You’re two min­utes early, which means you’re three min­utes late.

He rubs it in, of course, but you expect noth­ing less. It’s what he does: com­plain, com­plain, com­plain, all the time.

You’ll give him some­thing to com­plain about, just as soon as he tells you what you want to hear.

“What is a Phoenix?”

“What am I? Your dictionary?”

“I don’t care about mythology.”

You don’t care about some myth­i­cal bird. You don’t care how many times they can rebirth from their ashes. You don’t care about the myth.

You care about the reality.

“Phoenixes,” he says, “are phoenixes.”

You glare at him.

He chuck­les.

“If you prac­tice, maybe your look could man­age a nosebleed.”

You don’t let up your glare. In fact, you glare harder. You can just see the blood flow­ing from his nose…

Huh.

It’s not just your imagination.

Now he’s scut­tling around try­ing to staunch the foun­tain of blood already form­ing a pool on the floor.

“Fine, fine! Fine, I said! I can’t tell you any­thing if I’m bled out!”

“Speak quickly, then!”

But you drop your glare any­way, and set­tle for merely look­ing at him threateningly.

He looks at you seriously.

“The Thir­teen Phoenixes are The Guardians. All look up to them, of course.”

“Thir­teen?” They like the num­ber thir­teen, who­ever they are.

“They’ve been the guardians of our world since, well, as far back as any­one can remem­ber.” He con­tin­ues, “Not that that says very much.”

“I don’t remem­ber.” Your deal­ings with such peo­ple – those who use magic–are lim­ited, but you’d think you would have heard of some­thing so important.

“You wouldn’t,” grum­bles the man. He takes a sip of a drink.

Some goes down the wrong pipe, and he begins to choke.

A vanilla milk­shake. Not quite what you’d expect a wise old man to drink.

Then again, he’s not old.

Actu­ally, you’re only just now really notic­ing his age. You’re some­what sur­prised it took you so long, as you were indeed expect­ing some­one much older, and much more wrinkly.

He can’t be older than twenty – if that!

“Oops,” he mut­ters, and coughs one more time.

You press on: “But what are they?”

“Peo­ple. Thir­teen peo­ple. Weird names – not always the same names, though. Once three of them went by ‘Who,’ ‘What,’ and ‘I don’t know;’ don’t know, they still might – ”

“If they’re so impor­tant, shouldn’t you know?”

“Not if they don’t want me to.”

“What do they do?

“Stuff. Not sure. Some­thing important.”

Again, you won­der how he could not know what they do, if they’re as impor­tant as he says.

Then you won­der if per­haps he’s just hav­ing you on.

“If you don’t know very much about them… who does?”

“Oh, about any­one, I’d expect.”

“Not very wise for a wise man, are you?”

“I’m wise enough when it suits me, and dense as con­crete at all other times. But knowl­edge has lit­tle to do with wisdom.

“Besides, you’re under the impres­sion that I’m both wise and a man.

“I would claim to be neither.”

You look at him wearily. “What are you, then?”

“I am a Phoenix.”

You blink.

“Do you have a name?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been called Igno­rance. Some have called me Apa­thy. I don’t really care which you use.”

“Logic is an enemy. Logic is a phoenix. Are you an enemy?”

“And you think I would know the answer? Even I know bet­ter than to ask myself questions.”

You won­der if this will end up in some sort of fight. Not because he’s an enemy – just because he irri­tates you so.

For a moment, you pon­der the mer­its of giv­ing him another nosebleed.

He looks at an invis­i­ble watch.

“I’d love to stick around and chat some more, but this con­ver­sa­tion doesn’t really inter­est me, and there’s a bril­liant book burn­ing in Florida right about now, so if you do not mind…”

He morphs into a giant dark grey bird, and, in a bril­liant flash of white sparks and grey flame, disappears.

You should have given him another nose­bleed when you had the chance.