The steps lead down to the water. Morning glories, closed against the night’s chill, trailed around the metal handrail; ivy grew over the stone walls that enclosed the staircase.
Water oscillated over the last step, each time covering it with a mere film of moisture. It moved enough so that the moss which covered the boulders surrounding the lake had left the step alone.
It felt pleasant against her feet as she stood there, her right hand cupped against her thigh, her other hand gripping her right arm, just beneath the livid bruise on her shoulder. She closed her eyes as the breeze swept through her hair.
A real wave broke over her feet, splashing on her calves, and she shivered. Opening her eyes, she watched as a current wove its way through the smooth surface of the lake. She rubbed her arm in a distracted manner as she waited, fingers digging white circles into the skin.
Her dress did not fit as well as it once had. The cotton was stressed from its years of use, a few threads dangling loose. The sun—the sun!—had bleached the already pale blue to near-white. But she’d craved its familiar texture and so had removed it from its hidden box.
At the tip of the handrail was a long spike, placed upright, still stained from her last visit. She studied the movement in the water, now circling a small distance from the steps, and sighed. Reaching out, she plunged her index finger onto the thin metal, nearly impaling the digit entirely.
She pulled her finger off the spike and swept her arm in a curve over the water. Her blood glinted silver in the moonlight, falling in a parabola. The drops rested on the surface of the lake for a moment before sinking.
Wincing, she shook off a few more globules of blood into the water before squeezing her finger into her fist. She clasped her other hand around it to provide more pressure. A few breaths in and out did little to dull the pain.
The head that rose from the water was sleek, and covered with scales that glinted like chips of mica. One oval black eye reflected the lake; the other, the moon. Swimming toward her, the whole creature appeared by inches, all of it smooth, shiny, and silent.
She just watched, shaking from the cold and the anticipation. Despite her best efforts, blood slithered down her arm, dripping onto the steps. It was so quiet that the liquid landed with audible splashes. She took another deep breath. “Hello, Mother.”
Her mother folded her arms, leaning against a boulder that rose from the bottom of the lake. “Sefiera.”
They stared at each other for a few moments, as the water rose to the level of her ankles.
“You have not been here for some time, Sefeira.” Her mother placed a hand on the step, careful to keep it under the water. “In fact, I remember that the last time you came to me, you swore that you would never return.”
Sefeira moved a few stairs up, out of the water. “Mother—I—” She swallowed hard. “I was wrong, to say what I did.” She stared back at her mother, suddenly defiant. Neither woman blinked. “But I was not the only one.”
Tapping her hand on the stair, raising little bubbles that floated to the surface, her mother frowned. “This is why you are here? To make peace?” She pursed her wide mouth. “This is. . . unlike you, daughter.”
Shrugging, Sefeira spread her hands wide. “Perhaps I have been too long in the world, mother. Things move. . . differently, out here.” She went to step back down, but caught a toe on the edge of the stair. Unable to catch herself, she fell against the left wall. The wind knocked out of her, she curled her right arm over her stomach, looking down with alarm. She looked up in time to see her mother’s eyes widen.
The other woman pulled herself up towards her daughter with a great effort, arms trembling against the unaccustomed weight of her body. “No.” She gasped, struggling to breathe, her gaze fixed on Sefeira. “No!”
Sefeira put her hand to her mouth. Looking away from her mother, she noticed blood smeared on her dress, a starburst over her left hip. “I. . . yes.” Wiping at the stain with the back of her hand, she let out a quavering sigh. “I’m—I’m sorry, mother.”
Unable to hold herself up, her mother slid back into the water, only her eyes and the top of her head above the surface. “You wore the dress I made you.” Her words were garbled by the liquid, but Sefeira understood. “It no longer fits so well, does it? Especially around the. . . stomach area.”
It was the expected remark, but it still made the woman choke for a moment. Giving up on the stain, she returned to her first position and caught her breath. The solidness of her upper arm in her hand comforted her. “It will be a monster.”
Her mother said nothing.
Sefeira bit her lip. “Of course it will be a monster. I know that.” She dug her fingers into her own flesh, wondering if they would bruise. She risked a glance up at her mother. “I need your help. Please.”
The other woman huffed, raising a plume of water and a cloud of bubbles. “Yes, this makes more sense. You return for my assistance.” She treaded water, her webbed hands barely disturbing the surface of the water. “But. . . what kind, Sefeira?”
She loosened her grasp, instead just stroking her arm, avoiding her mother’s eyes. “May I have. . . may I have my true form back? Just for a moment. I want. . . I want to give it to you.” She swallowed hard again. “The baby. I want to give it to you.”
Her mother swam toward the steps again, the last few of which were still covered by the lake, her expression furious. “He is so perfect in your eyes then, still, that you would abandon your child for him? Even though it is a monster, it deserves more care for you than that! You have no. . . room for anything in your heart except yourself and that man!” She spat the last word.
“It’s not like that!” Sefeira said, glaring back at her mother. She pointed at the bruise on her shoulder with a jab of her bloody finger, her other hand clenched in a fist. “Has algae grown over your eyes? Have you slumbered so long that your mind is only dreams and water?” She poked the bruise itself and hissed at the contact. She whispered, face tight with emotion and pain, “It’s not like that at all.”
Neither woman spoke for a moment. The breeze rippled over the surface of the lake. Her mother reached up and tapped her daughter on the ankle. “You know I cannot leave the lake anymore. I cannot. . . avenge you, my daughter.”
Sefeira smiled, her eyes reflecting the moon, and the lake, her pupils large in the dark. “As if I were asking for that. No, mother, I can take care of myself.” She stopped smiling, but continued to show her teeth. “I can take care of. . . him.” Kneeling to clasp her mother’s hand, she sighed. “No.”
Stroking the back of her daughter’s hand, the other woman answered the sigh with a chuckle. “I see how it is. You wish back your teeth, your claws—you will find the answer to your injuries in his screams?”
Her daughter yanked her hand away and stood again. “Yes, but—” She snarled, her eyes still unblinking. “He’s going to know who kills him. It has to be my familiar face that fills his last sight.” She ran her hand over the spike on the railing. “I just want to give you the child before I go back there.”
The lake rose again, swallowing another step.
“The other humans will kill you.”
“Yes.”
The moon shone on the lake, the light bouncing as the water undulated.
“Why.”
Sefeira smiled. Frowned. Shrugged. Finally she spread her fingers over her stomach and sighed. “Because you warned me, and I ignored you, and now there is a monster. My child, a monster. It will kill everything if given half the chance. My fault.”
Her mother let out a low moan, cupping her hands against her head. “You don’t have to do this. Perhaps. . . perhaps we can change. We can forget about the revenge, just this once.” She pulled herself up a few steps, sprawling at Seferia’s feet. Water dripped as she gasped in the air. “Come home, my daughter. Come home and live with me and your child. We will sleep and dream, and then wake and swim and eat the little fish, and sleep and dream again. You will be safe here.” Panting, she hauled herself to her feet using the handrail, leaning on it. “Please, Sefeira. Please!” Exhausted, she fell to a seated position.
Sefeira sat on the step above her. She spread her hands wide again with a sad smile. “I can’t, my mother. I can’t stand to sleep and dream anymore. I. . . I have been too long in the world.” She stroked her mother’s arm. “I’m sorry. Just. . . please take the child. Give it sleep and dreams instead. Let it dream of a world where its mother is not foolish, not cruel and selfish. A world where it can unleash all of its little nightmares and cause no harm to anybody.” Plucking a furled morning glory, she tucked it behind her mother’s ear, her own eyes wet. “All the nicest dreams, like you gave me when I was a little girl.”
A leaf, floating in the lake, drifted up on the steps and tangled in the lattice-work of the handrail base. Its scallops scraped against the metal, ringing in the cold air.
“I will take the child.” Her mother reached over and took the leaf in her hand. She let it sit in her palm, staring at the intricate tracery of its veins. “You do not even have to return to your—our—old form.” Raising the leaf to her lips, she blew it away again. She half-turned to look up at her daughter and smiled a little. Placing her hand over her daughter’s stomach, she closed her eyes and whistled for a moment, the high-pitched noise echoing off the walls around them. When she took her hand away again, she held a small egg. It gleamed in the moonlight, gelatinous, a translucent gold through which the hint of the child inside could be seen. She looked up at her daughter. “I should kill it now, before it grows into its hatred.”
“Yes.”
The dark blotch inside the egg squirmed a little, and the egg jiggled in her hand. She cupped both palms together and cradled it. She sighed. “But I will not. I will give it the dreams that you want it to have, Sefeira. Ugly red dreams full of pain—the nasty imaginings of an abomination. It will sleep in the caves where it can hurt no-one.” She lifted it to eye-level. “I wonder whose eyes it will have.”
Sefeira reached out to touch her child, then pulled back. Unconsciously, she smoothed her hand over her now empty stomach. “I should go.”
Nodding, her mother looked up at her daughter, sighed, and looked away again. “I would embrace you, but I fear to drop it.”
Her daughter leaned over and put her arms around her mother. The other woman inclined backwards into the embrace, which lasted only a moment before they pulled apart again. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome, Sefeira.” Something wet shone in her mother’s eyes for just a moment. “You could still stay.”
Sefeira rose to her feet, shaking her head. “That is not our way, Mother. He will be repaid for every injury—I am still enough of your daughter to demand that.” She walked up the staircase, leaning on the rail for support. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
When she came to the top step, Sefeira turned and looked down. Her hand, still resting on the banister, trembled, and she opened her mouth to speak. Her shoulder, twisting as she moved, sent out a fresh spark of pain, and her expression firmed. She raised her other hand in a wave, but her mother was absorbed with staring into the depths of the egg, murmuring to it. Sefeira nodded once, stepped back from the lake, and walked away, stopping only to pick up her shoes from where she had left them.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Upgrades
‘Bout a hundred and sixty-seven years ago, I got my third husband—what’s-his-face—to pony up the cash for a complete diamond refitting on my ‘member-banks, but they’re totes obsolete now. I’ve had to do three hardcore purges and constant weeding in the past fifty years alone, so it’s totes time to replace. I mean, I had to wipe everything from my 70’s, the husbands are just a list now, and I’ve got no space for song lyrics, which sucks. How can I pick up cute adoles-boys at concerts if I can’t sing along?
Nah, it’s all about organics now, which is kinda funny considering that’s what I started with, but they’ve made super-major advances. I guess they take some kinda microbiotic or bacterial or whatever sludge, cram enough human DNA in there to keep our hyper-immune systems from eating it, and then voila! I can keep every encyclopedia in there and still remember the name of that awesome store where I bought my first pair of snappy rocket boots. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works or whatever. I totes failed bioscience in school, and that was, like, before they’d even invented AI-biology and just a couple a’years after the aliens had to sued to get xenobio into the books or something, so we didn’t have, like, anything of this shit they have now.
Anyways, the awe-cool part is that the bacteria can talk to each other not only in your skull, but to other skulls, too. Which, I mean, doesn’t sound too great—since, like, if you don’t have room for your ‘members, who’s got space for some major loser’s eighty-memorized episodes of, like, Super Dino Manga, right? But I guess they sorta keep your memories floating in mid-air or something—I’m kinda confused about that part, but it sounds snappy—like a juggler or something, and then get it back when you want it, which is pretty high-rolling. And I guess the micro-whatevers can also share storage tips with each other and sorta, like, evolve, so that you don’t have to prune like ever, and the system even gets better ‘stead of older. No more replacing your tech ‘cause it turns out that your third husband, whatever the hell his name was, skimped like a cheap creep and left your medulla oblongata as straight-up meat. Which he totes did, but as soon I figured out that little tidbit, I got my boyfriend to cough up enough dinero to fix it. Sure I had to mention a few pic-files that coulda hurt a delicate polit career, but it was totes worth it.
Of course, it’s all galactically expensive, but I’ve been squatting in my ex-girlfriend’s apartment for the past 3 ½ years—she’s on a trip to Neptune, something ‘bout finding her inner Greek god or adjusting her Water Element, I dunno—so I’ve got a nice chunk saved up, and I’m pretty sure I can pay in installments or whatever. I can’t wait to shed this old sparklers in my skull and get this new stuff, lemme tell ya’—it’s getting so I have to dump a phone number if I wanna learn a bartender’s name, or whatever! Whatever I’ve gotta do, it’ll be totes worth it.
. . .
So, I went to the pace today—and it’s called “Micro Memory” and how loser is that?—and they gave me a price range. Man, it’s not just galactic in price, it’s freakin’ UNIVERSAL, like I bet there’s some alt-uni folks who are totes riding in their balloons or whatever and feeling how much it freakin’ costs from there, but I’m still totes hooked. I’m still pretty hyper—those muscles implants I got a while back have totes paid for themselves, and those DNA scrubs and patches were bad-assteroid—but let’s face it, I am out of storage. The other day I had to scrap my mom’s freakin’ maiden name! It was totes for a good cause—the boy was so cute even his phone number was sexy—but I still feel kinda bad about it. Good thing she’s dead or she’d be totes giving me her “hairy eyeball” or whatever for that one. But I wrote it down in my journal so that when I’ve got my new mnemonic I can load it back in. But the one good thing is that the doc-chick told me that they do do it in installments, thank God. They kinda have to, though; I mean, there are like major governments who can’t afford this shit.
Man, I was totes skeptical about my whole “fruit stomping fetish website” gig, but it has been a freakin’ lifesaver, no jokes. Whodathunk that stilettos and satsumas would’ve been the keys to like, my calling? And that people would be super-stoked to shell out major clams (ha!) to see me apply one to the other over the Interwebs? I’d thank that one husband of mine who turned me onto it, but I totes flushed his name in the first purge. What a disaster that marriage was—I’m pretty sure it was a disaster, anyway. I tossed most of it, except for the wedding part, ‘cause I looked major hot in my dress.
Anyways, they told me at the ‘member-place to come back in a week to get the surgery done—and I have to shave my head, which kinda sucks, but I’m gonna dye my skull green afterwards as this, like, statement. Yeah, they told me to get all my mem-banks copied, too, just in case or whatever, but I dunno. It would be kinda snappy to lose everything and be like, an amnesiac. I’m totes gonna leave a message in the apartment in case I do, and I’m gonna tell Amnesiac Me that I’m some kind of super-secret-spy for the AIs or something, all mysterious-like. That would be soo awe-cool.
. . .
Well, got all my new memory today and I’m still me—which is good, of course, though being a spy would have been the shit too. I feel soo freakin’ poor now, though. May have to sell of a couple a’ old tings and work overtime at the fruit-site for a bit if I’m gonna, like, eat. I’m major hungry too—I guess all the extra bacteria in my skull have a totes high metabolism or whatever. It’s worth it, though—I’ve loaded all kinds of old stuff back in there and no sign of strain yet. I’d forgotten just how much I’d forgotten, like 2/3rds of my kid-hood, how weird is that? Some remembers—and this is pretty snappy, like even I was impressed and the last time I got impressed was when I first found out why they call Longboys Longboys—the micro-critters can actually pluck out of ya’, like, you don’t even have to upload ‘em again. Something ‘bout “intrinsic cell memory” or whatever, which is kinda weird ‘cause I thought I read somewhere, like, freakin’ decades ago that all your cells got replaced or something? I dunno, I flunked out of med school, too.
Holy shit, I’d completely forgotten about that. These little buggers are good.
But whatever, I’ve been all beauty and not too much brains for freakin’ forever now, so docs know best, I guess. It is real nice to remember more—s’funny, a lot of this stuff I don’t even know why the hell I put it in storage. I mean, my eighth-grade play? That was really fun! Way better than the sixty-seventh sequel to Saw or whatever that I dumped it for instead. But hey, it’s still all background to like, my real life, of course. Plannin’ on makin’ a real round of the clubs tonight, yeah, see how much new boy-toys’ faces I can shove in the data banks. I s’pose if I was some, like, serious chick, I would stay in and like, assess all my new ‘members or whatever—like my third husband, whose name was freakin’ Dylan, of all things, what t’hellness was I thinking—but I still haven’t even dyed my shaved-skull yet, ‘cause I didn’t want to docs to yell at me or whatever, so I got to do that before tonight. And then I was thinking that I might go all retro in, like, honor of my past coming back up, and get some tattoos of circuits on there too in—in—oh, in like a shiny blue. Yeah! Plus then I’m booked a double shift at work and only then can I do what I like, promised, and go out with the amigos. So I’m not gonna sit and sulk like when I got stood up at my eleventh-grade pro—dammit.
. . .
The ex came back from her Neptune-tour and kicked me out, which, thanks to my little micro-buddies, unfortunately seems like a perfectly reasonable response. I mean, dang, in the guest bedroom while she was asleep? That’s pretty freakin’ cold, I gotta admit. So now I’ve got to find new digs, which is gonna eat into my micro-payments (ha!) I guess I could start doing night-shifts at work, which are triple-pay. It would totes kill my social life, but I think—and now I kinda know—that I have had a pretty decent amount of that already. Sometimes I wish bacteria-brain wasn’t quite so good and I’d have to excuse to scrap some of couple a’ the thousands of one-night stands I’ve had. I mean, come on, does a girl have to remember the night she—well—never mind. It kinda makes me think about, like, what I’m really doing, ya’ know.
But it’s all awe-cool. I can totes just take a night off a week still, I mean, I don’t have to kill myself with work or nothing, if it gets really way too much of a murder on my out-and-about time, I could go back to my old diamond banks. Definitely do some different prioritizing on what I keep though, I’m telling. Not that I’m gonna go all responsible and shit—I’m still the same chick who out-drank a whole bar, I mean, just ‘cause I ‘member a bit more. But it’s for def gonna be out with the crappy lays and stay with the lullaby my mom used to sing to me before I’d go to bed. Shit, sometimes I think I haven’t ever really slept a whole night since she stopped singing to me. Well, I mean, I think that now; I musta totes been on something when I let that go. Or I forget it before I even had the option, back my when my brain was my own meat. I forget when I forgot. Doesn’t really matter, though, because I am totes not gonna have to. I kinda think I’d miss most of this stuff—like, how could I have forgotten how long Dylan had to save to get me my diamond ‘member-banks? It was a birthday present ‘cause I’d been sad when I realized that I couldn’t remember my grandma’s favorite color. And he was my second husband, how could I forget that? I musta transposed him and Greg, who was a real creep, by accident when I made the list and trashed the rest. And Paul, my first husband, barely counted—we were both major drunk in Las Vegas II and annulled it in the morning. But Dylan was . . . he was a really good guy.
. . .
Blargh. By all the rings and little moons of Saturn, double-shifts make me so tired that I’m almost too worn out to use my damn memory. My little microbiological amigos have really been working overtime, dredging up new memories. I went to the Micro-Memory facility to make another payment—ouch—and had a quick check-up with one of the doctors while I was there. He scanned my skull and said that the bacteria had evolved four times in a major way in just three months, which I’ll admit freaked me a bit. He said it was all perfectly okay and whatever, but named me that I might start getting, like, extra memories. I asked him what the heck that meant—was the whole intra-bacterial communication between different colonies gonna give me other peoples’ memories or something—but he said no, thank God. He said it would be just that I’d start remembering everything, more than I ever would’ve with my regular brain, or straight-up tech like the diamond banks. It would be, like, the tiny details and some really early stuff, like—like—oh god, I just got a flash of before I was born, holy damn.
Geez.
Anyways I should probably haul my ass to bed and get some sleep, or I’m never gonna have enough energy to head to the bar with Jesp and Allie tonight. Ugh. I’m not even in the mood for the bar or alcohol anymore, I’m serious. But they’ve been complaining that they never see me anymore, so. . .
. . .
Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Some son-of-a-bitch hacker wrecked the website for a full week, and I’m short on my micro-memory payment for the month. I tried to do some free-lancing but halfway through the gig I remembered how my first hamster died and burst into tears. Not the right fetish for that, I and I couldn’t get anything else. I guess the director was so irritated that he posted my name on some kind of do-not-hire list, the creep. I took as many extra-shifts as I could at the fruit site, but it just wasn’t enough. So I called up the company and begged them to add the difference to next month’s, but it’s going to be tight. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to give it back, I really don’t.
Last night I dreamt about my mom, and every detail was perfect—her funny cowlick right above her bangs, the way she always smelled like vanilla and mint, the sound of her voice. I haven’t been so happy since—
Since—
Wow. Even the bacteria can’t remember that.
But I’ll figure something out. I’ve got to.
. . .
I wish I could forget to go—
. . .
. . .
Something’s missing. Something’s missing, and I don’t know what. It’s on the tip of my tongue and I open my mouth to let it tumble out so I can know what it is, so I can understand, but it won’t budge. I turned this apartment upside-down, searching for it, but I couldn’t find it, not even a clue as to what it is. There was this strange note about me being a spy of some sort, but that doesn’t feel right. At least, as much as I can tell.
And everything’s wrong. Everything around me seems different and the date on the calendar is a whole century than it should be. I’ve been trying to get ahold of my mom for days but she seems to have gone missing.
There’s pictures of me with people I don’t know, in places I don’t recognize, with expressions I don’t like or understand.
The only thing that seems like it might apply is this—this note I found scribbled n a notebook cover—a cover that has no notebook with it. It was lying next to a small container full of ashes of which I can only pick a few random letters. It says—in a weird shallow parody of my handwriting—“if you knew, you’d know it was for the best.”
And I don’t know what’s going on.
Nah, it’s all about organics now, which is kinda funny considering that’s what I started with, but they’ve made super-major advances. I guess they take some kinda microbiotic or bacterial or whatever sludge, cram enough human DNA in there to keep our hyper-immune systems from eating it, and then voila! I can keep every encyclopedia in there and still remember the name of that awesome store where I bought my first pair of snappy rocket boots. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works or whatever. I totes failed bioscience in school, and that was, like, before they’d even invented AI-biology and just a couple a’years after the aliens had to sued to get xenobio into the books or something, so we didn’t have, like, anything of this shit they have now.
Anyways, the awe-cool part is that the bacteria can talk to each other not only in your skull, but to other skulls, too. Which, I mean, doesn’t sound too great—since, like, if you don’t have room for your ‘members, who’s got space for some major loser’s eighty-memorized episodes of, like, Super Dino Manga, right? But I guess they sorta keep your memories floating in mid-air or something—I’m kinda confused about that part, but it sounds snappy—like a juggler or something, and then get it back when you want it, which is pretty high-rolling. And I guess the micro-whatevers can also share storage tips with each other and sorta, like, evolve, so that you don’t have to prune like ever, and the system even gets better ‘stead of older. No more replacing your tech ‘cause it turns out that your third husband, whatever the hell his name was, skimped like a cheap creep and left your medulla oblongata as straight-up meat. Which he totes did, but as soon I figured out that little tidbit, I got my boyfriend to cough up enough dinero to fix it. Sure I had to mention a few pic-files that coulda hurt a delicate polit career, but it was totes worth it.
Of course, it’s all galactically expensive, but I’ve been squatting in my ex-girlfriend’s apartment for the past 3 ½ years—she’s on a trip to Neptune, something ‘bout finding her inner Greek god or adjusting her Water Element, I dunno—so I’ve got a nice chunk saved up, and I’m pretty sure I can pay in installments or whatever. I can’t wait to shed this old sparklers in my skull and get this new stuff, lemme tell ya’—it’s getting so I have to dump a phone number if I wanna learn a bartender’s name, or whatever! Whatever I’ve gotta do, it’ll be totes worth it.
. . .
So, I went to the pace today—and it’s called “Micro Memory” and how loser is that?—and they gave me a price range. Man, it’s not just galactic in price, it’s freakin’ UNIVERSAL, like I bet there’s some alt-uni folks who are totes riding in their balloons or whatever and feeling how much it freakin’ costs from there, but I’m still totes hooked. I’m still pretty hyper—those muscles implants I got a while back have totes paid for themselves, and those DNA scrubs and patches were bad-assteroid—but let’s face it, I am out of storage. The other day I had to scrap my mom’s freakin’ maiden name! It was totes for a good cause—the boy was so cute even his phone number was sexy—but I still feel kinda bad about it. Good thing she’s dead or she’d be totes giving me her “hairy eyeball” or whatever for that one. But I wrote it down in my journal so that when I’ve got my new mnemonic I can load it back in. But the one good thing is that the doc-chick told me that they do do it in installments, thank God. They kinda have to, though; I mean, there are like major governments who can’t afford this shit.
Man, I was totes skeptical about my whole “fruit stomping fetish website” gig, but it has been a freakin’ lifesaver, no jokes. Whodathunk that stilettos and satsumas would’ve been the keys to like, my calling? And that people would be super-stoked to shell out major clams (ha!) to see me apply one to the other over the Interwebs? I’d thank that one husband of mine who turned me onto it, but I totes flushed his name in the first purge. What a disaster that marriage was—I’m pretty sure it was a disaster, anyway. I tossed most of it, except for the wedding part, ‘cause I looked major hot in my dress.
Anyways, they told me at the ‘member-place to come back in a week to get the surgery done—and I have to shave my head, which kinda sucks, but I’m gonna dye my skull green afterwards as this, like, statement. Yeah, they told me to get all my mem-banks copied, too, just in case or whatever, but I dunno. It would be kinda snappy to lose everything and be like, an amnesiac. I’m totes gonna leave a message in the apartment in case I do, and I’m gonna tell Amnesiac Me that I’m some kind of super-secret-spy for the AIs or something, all mysterious-like. That would be soo awe-cool.
. . .
Well, got all my new memory today and I’m still me—which is good, of course, though being a spy would have been the shit too. I feel soo freakin’ poor now, though. May have to sell of a couple a’ old tings and work overtime at the fruit-site for a bit if I’m gonna, like, eat. I’m major hungry too—I guess all the extra bacteria in my skull have a totes high metabolism or whatever. It’s worth it, though—I’ve loaded all kinds of old stuff back in there and no sign of strain yet. I’d forgotten just how much I’d forgotten, like 2/3rds of my kid-hood, how weird is that? Some remembers—and this is pretty snappy, like even I was impressed and the last time I got impressed was when I first found out why they call Longboys Longboys—the micro-critters can actually pluck out of ya’, like, you don’t even have to upload ‘em again. Something ‘bout “intrinsic cell memory” or whatever, which is kinda weird ‘cause I thought I read somewhere, like, freakin’ decades ago that all your cells got replaced or something? I dunno, I flunked out of med school, too.
Holy shit, I’d completely forgotten about that. These little buggers are good.
But whatever, I’ve been all beauty and not too much brains for freakin’ forever now, so docs know best, I guess. It is real nice to remember more—s’funny, a lot of this stuff I don’t even know why the hell I put it in storage. I mean, my eighth-grade play? That was really fun! Way better than the sixty-seventh sequel to Saw or whatever that I dumped it for instead. But hey, it’s still all background to like, my real life, of course. Plannin’ on makin’ a real round of the clubs tonight, yeah, see how much new boy-toys’ faces I can shove in the data banks. I s’pose if I was some, like, serious chick, I would stay in and like, assess all my new ‘members or whatever—like my third husband, whose name was freakin’ Dylan, of all things, what t’hellness was I thinking—but I still haven’t even dyed my shaved-skull yet, ‘cause I didn’t want to docs to yell at me or whatever, so I got to do that before tonight. And then I was thinking that I might go all retro in, like, honor of my past coming back up, and get some tattoos of circuits on there too in—in—oh, in like a shiny blue. Yeah! Plus then I’m booked a double shift at work and only then can I do what I like, promised, and go out with the amigos. So I’m not gonna sit and sulk like when I got stood up at my eleventh-grade pro—dammit.
. . .
The ex came back from her Neptune-tour and kicked me out, which, thanks to my little micro-buddies, unfortunately seems like a perfectly reasonable response. I mean, dang, in the guest bedroom while she was asleep? That’s pretty freakin’ cold, I gotta admit. So now I’ve got to find new digs, which is gonna eat into my micro-payments (ha!) I guess I could start doing night-shifts at work, which are triple-pay. It would totes kill my social life, but I think—and now I kinda know—that I have had a pretty decent amount of that already. Sometimes I wish bacteria-brain wasn’t quite so good and I’d have to excuse to scrap some of couple a’ the thousands of one-night stands I’ve had. I mean, come on, does a girl have to remember the night she—well—never mind. It kinda makes me think about, like, what I’m really doing, ya’ know.
But it’s all awe-cool. I can totes just take a night off a week still, I mean, I don’t have to kill myself with work or nothing, if it gets really way too much of a murder on my out-and-about time, I could go back to my old diamond banks. Definitely do some different prioritizing on what I keep though, I’m telling. Not that I’m gonna go all responsible and shit—I’m still the same chick who out-drank a whole bar, I mean, just ‘cause I ‘member a bit more. But it’s for def gonna be out with the crappy lays and stay with the lullaby my mom used to sing to me before I’d go to bed. Shit, sometimes I think I haven’t ever really slept a whole night since she stopped singing to me. Well, I mean, I think that now; I musta totes been on something when I let that go. Or I forget it before I even had the option, back my when my brain was my own meat. I forget when I forgot. Doesn’t really matter, though, because I am totes not gonna have to. I kinda think I’d miss most of this stuff—like, how could I have forgotten how long Dylan had to save to get me my diamond ‘member-banks? It was a birthday present ‘cause I’d been sad when I realized that I couldn’t remember my grandma’s favorite color. And he was my second husband, how could I forget that? I musta transposed him and Greg, who was a real creep, by accident when I made the list and trashed the rest. And Paul, my first husband, barely counted—we were both major drunk in Las Vegas II and annulled it in the morning. But Dylan was . . . he was a really good guy.
. . .
Blargh. By all the rings and little moons of Saturn, double-shifts make me so tired that I’m almost too worn out to use my damn memory. My little microbiological amigos have really been working overtime, dredging up new memories. I went to the Micro-Memory facility to make another payment—ouch—and had a quick check-up with one of the doctors while I was there. He scanned my skull and said that the bacteria had evolved four times in a major way in just three months, which I’ll admit freaked me a bit. He said it was all perfectly okay and whatever, but named me that I might start getting, like, extra memories. I asked him what the heck that meant—was the whole intra-bacterial communication between different colonies gonna give me other peoples’ memories or something—but he said no, thank God. He said it would be just that I’d start remembering everything, more than I ever would’ve with my regular brain, or straight-up tech like the diamond banks. It would be, like, the tiny details and some really early stuff, like—like—oh god, I just got a flash of before I was born, holy damn.
Geez.
Anyways I should probably haul my ass to bed and get some sleep, or I’m never gonna have enough energy to head to the bar with Jesp and Allie tonight. Ugh. I’m not even in the mood for the bar or alcohol anymore, I’m serious. But they’ve been complaining that they never see me anymore, so. . .
. . .
Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Some son-of-a-bitch hacker wrecked the website for a full week, and I’m short on my micro-memory payment for the month. I tried to do some free-lancing but halfway through the gig I remembered how my first hamster died and burst into tears. Not the right fetish for that, I and I couldn’t get anything else. I guess the director was so irritated that he posted my name on some kind of do-not-hire list, the creep. I took as many extra-shifts as I could at the fruit site, but it just wasn’t enough. So I called up the company and begged them to add the difference to next month’s, but it’s going to be tight. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to give it back, I really don’t.
Last night I dreamt about my mom, and every detail was perfect—her funny cowlick right above her bangs, the way she always smelled like vanilla and mint, the sound of her voice. I haven’t been so happy since—
Since—
Wow. Even the bacteria can’t remember that.
But I’ll figure something out. I’ve got to.
. . .
I wish I could forget to go—
. . .
. . .
Something’s missing. Something’s missing, and I don’t know what. It’s on the tip of my tongue and I open my mouth to let it tumble out so I can know what it is, so I can understand, but it won’t budge. I turned this apartment upside-down, searching for it, but I couldn’t find it, not even a clue as to what it is. There was this strange note about me being a spy of some sort, but that doesn’t feel right. At least, as much as I can tell.
And everything’s wrong. Everything around me seems different and the date on the calendar is a whole century than it should be. I’ve been trying to get ahold of my mom for days but she seems to have gone missing.
There’s pictures of me with people I don’t know, in places I don’t recognize, with expressions I don’t like or understand.
The only thing that seems like it might apply is this—this note I found scribbled n a notebook cover—a cover that has no notebook with it. It was lying next to a small container full of ashes of which I can only pick a few random letters. It says—in a weird shallow parody of my handwriting—“if you knew, you’d know it was for the best.”
And I don’t know what’s going on.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Contended Humming
In case anybody was wondering (and I know you're not,) I have one finished story that just needs typed up and one story that I'm pretty sure I'll finish today. *glee!* Man, it feels good to back in the groove.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
24-Hour Paradise
Day 319:
Have figured out how to move small objects. Made every label in the store peel off. It took them ages to stick them all back on. Pleasing.
Day: 788:
Daily exercise has increased my strength. Managed to tip over a castle of soda cans. Explosions everywhere. Floor was irretrievably sticky for the remainder of the day. Excellent.
Day 1006:
Have learnt how to utilize own energy and convert it into other types. Super-heated a hot dog so that a customer received first-degree burns on her tongue. Good.
Day 2340:
Possessed the manager so that he responded to a customer’s complaint with obscenities. Perfection. Plan to do so again when district manager comes to investigate.
Day 8549:
Whispered in the cashier’s ear everyday for 226 days. Today she finally went crazy and hung herself in the backroom. Superb.
Day 8550:
Am displeased to discover that I have been joined by the shade of said cashier. No matter. It is both weak and far behind me in development.
Day: 8603:
Cashier spent entire day sobbing in a most unpleasant high-pitched fashion. Attempted to block noise, to no avail. So distracted that was unable to implement any new problems in the store.
Day 8605:
Cashier continues to wail. Cacophony has grown so loud that several of the customers seem to be aware and disturbed by it. Would be pleasing to see their discomfiture if the noise were not so irritating. Something must be done if revenge is to continue.
Day 8606:
Attempted to perform exorcism with a magazine, a lighter, and the ring-tone of a stolen cell phone. Said modifications almost resulted in own exorcism; project temporarily abandoned.
Day 9621:
Would find the cat-and-mouse game between myself and cashier amusing, except that somehow am losing. Have determined that it is time to escape this place and enter the larger world once more.
Day 9938; Day 242:
Am still stuck in the wall. Will be killing the cashier when manage to struggle free of bonds.
Day ???:
Convenience store torn down some time ago. Concrete block of wall used to create part of the wall around now-vacant lot. Still trapped in said blocks. Cashier disappeared some time ago. Have lost all ability to manipulate physically, mentally, or emotionally. Displeasing.
Still think that this is an awful lot of punishment for bad luck and only one dead kid. Only two weeks past expiration date; those just guidelines. Everyone knows that.
Have figured out how to move small objects. Made every label in the store peel off. It took them ages to stick them all back on. Pleasing.
Day: 788:
Daily exercise has increased my strength. Managed to tip over a castle of soda cans. Explosions everywhere. Floor was irretrievably sticky for the remainder of the day. Excellent.
Day 1006:
Have learnt how to utilize own energy and convert it into other types. Super-heated a hot dog so that a customer received first-degree burns on her tongue. Good.
Day 2340:
Possessed the manager so that he responded to a customer’s complaint with obscenities. Perfection. Plan to do so again when district manager comes to investigate.
Day 8549:
Whispered in the cashier’s ear everyday for 226 days. Today she finally went crazy and hung herself in the backroom. Superb.
Day 8550:
Am displeased to discover that I have been joined by the shade of said cashier. No matter. It is both weak and far behind me in development.
Day: 8603:
Cashier spent entire day sobbing in a most unpleasant high-pitched fashion. Attempted to block noise, to no avail. So distracted that was unable to implement any new problems in the store.
Day 8605:
Cashier continues to wail. Cacophony has grown so loud that several of the customers seem to be aware and disturbed by it. Would be pleasing to see their discomfiture if the noise were not so irritating. Something must be done if revenge is to continue.
Day 8606:
Attempted to perform exorcism with a magazine, a lighter, and the ring-tone of a stolen cell phone. Said modifications almost resulted in own exorcism; project temporarily abandoned.
Day 9621:
Would find the cat-and-mouse game between myself and cashier amusing, except that somehow am losing. Have determined that it is time to escape this place and enter the larger world once more.
Day 9938; Day 242:
Am still stuck in the wall. Will be killing the cashier when manage to struggle free of bonds.
Day ???:
Convenience store torn down some time ago. Concrete block of wall used to create part of the wall around now-vacant lot. Still trapped in said blocks. Cashier disappeared some time ago. Have lost all ability to manipulate physically, mentally, or emotionally. Displeasing.
Still think that this is an awful lot of punishment for bad luck and only one dead kid. Only two weeks past expiration date; those just guidelines. Everyone knows that.
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