looked at her nametag. I should have done this earlier.

“Samantha, that’s your name, right?”

She blinked and focused on me again.

“Samantha, I really need you to listen. I need to get my blood back. I’d love to get my records removed from your system as well, if possible. Do you think we can do those things?”

Her eyes locked with mine and she clenched her jaw.

I waited. I smiled. I looked around. Still nobody else. Good. I started sweating.

“Samantha, I told you this because I judged you to be trustworthy. I thought there was a chance you’d believe me and help me keep my secret. Have I made a mistake?”

She blinked. Geez, when was the last time she had blinked before that?

“Do you want to ask me anything? I’ll answer any of your questions, but you have to keep all of this between us, alright?”

She slowly nodded and thought for a moment. Or at least I hoped she was thinking. Her expression was fixed in one of shock and skepticism. Eventually she opened her mouth. “How long have you been alive?”

“I became immortal almost two thousand years ago,” I said.

“How?”

I paused. I wanted to be honest with her, but I also needed to minimize the shock to her system. She was already processing too much. “That’s a great question. As for the mechanics of how it happened, my blood transformed. As for the event that caused it, I’d love to tell you, but you aren’t ready for the answer yet.”

Her eyebrows, which had been raised stiffly for a long time, relaxed. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Sometimes I can’t tell people things without it causing major problems.”

“Why did you get your blood drawn in the first place?”

“I try my best to fit in and do the things that normal people do. If I am ever examined by authorities, I need people to see that I do normal mortal things like get bloodwork and visit the doctor. Usually, I am able to temporarily make my blood ‘normal’ again for these things, but this time I forgot.”

“If you’ve been doing this for so long, how did you forget?”

“Well, bloodwork is a fairly ‘recent’ practice as far as I’m concerned. I’m still new to the routine. Plus,” I added with as much charm as I could muster, “when I saw you at the counter I was distracted by your beauty.”

She smiled and chuckled a little. She looked down and played with her hair nervously. She probably thought she looked plain and unattractive, but to me, she was indeed beautiful.

“Alright Romeo,” she said, blushing slightly, “what’s the most interesting event you’ve seen in person in the last two thousand years?”

Sigh. Again, I couldn’t really answer, since the events that led to my immortality were truly some of the most interesting events in all of human history. But I tried to think of something else to share. “Well, the world is big, and in order to see the most important events in history you have to be in the right place at the right time. It’s mostly a matter of luck. Of course, I don’t believe in luck and I’ve been guided to be present at some extremely interesting points of history. Perhaps you’d be interested to know that I’ve fought in all of the major wars that happened in the last two thousand years. I was inspired to join one side or another and I helped them claim victory. Sometimes I was just a foot soldier, other times I acted as an advisor to the top generals. I always kept out of the spotlight and went as unnoticed as possible while trying my best to ensure the best side won.”

Her eyes went wide. “Wow,” she said. “That’s actually really interesting.”

“So…” I started. “Do you believe me? I really need to get that blood back.” I smiled sheepishly.

“I actually have a ton more questions,” she started. “But, I guess I do believe you.”

She shook her head as though snapping herself out of a trance and looked down at her computer. She typed in a few things, clicked a few times, and looked up. “Alright, I’ve deleted the lab results and I’ll be right back with all of the samples, including the ones we already tested.”

She returned a moment later with a large manila envelope and handed it to me.

“Thank you so much Samantha. You have seriously saved the entire world from some extremely earthshattering consequences.”

She looked a little sad.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I still have so many questions. Is there any way we could…” she trailed off.

My heart started pounding excitedly and I felt short of breath, a little lightheaded. She wanted to go out on a date with me, I was sure of it. I had only let something like this happen a handful of times before. I had sworn off women and intimate love. I had dedicated my life to a cause so much higher and more significant than any mortal concerns. But I had let my guard down. I had allowed myself to be too charming with this poor soul. No matter what I did now, her heart was going to be broken later.

“Can we get dinner sometime?” she asked quickly, stroking her hair nervously and looking down at her computer keyboard.

Maybe if I kept it friendly and made sure… Sigh. No matter what, her heart was going to break. I knew I couldn’t avoid it. Perhaps I could at least allow her some time to satisfy her curiosity and enjoy some friendship. In fact, my life was very lonely, I might enjoy the friendship as well, and she already knew my secret…

But broken hearts were some of my least favorite things to leave along my trail through life. A very complicated tear formed in my eye.

“Sure,” I said with defeat. “Let’s get dinner.”

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