First to Dance by Sonya Writes

said in an obvious hint for her to leave, “I’m getting tired.”
    Ayita nodded, and yawned.  “It is late,” she said.  “Thank you for the conversation.”
    “Forgive me if I don’t remember you tomorrow.”
    She nodded.  “I will, Dakarai.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    8
     
     
    The next morning, Ayita’s stomach was bothering her too much to ignore, so she went to the garden and reluctantly started eating, hoping with all she had that it wasn’t in the food to affect her memory.  It was early in the morning and it wasn’t very bright out. Only a few people were awake.  Among them was Ziyad, who she noticed approaching for breakfast as well.
    “Hello , Ziyad,” she said to him.
    He turned to look at her.  “Oh, hello Ayita.”
    Ayita almost dropped the food in her hand.  “You remember!” she said.
    Ziyad knowingly smirked and nodded his head.  “Panya told me you remember everything with perfect memory. No one is like that here, but I seem to have a better memory than anyone else.  It’s both a gift and a curse.”
    “I hardly see how good memory could be a curse.”
    “It is when you’re the only one,” he said. “But with you here, I suppose I’m not the only one anymore.” He winked at her and smiled.
    Ayita returned the smile but not the wink. “I suppose not,” she said.  She bit into a long green vegetable. It made her teeth feel funny and all her fears of becoming forgetful were at the front of her mind. She didn’t want to eat, but her stomach was begging her to.
    “Are you ok?” Ziyad asked her. “You don’t look well.”
    “I haven’t been eating,” she admitted. “I’m concerned that the se strange foods are what make you forgetful.” As soon as she said it she realized how funny she sounded. She expected him to laugh at her, but he didn’t.
    “It might be the food,” he said. “Or it might be the air, or the water. If it is, I don’t see that you really have a choice. But, if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll probably be okay.”
    Ayita took another bite of the vegetable. She asked Ziyad what he liked to eat most, and chose to take those same foods for her meal. She cradled her breakfast in her arms and started walking toward the table-top tree she slept beneath. Ziyad walked beside her. As she walked toward the tree, she studied it and realized that this was her new home. She didn’t know how long she would be living here, but she knew that it very well could be for the rest of her life. She sat down in the tree’s shade and wondered what kind of a home this planet would be.
    “Tell me about your winter dwellings,” she said.
    The question startled him. It seemed to come out of nowhere on this warm sunny day. He sat down beside her and started talking. “They’re big, with walls all around. They keep out the wind and the cold. And they’re tall, like two homes stacked on top of each other. But they’re all spread apart. They’re not clumped together like our homes here.”
    What he described sounded to her like real houses, but she couldn’t imagine anyone voluntarily living beneath a tree instead of in a house.  “How many are there?” she asked.
    “Many,” he said. “Too many. Everyone becomes divided in the winter. It is in the summer that we come together again, as a family.”
    But not Dakarai , she thought.
    “Why did you land here?” Ziyad asked, deliberately changing the conversation, and he turned to watch her face as she spoke.
    “I didn’t mean to land here,” she said. “I was trying to go to Earth.” She thought about her experience in the spaceship, and wondered if she should tell him that someone else caused the crash. She decided not to say anything about it.
    “Oh, ” he said. “So you don’t really want to be here.” He sounded disappointed. 
    Ayita forced a small smile. “Well, no, not really.” Ayita realized that until