"I don't know. I'm nothing special."
"You think so? You fell into the bottom of the cesspool of Creation, survived and crawled out again. Doesn't that sound just a little special?"
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do. A regular person, a civilian, wouldn't have lasted a day down there, much less eleven years."
Another piece of metal falls.
"What does that mean?" I ask.
"Maybe it means you're different. Maybe it means that you're not who you think you are. Maybe it means you're not entirely human."
I open my eyes and look at him. No matter how hard I look and listen, I can't read him. Can't hear his heart or his breathing. Nothing.
"I don't like where this is going, doc."
"Another minute. We're almost there."
I close my eyes and try to calm my breathing. I didn't like seeing his hands moving around under my skin.
"You haven't answered the question. Are you human or not?"
"If I'm not human, what am I?"
"Same as me. An angel not quite fit for heaven or hell."
Another piece of metal falls. The fifth bullet.
I feel Kinski lean back. Hear him walk to the sink and wash his hands.
He says, "You can put your shirt back on."
I sit up on the table.
"What did you just say to me, man?"
He wipes his hands on a towel and says, "It's going to be harder for you than it is for me. I made concious choices that got me here. Half the universe hated you before you were born."
He moves slowly, choosing his words carefully. That much I can see. He's not high or drunk and he doesn't give off a Looney Tunes vibe. Still.
"Put your shirt on. Let's go have a smoke."
I follow him into the parking lot. The sun hurts my eyes after having them closed. I watch the doc, looking for any signs of obvious craziness. I could make a break for the Benz, but I'm a little woozy from the surgery.
Kinski is looking at me. He takes out a cigarette and offers me the pack. I take one.
"If you don't want to hear this, I'm not going to force you. I just thought that maybe you'd like to know who you are, why certain things have happened to you, and why certain other things are going to happen in the future."
"I'm listening."
"I'm sure Miss Aelita told you about God's great fuckup at the beginning of time. The thing is, there are other stories regular folks aren't supposed to know about. One is about how in the early days of the world, after what happened in Eden, yet another great fuckup, God sent angels to Earth to look after humans. These angels didn't float around in the sky with big white wings and harps. They lived as ordinary people. Had jobs. Farmed. Fought in wars. All the things regular people do. The only thing they couldn't do was fraternize with humanity. They had to remain apart and aloof so that they could be watchful."
I smoked my cigarette and watched the smog rim the clouds with funny shades of blue and gold.
"The problem with this plan is that you can't take anything, even angels, put them in a human body, give them a human life, and not expect them to start feeling and acting just a little human. Even falling in love. Even having children.
"The children these angels had with mortal women were called nephilim. There were a lot of them around once upon a time. Now, not so many."