Husk

Chapter 3 - Home

Day two was the worst. The doctor gave me some medicine for the nightmares on top of my painkillers and told me I would be able to go home the next day. He made sure to compliment me on this my first time.

When I finally get home to my apartment. The excitement runs over me, I feel like I am just now getting back home from the pit. I can't wait to see the artwork on the walls, my furniture, my TV set, that funny black spiral lamp I got at the mall for a bargain. I even miss the stains on my coffee table and carpet from spilled drinks with friends.

I open the door.

"SURPRISE"

My parents are standing in front of me (I forgot I gave them my extra damn key) with my friends, former co-workers, and even two of my favorite teachers. My father was middle aged. He was a tall man with a nice shiny baldhead. He had a small gut on him but he worked out every week so he made sure to stay fit. He was wearing his best suit. My mother was a beautiful middle-aged woman, her hair was black and grey, she too had on her best outfit. My friends, people I had worked with while in school, even my teachers. They were dressed how they always do, collared shirts, jeans. Some of them had funny images on them or they were so causal they were wearing their favorite sports team. It was a nice contrast looking at my best friend wearing a sports jersey and leather jacket next my father in his suit.

"Everyone heard what happened and wanted to give you a great welcome back."

"Thank GOD for implants and husks!" My father laughs.

"Thought they would never fish you out," My mother said trying to make a joke. I didn't feel like laughing but I smiled anyway. It was nice seeing my family and friends.

My mother had made a special white cake showing an image of blue man, a yellow equals sign and a red man. I didn't know what to think about the symbols but after one bite I had felt like I had never had cake before in my life. I felt like a new man.

At the dinner table my father began to joke how he was nervous his "investment" in my ten husks would never pay off. You see he had been paying my upkeep and storage all my life. He said it was his way of always feeling like he was taking care of me. My father was a firm believer in the husks and implants. While I was buried in the wreckage underwater he had gone personally to check on my husks in storage and so to make sure that the moment I was found I would be first to have my implant transplanted. He went everyday I was missing except for the last when the fear I was lost forever began to set in. I couldn't imagine what that must have felt like for him. To feel like you had lost your only son forever.

I guess they are just use to it. "Pretty soon we'll be able to live forever" he said stuffing his face with a huge yellow equal sign from the cake. I felt awkward. The way the cake tasted new, everyone being over. The way the doctors and police played it was no big deal, just a car accident and a three day stay in the hospital... it was so different from how everyone here was acting. My father looked at me and began to try and comfort me, "Did you know that your mother couldn't get pregnant till her third husk." He paused probably realizing how awkward he was about to make everything. "She had been born with an ovarian problem but we were able to alter her genes and fix it on her third husk. Another scientific breakthrough. We almost went to the courts to get permission for her to get a 'suicide notice' so she could kill herself so we could hurry up and get her implant in there. Then GOD forbid she got struck by lightning... three days and nine months later well... you get the picture". I felt like throwing up.

"Mom, does it bother you that I'm not you know the same me that came from you?"

"Honey, I've died twice since then," she laughed. "You will always be my little baby."

We continued to eat the rest of the cake. Once we were done with that they insisted I try a sample of everything I had in the apartment.

An apple, peanut butter, chocolate, vanilla extract, milk, ice cream, cookies, spoons of sugar, cinnamon, tea leaves, water... even water felt pure, felt new.

Once I thought about it I realized they didn't really feed me anything at the hospital. Instead they had me hooked up to an IV pumping god knows everything into me.

"Your husk has never been desensitized... technically this is the first time you've ever eaten anything" one of my teachers said to me. I guess he could tell I found this sensation strange. "You had all the juices your husk had pumped out and then you had to be given a mix of vitamins, minerals, blood transfusions, electricity, nanites and etc. so that your body would wake up.. "

"So I have been reborn..." I said cutting him off.

"And that is why you have always been one of my smartest students," he answered.

Around midnight everyone left. Finally, I thought to myself. Peace and quiet.

No parents, friends, teachers to tell me how glad they are for husks, neural implants, lightning strikes, etc. Just the silence of the room and my relaxing chair. God damn I love this chair. Three years ago during my sophomore year I got this chair and it had been the only piece of furniture I've managed to hold onto. Three years and now I was experiencing it for the first time again.

After setting my head back I close my eyes and then it clicks. I'm FINALLY home. I can call Azra. I pause and smile. I feel like I have waited a thousand years to make this call. My hands tremble as I pick up the phone. I begin to dial her number, which after three days of on again off again consciousness I managed to memorize.

RING..... I begin to smile when I think about her laugh.

RING.....

RING.....

"Hello?"

It hits me like the bomb on that bridge... It's been ten days. Ten fucking days. What if she doesn't even remember who I am. What if she's seeing someone now. What if she is with someone RIGHT now? What if she thinks I stood her up? What if she tried to reach me and found out about what happened... why wasn't she hear tonight if she did. What if she doesn't want me because she thinks I'm not me anymore? What if she hates husks? What if..

What if...

What if.....

"Azra..." I begin to mumble.

"Yes, who is this"

"This is Seth, we met at The Pit a little over a week ago..."