Husk

Chapter 1 - Death

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Chapter 1

Does love transcend the flesh?

We move life after life. Are we immortal or are we just copies?

Does our consciousness truly follow us as we move our soul from one husk to the next. Our thoughts, our memories all of it stored inside giant data banks. Is that all we are? I can feel each neuron bursting as if a million tiny stars are exploding inside my skull.

Who am I? Why am I here? Why does any of this matter?

The side of my head feels like I got hit by a hammer.

Time, it never seems to end.

"You want a taste," That was the first thing she ever said to me.

I was sitting at the bar. A nice little joint called 'The Pit'. It was a decent place set a few miles from one of the hundreds of city parks. That was the only thing that made it feel separate from the main city where the buildings stretched into the sky. It had a nice mix of people, all of us somewhere in our mid twenties. They had every kind of drink you could imagine and fried food to compliment it. My favorite was the chicken. Too much of their greasy food was likely to kill you but that didn't matter. I remember she was wearing a nice short grey dress. I had to stop myself from staring at her legs. She had naturally blue eyes. This was rare. Blue was in so most of the girls our age dyed their pupils blue before going out or they had contacts that swallowed their entire eye. It was a funny thing seeing a girl go to the bathroom with blue eyes then watch as they would come back one eye blue the other green and bloodshot. Another feature that stood out to me was her short black hair with a few pieces dyed red. She was short but not too short, skinny but not too skinny or so thin she looked sick (unlike most of the girls in this place). I wondered what she was doing in a place like this.

“Do you want a taste?” she said again.

She saw I was staring. We were only a few seats away from each other. I stumbled with my words... tripping over syllables... mumbling. I must have sounded like someone that just crawled out of the gutter because I know I let my accent slip out as I replied. "No, just wondering when you'll be done so I can buy you another one".

She laughed. I smiled. She swiftly lifted her hand and took a sip of her drink.

"Have I met you before?" she asked.

"No," I answered. She lifted her hand again and this time she drank the whole thing.

A few hours past.

"Your not going to try and get me drunk and sleep with me are you?" I couldn't help but smile. The answer was no but I let my imagination run wild for a few seconds. This girl, I didn't even catch her name yet. All I knew at this point was I was sitting with someone so far out of my league and she was talking to me. I was here drowning my sorrows. Straight out of college and I couldn't find a job. I graduated top of my class. I had a degree in computer science, straight A's (actually it was more like I was barely getting by and found easy ways to bribe my teachers). She was the same age as me but she was just beginning school. She told me she use to be a freelance writer. She didn't know what she wanted now just that she wanted to do something where she could help kids.

"Can I take your hand". She whispered. Practically everyone had left the bar. We had been talking for hours and the bar was ready to close soon. "Sure," I felt as happy as a boy scout earning a merit badge. I think this badge would have simply looked like a happy face or maybe a face winking. I felt her warm hand take mine. She looked my hand over, "My dad told me once that I was a psychic. He told me that one day I would meet a man, look at his palm and I would know he was the one. He told me to that the right man would have hands that weren't too rough or too soft." She was trying to be funny so I laughed. Her sense of humor was strange but in a good way. It must have been close to 3 a.m. I had finally managed to stop mumbling. I had never met anyone like her. The bartender, I think his name was Denton, a big burly dude with a buzzed head and funny sideburns cut in a spiraling design that wrapped all the way down to his goatee walked over to us. "Its closing time, I'm calling a cab for you two." He talked to us in a nice fatherly tone. He was a great man, I remember when I failed a semester in college. I came straight to the Pit. I must have been out of my mind by my fourth or fifth drink. I was talking about going up to the roof and jumping or driving my car off a bridge. He calmly cut me off, moved my drink to the side and then slapped me in the face. After that I immediately felt sober and he lectured me for an hour on how I should never give up. Then he drove me back to my apartment and gave me a coupon for a free meal. The next day I found out my teacher that failed me was sleeping with student and that particular student had a crush on me. Turns out he had failed me on purpose trying to get me out of the picture.