The Beginner's Guide to Living by Lia Hills

shelter not far from the supermarket, I sit and shiver. Cars, trucks, bikes plummet past, tires flicking up the rain. God, I hope a bus doesn’t come along, I can’t do people right now. Though, if one does, maybe I’ll get on it, see where it takes me. Far away. Anywhere but here.
    *   *   *
    When I get home, I strip, climb in the bath, slide beneath the surface of the water and hold my breath. Everything is amplified, the squeak of my ass against the porcelain walls, distant hollow sounds as I try to stay under, but it’s too warm, I can’t. Before my lungs start to scream, I drag myself above the surface of the water. And for the hell of it, I fart.
    *   *   *
    I saw this program on TV tonight, before I went to bed. They were talking about water having memory. Most of your body is made up of water, they said, a constant process of evaporation and reabsorption: from the tap, moisture in the air, recycled sweat. Maybe that’s why old couples start to look like each other—they keep exchanging carbon and H 2 O. Like us. Adam, Dad, and me.
    I drag my arm out from under the sheet and turn it around in front of my face. Part of me used to be my brother, another used to be Mom. There has been an exchange. Some of my molecules went with her and now they lie unraveling in the earth. That’s if they were ever really mine.
    While I watched that show I thought about what kind of memory water might hold. Maybe somewhere deep down I have memories of being a watermelon or a fish. Then I got to thinking that maybe this is what Buddhists mean about being born over and over again. And every now and then you get a glimpse: you remember what it’s like to be part of the sea.
    I get out of bed, stand in front of the mirror naked, tall, scrawny, in need of a tan. My hair a bit anarchic, a birthmark like a tear on my left hip, my dick hanging there like some forlorn thing. So this is me, Will Ellis, this is my part of the world. I raise my arms above my head, wave them around—shit, I hope Adam doesn’t come in. The more I analyze myself, the more I feel detached. My body has disconnected from the flow of the world.
    I touch the mirror but it’s cold, so I concentrate on my hand instead, run my fingers over the skin with its tiny crevices, the knuckles, my nails where they go from white to pink. The palm with its lines, one of which is supposed to reveal your destiny, but I don’t know which one it is. Not sure I’d want to. These are my hands but it’s as if they belong to somebody else.
    I close my eyes, put my hands over my face, hear my breath going into them, feel the moisture in it. There’s memory held there. If I were to stop breathing now, because that’s all it takes, isn’t it, the stopping of breath? One lifetime extinguished. So fragile. If I were to stop, my body would drop to the floor, and I’d still seem the same for a while, as if asleep. I can imagine it if I concentrate, and visualize my body slumped on the floor, as if every part of me has been waiting all this time to become part of everything else, to remember what it once was.
    13. Do my mother’s memories live in me?

ARROWS AND MAXIMS
    I ’M WRAPPED NAKED AROUND Taryn when we hear someone in the house.
    â€œWho is it?” I whisper, grabbing for my clothes.
    â€œProbably Samara. Mom and Dad aren’t due home for ages.” She snatches at my T-shirt, tosses it back on the floor. “Don’t worry, she won’t care.”
    There’s a knock followed by Samara’s gravelly voice. “You there, Taryn?”
    â€œYeah, I’m with Will.”
    â€œI’ll come back later, if you like.”
    â€œNo, it’s all right, you can come in.” I raise my eyebrows at Taryn but all she does is laugh. “She knows we’re having sex, for God’s sake. Don’t be so shy.”
    I make sure I’m covered as