I think of the last Steelbird concert. It was not meant to be the final one, but a month later everyone had a falling out with everyone else. I didn’t enjoy the dissolution of the band, even though I made it happen. I thought it was the only way. Maybe I was wrong, but wrongs don’t matter anymore. They were playing in the Wigwam Club for a half-full house. He had already noticed the girl before the concert; she was wearing a Steelbird T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, her messy black hair falling over her shoulders. The lyrics for ‘No Slave for You’ were tattooed on her upper arm. After the concert they met up. Csaba invited the girl backstage. The girl had long been dreaming about Csaba; I made those dreams myself. No matter how much I was annoyed by the thought, no matter how much I hated to consider the possibility of failure, I needed a plan B. Csaba thought he was infertile.

That was true; he couldn’t father children – unless I let him.

That night I did. Neither of them were fans of safe sex. After that night they never met again.

Until now. He sees her approaching the gate and at first he can’t quite place her. It’s been years. But finally it comes back to him, although he doesn’t yet understand, not even when he sees the child.

‘She’s yours,’ says the girl, who is now a woman.

Her name is Ildikó Kőhegyi, and she still has the tattoo on her arm, although she has been checking online to see how she can get rid of it. Csaba is not interested in the woman right now, neither am I. He is watching the little girl. She has her father’s eyes, dark green and deeply sad; her mouth is her mother’s. A beautiful, beautiful girl. Oh, how I wish I could take care of her. But it can’t be so.

Another one like me stands behind her; I greet him with a nod. The thing nods back and reveals his true form to me, and I return the gesture. This is the first time in my life I’ve met my own kind, and my heart pangs with pain at the thought that he was created in one of the forges of the universe only a few years ago. I had long been roaming the Earth by the time his soul was linked to the girl I created. I felt old. I wonder whether he cried when the girl was born. I wonder whether he will also protect his own as I protected Csaba. I have so many things to ask him, and I sense he feels the same, but we remain silent. We have a lot of questions, but nothing to say to each other; each has to follow his own path.