Survival

“So, why have you invited me out?” the red haired girl asked with obvious joy. “I see you in school all the time, but you never talked to me for long. What made you do it now?”

The boy sitting across from her in the dimly lit café looked down and laughed silently. The plastic spoon slid off the table, apparently on its own, but he caught it before it reached the floor.

“Nice reflexes,” she smiled. “For a moment I thought you’d fallen asleep.”

“No, I haven’t,” he said and looked in her eyes. “I just thought about how to reply. I think it wouldn’t be nice of me to lie.”

“I agree. I like honesty,” she said, still smiling.

“Alright, but… I don’t think you’ll like what you hear. It’s nothing terrible, just… well, you could be angry about the honesty of it all. But I think it’s for the best, so we now where we stand.”

“Well start then,” she was impatient. “You got me intrigued.”

“I will, but in order to understand why I invited you out, I have to start the story when I was eight. That’s when…”

“Can’t you just give me a simple reason?”

“Sorry, but I can’t,” now it was his turn to smile. “I have to explain everything from the beginning.”

She frowned a bit and told him to continue. He thought she was much cuter than he noticed in school.

“So, when I was eight, I had a hobby that I was incredibly talented for. You might laugh when you hear what it is, but please, don’t. I still have traumas from that period.”

“What is it? I won’t laugh,” she said, and her eyes already started smiling.

“It was… tap dancing.”

“Tap dancing?”

“Yep, tap dancing. I was pretty good for my age. I practiced it every single day. My parents supported me. I remember my mom sewing me a nice black suit, and my dad got me a top hat, and later on even a cane with a golden ball on top.

I was absolutely crazy about tap dancing. I would get up every morning before my parents or my brothers, go down to the large mirror and tap tap tap away until everybody woke up, and it was time for breakfast and school.”

“This is all very cute, but what does it have to do with me?” she asked, visibly amused.

“Just hold on, and you’ll find out. It wasn’t easy, as it never is if you want to be the best in something. Sometimes I wouldn’t warm up properly, and I had muscle cramps. The tap dancing shoes are not cheap, and I went through a few pairs of them while dancing. Of course, all my “friends” from school called me gay as well. You can laugh now if you want.”

She followed his suggestion and chuckled. It was nice listening to him.

“Poor thing,” she said. “You called these people friends? Do I know them?”

“I don’t think so. It was a long time ago.”

“Well, maybe you should have found new friends.”

“Maybe. But in any case, I wasn’t bothered,” he continued. “At that time, I only lived for tap dancing. When I found out that there is going to be a huge competition, there wasn’t a happier child in the town. I prepared like crazy, I neglected school work, and I just wanted to show off my skills.”

“What happened, did you win anything?” she asked.

“The only thing I got was trauma,” he murmured. “Let me explain. When I went on stage, one of the judges smiled in a mocking way. But I was resolved to show them what I can do.

When the music started, I went off as well, hard and fast from the very start. I didn’t slow down for a second; I just kept up the same tempo. I lit the stage on fire. At the end, I shot a staccato like a machine gun, tatata-ratata-tatata-ta!

Everyone had their jaws open when I was done. It’s not like I’m bragging now, but I’m sure they didn’t expect that from a little boy. The judge that was mocking me was now wiping a tear from her eye. Applause was roaring. Everyone was convinced that they found a new winner.”

“Congratulations,” she said.

“Thank you,” he replied. “I thought so too. I believed I was writing the history of tap dancing. It turned out, however, that it was written on that day, but not by me.

You see, when I was done, there was one more kid after me, who explicitly requested to be the last one to perform. I crumbled in a chair backstage and asked my mom something, but she didn’t answer. I looked at her to see why she was silent, and I saw she was staring at the kid on the stage.

At first I didn’t understand why everyone, not just my mom, was staring at him. He had a similar hat as me, shirt, pants, everything. But as my gaze went down, I noticed it.

He was barefoot. He had no shoes. But also, he had no… feet. I mean, he had feet, but two on each leg, one at the front and one at the back. He didn’t have any toes either, just some bony things.”

She stopped smiling immediately.

“A mutant?”

“Yes,” he replied. “See, around that time, we got the tolerance law, to stop the discrimination of mutants, but still, people did not like seeing them in the streets, let alone in a competition. You know how we can be less than liberal. But his was an official competition, and he was a legitimately enrolled candidate. There was nothing to stop him from participating.”

“Did he have any, you know… special abilities?” she inquired, looking at the floor. She didn’t like the story that much anymore.

“You bet he did. He was amazing. The music never started, because he didn’t need it. His vocal cords were also doubled, or mutated, or his throat, I don’t know what it was. All I know is that he started singing in two tones, like there were two distinct voices. He then used his feet to give rhythm to the song. It was like a mix of jazz, classical music and hip hop, and it all sounded heavenly, I have to admit. It was perfect harmony of sound.

The audience and the judges went crazy. They started screaming in ovation before he finished. It was then I knew that I will never be the best tap dancer in the world.”

“Must have felt horrible,” she said, in a voice that had a dash of anger and a hint of sarcasm.

“Perhaps, but I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what mutants go through in their childhood,” he said, looking in her eyes.

“You think?” she said flatly.

“Look, I think I should tell you now what this has to do with you. We’re not kids anymore, no need to pass metaphors around. I know mutants are among us, and there’ll be more of them. We don’t exterminate them anymore like we did in the past.”

“We don’t, unfortunately, right?”

“No, not unfortunately. Quite the opposite,” he said and reached for her hand, but she moved it before he could touch her.

“Look,” he said, “I know what you are.”

She didn’t say anything, but instead just looked at him with her large inquisitive chestnut eyes.

“I’ve noticed it in school, and I’ve noticed it a few minutes ago, with the spoon. I know that you can move objects with…”

“Stop, please,” she interrupted him. She didn’t like using telekinesis in public. She didn’t even like talking about it. Even with the law in effect, there was still a large amount of hostility towards the mutants. People didn’t like them and saw them as a threat. She had the fortune that her mutation did not affect her appearance, but she knew many bad stories about the ones who weren’t that lucky. Talking about it never led to anything good, and neither did having other people know about it. His casual talking about it was not something she liked either.

“Look, I don’t mind it. I have nothing against you, I don’t hate you, and I don’t fear you. Well, ok, maybe a little bit,” he added after a pause.

“A little bit of hate or a little bit of fear?”

“A bit of both. Remember, I did lose at the competition.”

She smiled, but only for a moment.

“Come on, relax,” he said. “I mean you no harm. I’m sorry I was beating around the bush; maybe I should’ve done it differently. I was afraid you’d get the wrong impression if I tell you bluntly.”

“Fine,” she said, after scanning his face, and finding no obvious trace of lies. ”Finish your story then. I can’t wait to hear how you’ll explain why you invited me out.”

“Patience,” he said. “I don’t’ want you to think that I believe that mutants are not humans, or anything like that.”

“So that’s not what you’re saying.”

“Of course not. Mutants are humans too, and yet, at the same time, they’re not really. Like, if you have a sister, she came from the same parents as you, she is similar to you, but she isn’t you. You know?”

“Not really,” she replied. “You better find some way out of this.”

“If you allow me, I’d like to try with an analogy.”

“Begin.”

“Do you know who the Neanderthals were?”

She frowned.

“My prehistoric knowledge is not that great, but I can tell you that if you’re going to compare me to Neanderthals, you can stop right now.”

“No, don’t worry. I’ll compare myself,” he smiled.

“All right then, continue.”

“So, the Neanderthals were our genetic ancestors that disappeared in time. Unlike their cousins, the Homo sapiens and the Cro-Magnons, they weren’t really agile. They were less resilient to disease, they spent a lot of energy in hunts, and so on. Traces were also found on their bones that might suggest they were cannibals at one point, and… What? What’s so funny? I sound like a nerd, right?”

“A little bit,” she answered, regaining some of her previous good mood. “Go on, tell me. What happened to them in the end?”

“Well, they, uhm, didn’t adapt, that’s all. On the other hand, Homo sapiens adapted like crazy. They had larger brains, stronger bodies, and finally became humans, literally. They were faster, stronger and smarter than Neanderthals. You could even say they… mutated.

See what I’m trying to say? It’s just evolution, and this right now is the new evolutionary step. There will be new humans, the mutants, who are smarter and faster, and better at tap dancing, and of course, much sexier.”

She laughed again.

“They already survived all kinds of nasty things. Now they have their own law, their children have children, all of them better than the ones who came before. In fact, this could be the end of non-mutants.”

“You sound kind of jolly saying that,” she said.

“That’s because I have a plan,” he replied with a sinister smile.

“Is that so? What kind of a plan?” she asked, with a similar smile on her face.

“See, there is a theory… I know, me and my theories, but it says that Neanderthals stayed alive for so long because, in order to prolong their life span, they… looked for partners in the members of another race of humans.”

Her eyes went wide as she gasped, but then she started laughing out loud.

“You know,” she said, “I think this the most original method of courting I have ever heard. So, no more metaphors, ok?”

He nodded.

“Then I want to hear it. Forget about the Neanderthals and tap dancing. I want you to say it clearly.”

This is it, he thought, and gathered all the guts he had.

“Fine, I’ll tell you. I don’t care that you are different. I think you are wonderful, smart and beautiful, and I want to be with you. If you, uhm, also want to be with me too, of course.”

She looked down, blushed, and then back up at him. She wanted to stop smiling, but couldn’t.

“So that’s it,” she said. “You want to ensure your survival?”

They both started laughing, and in the next moment, their lips touched.

He was convinced that his chair moved on its own, a bit closer to her.