Another step back, she timidly says, “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, either.”
“Madison!” I shout. “What the hell is going on? I thought this was about me remembering things. Now you have something you
don’t
want me to remember?”
Everyone is in turmoil, and it has something to do with whatever she’s not telling. She doesn’t look so angry now, more like embarrassed or guilty. She stares at me, silent and worried.
Dave lashes out at her, “Maddie, tell him!”
Matt returns with a photo taken from the wall. “Fuck that, I’ll show him.” He shoves the small framed image into my hands.
Is this someone I should know? It must be, I have her picture. But how could I forget any woman so gorgeous? I struggle to correlate the image with its mental companion. Rusty hair, long and straight. Silky skin, and her eyes—the most striking feature—I have seen those eyes before.
Fierce pain strikes my chest, down one arm and into my jaw. The photo slips from my fingers and smacks the floor, shattering the glass. Lost in a spray of jagged shards, her tender blue eyes stare up at me. My love of many lives—Christina.
What have I done?
Another jolt stabs my chest. This heart throbs like a knife carving up my insides. No, I don’t want to look at this memory—it hurts too much.
But—they are friends.
I don’t know whether I’m more pissed, confused, or in pain.
“Madison, what’s the deal? Aren’t you and Christina friends?”
She is terrified, her words timid.
“We are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We are friends, Adam, but we’re also competitors.”
“Competing for what?”
“You.”
Chapter 6
Cool water laps at my face, washing up one cheek, chilled by wet sand. At eye level, rippling fluid blends into swells frayed by a breeze. A pale yellow moon hangs low in the blood-red sky, turbulent with black clouds.
The river churns past, swells peak, and like a mouth opening, each tries to speak. What are the words? A droning rumble, but whispers leak out, calling for help—don’t leave us, don’t forget, please. My memories.
Caressing my cheek, the memories moan a plea to return home. Each like a child, not yearning for freedom, rather comfort in the arms of a loving soul.
Robed figures appear, bleeding out of blackness and walking along the shore. Reapers, faceless beneath their tattered hoods and sickles in their grasp, they turn to face the churning flow and walk upon the water, marching toward the horizon then fanning out across it. They raise their blades high, strike the red night, and rip open the sky. Blood gushes from gaping wounds, raining down on the memories floating past, which rise from the current as sparkling shafts with mouths, screaming a dying call.
I reach out to the bloodied water—the memories must not die. A shaft shoots from the surface in the shape of an arm and latches onto my hand. The shaft freezes solid, then the river becomes a thousand frozen arms, reaching for the sky.
The cold burns. Every arm shatters, a roaring thunder. The sky descends and the river transforms into a raging bloodstream surging through a winding artery. Drowned by the warm flow, my body melts away, reduced to scattered particles swirling among the rest. Faced with a million choices of where to exist, I select a single cell and take command.
But the reapers remain. They are tiny like me, though soon they multiply. Thousands of them hack with their sickles, tearing apart the passage. They have not melted, but neither have I. My body did not dissolve—I have assumed the smallest viewpoint possible, and now ride the flow within the body I hope to save.
Responsibility accompanies my new role. I am a leukocyte, a protector of life. The reapers are the disease. The strong providers join us, red blood cells, and other strange globule creatures, countless cells caught in a flurry of pulsing thrusts, and I am one. But how can I move? There is no how, only intending to advance, and I do.
Legions of fellow corpuscles join my crusade. My thoughts are their thoughts, we are a single point of decision, though scattered throughout the plasma. Under my command, the army advances on the intruders. The enemy shifts their destructive efforts from the walls of our home, and their sickles rip apart my comrades. Though stricken, my fellow warriors release a fireball of poison. The furious battle heats the blood as we soar through a network of cardiac expressways. The confusing twists and turns throw us into a swirling blend of combating microorganisms.
The flow halts and a violent backwash scatters the troops. Where is the next pulse? With our journey at rest, the reapers seize the opportunity for counterattack. Intent on victory, our forces match their assault. My fellow leukocytes emit a cloud of poison aimed at destroying the intruders.
The reapers wrestle and squirm, many disintegrating as though bathed in acid. We are winning the battle—we have upheld our responsibility to the body. But the flow remains at rest. Shouldn’t we be going now? Something is wrong.
A blade rips through my cell body and slices me in two.
I twist to face a surviving reaper, sickle poised to strike again. Beneath the ragged hood, a cocky grin. With a flick of his head, the fabric flops back to reveal his face. His eyes are glowing red orbs. The sickle strikes, I am quartered. He watches, delighting in the pain he inflicts, and pleased to know that I am fully aware—inflicted by
him.
He grows larger, the sickle as well, which he thrusts into the artery and rips open a gaping wound, a pain endured by every member of my leukocyte army. I can
feel
it.
I can’t move, I’m falling to pieces, and the scene is growing dark. I force the remaining poison from my quartered self and shower him in a mist of death. Covering his face with both hands, he loses the sickle, and it drifts away into darkness.
A pulse blasts hard, throwing us into a scatter of cells, and tearing apart what little remains of my tiny body. I am coming undone, but I am not afraid. I accept my fate, but do believe I will miss existing. To not exist at all is worse than even the most mundane existence, even that of a single leukocyte.
Another mighty thrust, the missing rhythm returns, and the dying reapers are washed away. Again and again, the pulse beats strong. Yes, this is the song I know. Though a failure at my own survival, we have succeeded at saving the whole—this body will survive.
Blackness descends as I tumble helplessly, caught in the swirling flow. Something appears, soaring out of the dark. A glistening object, it grows larger, bouncing past a scatter of blood cells. Square, transparent and slick—an icy cube with someone trapped inside, screaming and banging, struggling to break free.
As the cube slips past, she looks directly at me. “Adam, help!”
I have to save her. What can I do? I can’t move.
“Adam! I need you! I’m here!”
The cube is swallowed by darkness. Her tender blue eyes are gone.
A pulse slams hard and my cell body explodes into a spray of debris.
I have come undone.
* * *
My only view is a ceiling, endless white squares, with tiny holes in a random pattern. I can’t move, the signals aren’t making it through. My body has only one response—
not now, try again later.
My eyes work, but all there is to see is that damn ceiling. The countless little holes are going to drive me insane. With some effort, my head flops to one side, but the new view provides few clues. A room sparkling clean, and a door with clothes hanging from a hook.
“I was so worried,” she says.
I know that voice—Madison. Behind me. After a ridiculous argument with my body, we agree to get this head pointed the other direction. I must squint. Bright sun comes in through a window past her, making a silhouette. She is sitting in a chair near the bedside.
The room is all white, except a gadget mounted to the wall, something rubber and shiny chrome. Near the bed is a cart full of electronic gear, and the place reeks of disinfectant. Mounted to the cart are tall rods elevating bags of clear liquid. From the sacks of fluid, thin tubing leads down, past a metal railing, then beneath a white sheet covering me. I reach for the cloth, my arm says
hell no,
but I insist, and together we raise the cover enough to see the tubing is taped to my wrist.
“Are you okay?” Madison asks.
“Dammit!” I holler, which hurts my insides something terrible. “Stop asking me that. Look at me. Do I look okay?” I try sitting up, but it doesn’t go so well. My entire body is sore, especially my chest. I get up on one elbow anyway.
She reaches for my shoulder. “Take it easy.”
Though confused and in a world of hurt, I still recall how to be pissed off.
“Make me.”
“Come on, lie down. You need some rest.”
“What happened?”
She withdraws, and hesitates. “Seems you had a little problem.”
“Okay, that’s it.” I tear the covers off and sit up straight. “I’ve had enough of this guessing game, and all your little clues.”
I stare at the wall and call upon my infinite determination.
“Now I will know.”
* * *
Strange, as though time passed, but at the same time, it didn’t. A lifetime of experience was compressed into a fraction of a second, then expanded back to fill the expected time, but in a space of
no time.
And here I am, right where I started.
Madison is puzzled. “Know what?”
“Everything I forgot.”
“Just like that.”
“Yeah, just like that.”
“So you know what happened.”
“Of course. That crate of vegetables fell off the train and smacked me right in the head. And you doctor people just finished putting in that thing that makes me forget who I am, so I won’t know what’s going on when I get fried.”
She stares at me like I’ve lost my last marble. “What are you talking about?”
Nice, I like the sound of that. My turn to be the riddler, and hers to be riddled.
“Madison, I’m just kidding.”
“Then you really know.”
“Sure. Myocardial infarction.”
“My-o what?”
“
My-o-card-i-al in-farc-tion.
Are you telling me I know something you don’t? Now there’s a new twist.”
“I’m just . . . just surprised to hear you talk that way.”
“What’s wrong with how I talk?”
“Nothing, you’re just . . . what’s with the fancy medical lingo?”
“I used to be a doctor, a long time ago, in another life. I’m just calling it what it’s called. You know, the arteries get clogged and the blood doesn’t flow so well. The heart doesn’t like that, and says,
Hello? Something’s wrong here.
Feel this, that ought to get your attention.
Bodies are funny that way. They speak a language all their own—pain.”
She only becomes more confused. “But . . .”
“But what? Am I supposed to stay dumb forever? Not much better than dead forever. I’m tired of asking questions.”
“I don’t understand.”
Good, now she knows how it feels.
“Actually,” I say, “it was Jared’s fault. Well, not really, just in the dream.”
“The dream?”
“Yeah, he cut me apart. But I showed him. Kicked his ass good, but it took everything I had to finish the job. I was a leukocyte, like a bad-ass cop, out cleaning up the neighborhood.”
Dave enters the room and sees me sitting up. His eyes go wide. “Oh man, you scared the shit out of us.” He rushes to the bedside.
“Forget about me, I’m fine.”
“But you’re—”
“I had a heart attack, big deal.”
Madison shoots upright. “It is a big deal. You almost died.”
“So what, it’s just a body.”
Dave says, “It’s a big deal when you don’t remember how to get another one. Do you?”
He would have to remind me. Death is still a bit fuzzy, particularly, how to make it through. Awareness of immortality offers little comfort when you don’t know how it works. Okay, so I don’t know
everything.
But I’ll know soon enough.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”
The door clicks shut as another fellow enters the room. A doctor, judging by the white coat. “After an extended period of rest,” he says.
“Look, Doc, there’s no time for that. I have much to do.”
The doctor shakes a scolding finger. “You have only one thing to do, and that’s lie down and get some rest. Then we’ll talk about what you’ve been eating.”
“What’s wrong with what I’ve been eating?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. I can’t imagine what foul substance you’ve been ingesting, but whatever it is, it’s ruining your body. You need to consider a better diet.”
“Try a daily dose of scrambled eggs laced with amnesia-inducing drugs, and see how you like it.”
The doctor’s puzzled stare leads nowhere.
“Never mind,” I say. “Just tell me what’s wrong with this body.”
“Well, the thing is, it’s a wreck.”
“Bad answer, Doc. How can I fix anything with generalities like that? Tell me what the problem is, then I’ll take care of it, right here, right now.”
The perplexed doctor turns to Dave, as if to say,
your friend is weird.
Dave returns his own expression without words, seeming to reply,
yeah, tell me about it.
“Come on, Doc, I don’t have all day. Describe the problem and I’ll patch things up.”
The doctor shifts to a nurse who has entered the room. He asks her, “What is the dosage here?” She hands him a clipboard. Yeah, I know, my chart. With the long list of drugs scheduled for consumption. I’m sick to death of drugs.
“Looks about right,” the doctor says, studying the chart. “He shouldn’t be acting this irrational.”
“Hey!” I say. “I’m right here. Talk to me, not them, or yourself. I’m sick of that shit.”
The doctor hands the chart back to the nurse. “Very well, I’ll talk to you. You’re under the influence of medication right now, so please, try to remain calm and think about what you’re saying.”
“I know
that.
Look, Doc, the drugs are affecting my body, sure, but I’m a different story. The drugs aren’t doing it to me. I’m serious here. Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it, then we’ll be on our way.”
His eyes flash horror. “Oh no, there will be none of that. You’re not going anywhere. You are very sick, and need rest.”
“That’s your fault, Doc. If you’d tell me what’s wrong, specifically, then I could fix it and I wouldn’t be sick.”
The doctor crosses his arms and talks like I’m an ignorant child. “All right, I’ll tell you what’s wrong. You have elevated triglyceride levels and excessive cholesterol, causing a severe case of atherosclerosis.”
“Sure, I can take care of that junk. What I need to know is where the damage is. I can’t fix what I can’t see.”
“Damage?” he asks.
“Yeah, I had an episode, right? The heart muscle is damaged, it must be. I need to know where so I can look at it. Come on, help me out here.”
Though utterly baffled, as if I’m the first patient to ever suggest the simple remedy, the doctor points to my chest. “Here,” he says.
“The left ventricle.”
He nods. “Near the mitral valve. A laceration of the myocardium.”
“Thank you. Now I will fix it.”
* * *
The realm of dreams appears on command. An act of will, a fully conscious choice. I am dreaming, and know that I am.
Soaring through arteries, I rocket past a torrent of blood cells struggling against big globules of oily fat—triglycerides. A mess of waxy goo sticks to everything—cholesterol. This goes beyond all moderation, and leaves little room for the vital nutrients to move through. I imagine the scene another way—with fewer. I am within a dream of my own invention, where every event is of my choosing. The way becomes clear as the view shifts to how I prefer—with fewer.