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“The black rectangles?” I repeated, confused.
He nodded. “I have seen them all over the place, in your apartment, in Montréal, even on the plane, sometimes mortals are inside of them or moving drawings show up in them.”
It took me a second, although I couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you mean the television?”
“Is that what it is called?” he said in wonder. “Television? As in the Greek têle, which means, far or télos, which means the end. So far or end vision? It is that box that shows what is far as in the distance or far as in the future?”
I just stared at him, and he stared back, waiting for an explanation.
“You do not know, either?” He asked when I did not reply.
“No...It is television because it shows reports, similar to telegrams over long or far distances. It doesn’t tell the future. It’s more like newspapers, books, plays, but serious and entertainment, put on a screen told by the humans to others.”
He nodded slowly. “And this device?”
He pulled my cellphone from his pocket. I hadn’t even thought about it since I left it for him at my apartment. “It no longer turns on. I fear I must have broken it. I did not wish to return it to you as such, so I thought my brother would fix it.”
I giggled, taking it from him. “It’s just dead. It needs to be recharged, but it’s not broken.”
“That is a phone but not a television?” he asked, making sure. He was cute this clueless.
I liked it, which probably said more about me and my hate of being so utterly clueless myself. “It’s mostly a phone, but it can be used as a television. But that’s not its main purpose, so we call it a cellphone or wireless phone.”
Again, he nodded, taking the phone and looking over it. “So much has changed. The telephones were just becoming common in the early 1900s. It was very much a status symbol for the mortal as a new toy. Now, even the children at the airport were holding them.”
“The world changes fast.”
He nodded. “So, it seems. And gone are candles. Instead, the devil’s light has taken over.”
“The devil’s light?”
He chuckled, too. “It was what the newspapers and even some churches called the Edison lightbulb. Though, I do believe the candlemakers paid the newspapers to write such stories. You may not believe it, but it was panic over this artificial light in a glass. Others even called it witchcraft.”
“Even in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century humans were still blaming science on witchcraft?” It was amazing. By that time, I thought everyone was pushing for more inventions.
“I’m sure some still even do till this day. And they were not wrong,” he repeated, giving me back the phone.
But with nowhere to put it, I placed it into his pants pocket. It wasn’t like anyone would be calling me. “Why were they not wrong?”
“Many Wiccan, especially the men, hid among the scientist because it allowed them to use their magic under the cover of knowledge. Humans are not so daft and blind. They felt something off about the men of science.”
“Men and women,” I corrected.
“Forgive me.” He grinned. “Men and women of science, though women were rare in that field, last I remember. Science, nonetheless, was a disguise for many witches. The humans sensed it and avoided or rejected them.”
“So, the light bulb was the devil’s light? Why do I imagine a Puritan in the middle of the street preaching?”
He groaned loudly, his eyes even rolling. “The Puritans...the most annoying and pretentious sect of humans of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. I avoided England out of fear I’d massacre the lot of them.”
It was wrong, but I laughed loudly. “They were in America, too.”
“Because they vexed Charles I so greatly, even he could not stand to see them.” He shook his head. “In the beginning, their concerns and even thoughts were valid. Then all of a sudden, it was about control, power, fear, isolating, and destroying anything they did not understand, did not agree with, or even worse, things that tempted them.”
“That sounds like most religions,” I admitted, frowning.
“True. I could just be biased against the Puritans because they were the most recent in my memory,” he replied. “Everyone knows of the witch trials. Only we know how the vampires were slain. There was no trail for our kind, just death.”
“Puritans were vampire hunters?” It sounded like a bad teen TV drama.
