locks the door to the outer hallway.
So
now you’re just going to go? I
think, frowning.
“Didn’t
you say you wanted to be alone?”
I sniff loudly. Fine.
With that he
leaves, closing the door to the other bedroom behind him.
I stare at the
closed door for a moment, then get up and lock it, annoyed. I was
going to ask him for more blood and then tell him to leave.
Am I using him?
What a stupid,
naïve thing to think. He shot me. He owes me. And he’s
clearly using me, even if I don’t know for what.
I look at myself
in the mirror over the sink, shudder, and consider the bathtub. But
it’s too cold and I’m too tired to want to take a bath. I
unzip the black backpack and look for pajamas, but I don’t find
any. I strip naked and slip under the blankets.
I fall asleep with
the lights on.
12
A Dream of Flight
{Adam}
I gave up trying
to sleep after a week of consistent failure.
I started taking
an hour or so every day around high noon to write in a notebook. I’d
never been able to keep a journal before; I’d always given up
after a few entries and abandoned the practice. Whenever I returned
to what I’d previously written, I’d get so annoyed by my
own thoughts that I’d always end up ripping the pages out or
throwing the whole book away.
As I began
recalling events in order to write them down, I realized I could
remember ever minute of my afterlife thus far in detail. I had a
condition, it seemed, the technical name for which was hyperthemesia.
Eidetic memory, in other words. The inability to forget.
Even still there
were things I refused to write down. I wrote nothing about my life
before dying. I wrote nothing about Alison.
I felt guilty over
what happened to her, of course. Guilty and ashamed. Still, I was
somehow relieved to be dead, to be removed from the situation. I was
relieved to be done with my career, my research, the slow grueling
march towards tenure; relieved to be separated from my few surviving
family members, my colleagues, my students; relieved not to have to
worry about the banal details of everyday life any longer. The relief
seemed wrong, even immoral, but there it was.
Maybe it was
better not to care. I couldn’t hope to get Alison back. I
couldn’t hope to get my job back. Even if I could figure out
how to get Julian’s memories back, and even if he released me,
I couldn’t move back to Baltimore. I had no idea where I’d
go if and when I left the estate. I was dead. A non-person, really.
My accounts were frozen, if my brother hadn’t emptied them
already. My social security number was rendered invalid.
At times I
entertained the fantasy of working a night shift at a hospital
somewhere, anywhere, maybe out on the West Coast or the Midwest,
somewhere I wouldn’t be recognized. But I knew this too was
impossible. I couldn’t expect to work among other doctors
without anyone noticing I didn’t have vital signs.
There was only one
thing from my living life I had any hope of salvaging, and it was
Elena.
I’d met her
while I was still in graduate school for clinical psychology, before
I ended up in medical school instead, before I met Alison. I was
under her supervision as a research assistant. She was married, she
had a young son, and she didn’t seem particularly interested in
me, but I was young and stupid and she was gorgeous and intelligent
and helpful and kind. It was hopeless. I was hopeless.
Soon after we met
I learned her husband was dying of brain cancer. I took it upon
myself to do whatever I could to help Elena through it all. I offered
her that—whatever I could give. I’d like to be able to
say that I wasn’t hoping for the arrangement to become what it
did, or that we waited at least until her husband was dead, but I did
and we didn’t.
Six months later I
dropped out of the program. I hoped that would somehow allow us to
stop hiding from everyone we knew. It didn’t work out. She
broke up with me when I told her what I’d done.
It was hard
So
now you’re just going to go? I
think, frowning.
“Didn’t
you say you wanted to be alone?”
I sniff loudly. Fine.
With that he
leaves, closing the door to the other bedroom behind him.
I stare at the
closed door for a moment, then get up and lock it, annoyed. I was
going to ask him for more blood and then tell him to leave.
Am I using him?
What a stupid,
naïve thing to think. He shot me. He owes me. And he’s
clearly using me, even if I don’t know for what.
I look at myself
in the mirror over the sink, shudder, and consider the bathtub. But
it’s too cold and I’m too tired to want to take a bath. I
unzip the black backpack and look for pajamas, but I don’t find
any. I strip naked and slip under the blankets.
I fall asleep with
the lights on.
12
A Dream of Flight
{Adam}
I gave up trying
to sleep after a week of consistent failure.
I started taking
an hour or so every day around high noon to write in a notebook. I’d
never been able to keep a journal before; I’d always given up
after a few entries and abandoned the practice. Whenever I returned
to what I’d previously written, I’d get so annoyed by my
own thoughts that I’d always end up ripping the pages out or
throwing the whole book away.
As I began
recalling events in order to write them down, I realized I could
remember ever minute of my afterlife thus far in detail. I had a
condition, it seemed, the technical name for which was hyperthemesia.
Eidetic memory, in other words. The inability to forget.
Even still there
were things I refused to write down. I wrote nothing about my life
before dying. I wrote nothing about Alison.
I felt guilty over
what happened to her, of course. Guilty and ashamed. Still, I was
somehow relieved to be dead, to be removed from the situation. I was
relieved to be done with my career, my research, the slow grueling
march towards tenure; relieved to be separated from my few surviving
family members, my colleagues, my students; relieved not to have to
worry about the banal details of everyday life any longer. The relief
seemed wrong, even immoral, but there it was.
Maybe it was
better not to care. I couldn’t hope to get Alison back. I
couldn’t hope to get my job back. Even if I could figure out
how to get Julian’s memories back, and even if he released me,
I couldn’t move back to Baltimore. I had no idea where I’d
go if and when I left the estate. I was dead. A non-person, really.
My accounts were frozen, if my brother hadn’t emptied them
already. My social security number was rendered invalid.
At times I
entertained the fantasy of working a night shift at a hospital
somewhere, anywhere, maybe out on the West Coast or the Midwest,
somewhere I wouldn’t be recognized. But I knew this too was
impossible. I couldn’t expect to work among other doctors
without anyone noticing I didn’t have vital signs.
There was only one
thing from my living life I had any hope of salvaging, and it was
Elena.
I’d met her
while I was still in graduate school for clinical psychology, before
I ended up in medical school instead, before I met Alison. I was
under her supervision as a research assistant. She was married, she
had a young son, and she didn’t seem particularly interested in
me, but I was young and stupid and she was gorgeous and intelligent
and helpful and kind. It was hopeless. I was hopeless.
Soon after we met
I learned her husband was dying of brain cancer. I took it upon
myself to do whatever I could to help Elena through it all. I offered
her that—whatever I could give. I’d like to be able to
say that I wasn’t hoping for the arrangement to become what it
did, or that we waited at least until her husband was dead, but I did
and we didn’t.
Six months later I
dropped out of the program. I hoped that would somehow allow us to
stop hiding from everyone we knew. It didn’t work out. She
broke up with me when I told her what I’d done.
It was hard
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