The Mechanics of Us

Chapter 13

Home isn't much better. The girl and I don't exchange a single word between us. All we have done is sit in silence in the living room as she doodles and I take my vague notes. The questions keep running through my mind. Why copper? Why did she show high levels of empathy? When I did the alterations to her anatomy I do not recall placing copper in her bloodstream. I don't remember that part at all. Now that I think of it, I do not remember much of that procedure or what follows. Everything seems to be wiped clean from my memory; only fragments remain.

A wave of nausea passes over me; I leave the girl in the living room and make my way to the kitchen. I pour myself a glass of water, it laps over the edge of the glass and spills on the countertop, then as I raise the glass to my lips water dribbles down my shirt as I take small sips. My head is pounding, and soon this pounding turns to lightheadedness, I think I'm about to faint. Sure enough, I collapse to the cold tiled floor and weakly squeeze my hands around my head. My vision begins to break apart into segmentations of neon blocks of magenta, cyan, yellow, and black. The memories I am trying to retrieve seem to be stuck in limbo. They want to come forth, to be known, but something is holding them back and fighting to keep them again from entering my stream of consciousness. Sweat begins to crawl down my back and on the sides of my temples. I coil myself up into a ball as the world glitches around me and a high pitched ringing starts to pierce my ears. There isn't anything I can do but wait for it all to pass, and I do not resist it, I succumb to the pain. I surrender to this form of consciousness. Inhale-exhale-hold-repeat. I repeat those steps over and over again until the world ceases glitching.

A tiny cold hand touches my arm, and I flinch. I pry my eyes open and notice the girl holding out a picture for me to see. I blink profusely and let my eyes adjust to the light; then, I weakly take the picture from the girl. It's a crudely drawn picture of the night sky, pitch black and covered in white stars, with a giant yellow moon in the center.

"Wow..." my voice is raspy.

"Did you draw this?" I prop myself up against the kitchen cabinet on the floor and slide to the right to have her sit next to me. She plops down and stretches her body across mine.

"Yea! See, that's the moon, and all of these are stars" she points to the deformed and ill drawn shapes.

"I mean, it's good don't get me wrong, but this isn't what the night sky looks like" I stretch my hand up and grab the edge of the counter. I hoist myself up, and after a moment of lightheadedness and a few meager foot adjustments, I can stand relatively still with a decent amount of balance.

"Why don't we go on one more adventure for the day, yea?" I meander over to my bag and grab my keys from the front pocket. The girl is not far behind me and eagerly nods her head.

"Excellent," I pat the top of her head and take her hand. Then two of us exit the apartment together.

***

We drive about ten minutes out of the cities. The girl and I sit in silence, for the most part, every so often I check the rearview mirror to make sure she is okay, and each time I find her with her head tilted down. I lean over and turn the radio on. Static. I turn it back off. A long heavy sigh escapes my mouth. I wish I could connect with her; a part of me longs for that connection. To belong to someone and for them to belong to me. I used to not be like this; I used to think I didn't need connections with anyone. But I now realize how lonely that was. The saddest part about being alone is that you realize how much you missed. All the memories you never created with potential friends or family. All the happiness that was never experienced. I do not want her to be lonely as I used to be.

After a few more minutes of driving in silence, it becomes apparent to me that the sky is a deep ocean blue, and there are freckles of white sprinkled across it. As we drive further and further away from the city, the freckles become more prominent, and the sky melts into shades of black.