When we posted the want ad to interview supernaturals, I expected the crazies to come out of the woodwork. Boy was I right. I had thirty one interviews in a week that went… poorly. A bunch of attention or money seekers looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. Frankly my Editor was getting fed up paying out two hundred dollars a head for nothing but insane ramblings about how they were the thirty seventh descendant of Merlin. Yeah, that was actually one of them. No one out of the thirty one interviews could demonstrate any form of supernatural ability.
Then interview thirty two started. An average looking man walks in, sits down, waves his hand and his appearance totally changes. Long ears, nearly white hair, fine and detailed features. He introduced himself as an elf. I won’t go into most of the details of what was covered, because honestly it’s information that would do more damage than good in my opinion. Leave it to say that I met my first super natural and it was probably the most interesting 3 hour interview I have ever had.
One take away from the interview was this: from what I understand supernaturals, for the most part, are just people. They live their lives and do what they can to make ends meet. They just happen to have certain advantages that normal people don’t have.
I still believe we need transparency, one of the stumbling points of the interview was that topic. The elf likened it to knowing about your neighbors habits and desires. What business is it of mine to know the personal details of his life. I countered that being a supernatural is a lot more important to know about than if Bob has a ball gag in his closet. He also likened it to LGBTQ+ coming out of the closet. Even though some are out and proud there are still a lot who are fearful of what revealing themselves might bring. That I could understand. Fear of acceptance is universal, no matter who you are.
All in all it was a pleasant interview and arrangements have been made for a follow up interview as I’m only allotted so much time per person right now. Thankfully this interview was my last for that day so it was alright that it ran long.
So in short what I learned is that fae (elves and their cousins of various natures) live a very long time and have been around since before we humans were banging rocks together. They can change what they look like to better fit into the human world. He likened it to wearing a suit to go to work in.
Just like humans there are those who are good and bad, but for the most part there are no automatically good or bad races. They hold down jobs from taxi driver to actor, politician to janitor.
They have more than a few differences that can’t be explained, even by themselves.
I hope I have more interviews like this one and less of the crazy kind, but I know that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I think it is important that we start integrating the thought that even though they are here and we know about them now we shouldn’t be automatically afraid. Big changes are happening in the world and we are swept up in them whether we want to be or not.
Our best hope is to keep an open mind and let our better natures rule the day.