Eating Memories by Patricia Anthony Page B

have to eat everything.”
    The ambassador knew the governmental secrets were important. He knew that, but it didn’t seem to matter. His mind was besieged with Lauren’s death and the rest of his thoughts were laid waste.
    He pictured her, but the image other face was faded somehow, as if usage had dulled the colors. “In my mind she’s got four months to live. I’ll always remember her as dying.”
    One hand to its contorted back as if its spine were sore, the Karee shuffled its way back to the stool and sat. “I never stop in the middle before like this. Maybe I shouldn’t eat more.”
    “What would you do?”
    ‘Besseh sat quietly for a moment, its hands in its lap.
    “What would you do if you were me, Besseh Yo?”
    The Karee nodded. “I seen this a lot, this sort of bad stomach like you got. I would live it. The hurt in you should come out like vomit.”
    The magician was a brown gnome crippled by the weight of vicarious pain. “Is that what it’s like, eating vomit? Does it hurt you, Besseh, going down?”
    There was a jerk of the bent shoulders. Besseh was surprised by the question. “I don’t keep the memory, yuma. When you finish, and I am full, I go and wash her away in the water. All will be gone,” Besseh warned him. It leaned forward so closely that George could smell the musky, dank odor of its body. “Be gone, understand? Everything. Secrets. Lauren. Everything. Can’t get it back never.”
    “I understand.” At that moment George realized how much he had loved Lauren. He loved her enough to give up his happiest memories to end the pain of her loss. “Please do it,” he said before he could change his mind.
    He closed his eyes and felt the moist press of Besseh’s hand on his forehead. George wanted to utter some murmur of gratitude. ‘His mouth wouldn’t work.
    And Lauren was laughing in the kitchen.
    * * *
    Something hit him hard in the chest. He opened his eyes to see Besseh over him. George put his hands to his face and discovered he had been crying. He couldn’t remember why.
    “Men still outside, George.”
    “Yes.” He sat up. His staff was angry with him. But why had he come to the Karee’s house? he wondered. It was something vaguely connected with a death.
    “You help me? You protect me? I only do what you ask for.”
    George hesitated. “I’ll protect you,” he said. It seemed as if, for some reason, he and the magician had known each other for years. George’s trust was instinctual, as it would have been for a good, close friend.
    The magician handed him a cup of water and twisted its head so it could see him. “Lauren,” it said.
    “Yes? Should I remember?”
    Besseh rose stiffly and walked over to the barrel. For a moment the magician simply stared downwards. George felt a tug of sympathy and more than a clutch of fear. Then Besseh raised its hands and brought them in a slow downward plunge to the water.
    “Wait!” George said.
    The gnarled hands paused a scant inch above the liquid surface. Besseh turned towards him.
    “Should I?” George asked anxiously. He hated to see those hands come down. The movement seemed so final, but he wasn’t sure why. “Should I remember?”
    For a moment the magician regarded him. “No,” Besseh whispered. His voice was nearly lost in the splash his hands made.

Author’s Note: This particular short story intends to cut like a knife. On rereading it I wasn’t prepared, in fact, for the pain it elicits. Perhaps all mothers and daughters will find hurt in these few pages, just like all fathers and sons will find pain reading Pat Conroy.

    Walking up the steps, she automatically straightens her dress. It’s habit with her now, after having been trained for years by the electric-shock therapy of her mother’s words.
    On the way to church, Mama finally looks down, down, and down, like those cartoons where the person seems big as a mountain. She doesn’t really speak like a mountain, though. A mountain should boom. Mama