Song Remains the Same

Chapter 92: Do I Know You?

"We're in a foreign eyes. Yet we have known each other all along."
- Jonsi

Three Minutes Ago

Emmanuel sat on the picnic table with his feet on the bench. He wasn't entirely sure why he was inclined to sit that way, but he always had been. Daphne told him to stop it every time she saw him sit that way—it wasn't proper, she said.

He held the penny on the chain in the palm of his hand and he was examining it for the thousandth time, searching the small copper circle for answers. He did this every day, quite honestly. Two fingertips brushed over the cool metal surface almost mournfully. What are you? What do you mean? The inanimate object glinted back up at him as he contemplated it, and he was yet again given no answers, no memories, no clue of who he had been before that lake. A certain sense of restlessness had remained deep inside of him for a long time, maybe what seemed like forever, but today he felt wrong and anxious on a new level. Nothing seemed right at all and he kept looking over his shoulder expecting to find someone there—yet every time he looked, there was nothing and no one there at all.

He only wanted to know who he was. But that desire was coming to nothing. Was he relegated to accepting this life as his own? Accepting Daphne as his wife like she insisted she was? It had been nearly half a year he'd spent without memories or knowledge of who he was... perhaps this life really was his now. Even if he didn't truly want it. Perhaps his desires meant nothing and his reluctance to accept it all was inward selfishness and weakness of character.

A car passed by behind him and Emmanuel idly thought he should return home now—he had stalled long enough. It was Daphne's day off of work—she would want to spend time together. He had declined her earlier offers to drive him across town to where someone had needed healing. Emmanuel preferred walking, and deep down where he wouldn't admit it, he also preferred not being with Daphne. He tried to create as much time gone from home or busy as possible. He felt ashamed of himself for still feeling the way he did about her: disinterested, uncomfortable, hesitant. But he couldn't seem to help it, and he avoided her as much as possible. He was always looking for an excuse to busy himself with other things—healing the sick, gardening, building birdhouses, repairing things for the neighbors or around the house, spending time by himself in nature. It was a simple fact: no matter how hard he tried to be grateful to Daphne, he couldn't make himself love her (which was what he knew she wanted). She had tried a few more times to convince him to engage in sexual relations with her, but each time he had reacted even more negatively than before. It didn't feel right. He didn't think it ever would. He wanted her to stop pressuring him in that area.

With a deep inhale, Emmanuel decided he could not justify staying gone any longer and he got off the table and made his way back home. It was less than a block—he cut through a side street and a back yard and then wandered up the sidewalk toward Daphne's house. His pace slowed and stuttered briefly when he saw a classic old black car—a Chevrolet Impala—parked in front of the house. For reasons unknown, that car made his stomach jolt. He wondered if perhaps, before the memory loss, he had driven one of those...?

He continued up the sidewalk slowly, a feeling of utter apprehensiveness growing in the pit of his stomach as he neared the inexplicably familiar car. There was a feeling in him, an instinct that said something was amiss. And then he heard a crash, some gruffly spoken words, a woman crying out as if she were being harmed, a masculine shout of pain—and he hurried to get closer. Just as he rounded the tall shrub that blocked his view of the front porch, a body crashed and rolled down the front steps, landing right at Emmanuel's feet. Shocked and momentarily breathless, Emmanuel stared down at the man who laid at his feet and choked out a final last breath—his face was obscene and perverse and not human at all—it was like something out of hell. But then the face faded away and in its place was a normal looking man's face. He was dead and staring unseeingly.