Tevun-Krus #94 - 10th Anniversary Special

The Other Me - A Short Story by @EvelynHail

The Other Me

By EvelynHail

Saoirse was sitting on the bed, talking to herself. She was asking questions — not saying them out loud but forming them into sentences — her memory was replying.

Do I like pancakes with blueberries?

A moment of pause, a void in her mind. Then, "Yeah, pancakes are good. They're not my favorite dish but I'd love to eat them for dessert." The memory of the taste followed: the smell, the aroma, the tiny fruit crunching under the teeth ...

Cara asked yesterday if I wanted pancakes for lunch?

No pause there.

A tall woman with dark hair, broad shoulders, a friendly smile ... All the memories Saoirse had gathered in the last two weeks she could evoke instantly.

When did I meet Cara?

Pause.

Elementary school: new student, sitting

next to Saoirse. Saoirse and Cara playing volleyball. Going to competitions together ...

What should I do now?

Immediately: Patrick will come for Saoirse so they go to Cara's place for lunch together. He said he would come at three. You should take a shower and wash your hair.

She got up and headed for the bathroom. When she first washed her hair after the hospital, it took her a while to remember what to do. There were no more problems now.

The doctor said the pauses in the memories would diminish and that he would soon no longer notice the difference between new and old memories. Between "experienced" and "re-recorded". That she would not have to consciously "remember" to know that something had happened.

***

There were no pauses in thinking in the dreams.

The night before, she had dreamed of going down the stairs. They were in a high tower and she was supposed to go down to the bottom. The tower had an old, dilapidated elevator, but she didn't dare use it — she walked down the spiral staircase cautiously, feeling the stone slabs with the tip of her shoe before stepping on them.

The stairs were slowly becoming more and more. After a while, she had to jump from one to the other. They also became wider and wider, turning into successive stone platforms. Saoirse looked up and thought how good it would be to go back and try the elevator anyway. But the return would be very strenuous — she assumed she had already crossed half the height of the tower.

She decided to continue, hoping to get to the bottom before the stairs got too high. She now descended so that she would sit on the edge of the stairs and jump on the one below her. They were already so high and wide that she could see only one step below the one she was on: only the one she was jumping on.

The stairs reached her height and a return became impossible. The feeling of having no choice but to keep going down created a fair amount of panic. She sat for a moment on the edge of one of the stairs, gathering her courage to move on. Then she dared and jumped on the next one.

Beneath it stretched a terrifying abyss. The staircase she was on was the last one. There was nothing below, all the way to the ground. It was at a height of at least twenty feet above the ground.

The estimate that it had long since crossed half the tower was quite wrong. She felt the stairs disappear beneath her feet and fall into the abyss, flying through the air faster and faster. At the last moment, she realized she was wrong not to use the elevator.