Vicious Memories

Chapter 32 - Alice

When I first woke up I was worse than dead.

Adrift, I was less than a piece of flotsam in the ocean without an anchor. You never realize how much you rely on your experiences to tell you who you are - and who you should be - until all of a sudden you have no experiences at all. Human being aren't equipped to go through life without anything to center them.

So I started holding onto things other people take for granted. A stranger's smile; a shared meal; a slap on the back that says good job; the beauty of a night passed in silence among others. Life narrows down to the few relationships you have, and they become so central to your life that sometimes they're the only things in the whole world that matter.

That was all I could think about when they brought Cooper back to the village that afternoon.

"Why?" I asked. "Why did this have to happen?"

It hurt to see the confusion in his eyes, the way he shied away from people he used to tease and shout at, the way his obnoxious strut had turned into a shuffle. We had been close. As close as I had been with any of the other villagers. Almost like brother and sister. His brash enthusiasm had paid no heed to the walls I'd put between myself and the others, and it had paid off in the form of an awkward but comforting friendship.

Now he walked past me and his eyes didn't even flick my way.

I wanted to help him, the way I'd helped Finn a couple nights ago. But Finn still had his memory - he still knew me. I wasn't ready to reach out to someone who didn't know me. Who might reject me.

Two years ago I'd gotten to my feet and walked directly over to the person next to me. I'd tried to help them. But they were so afraid and confused that they shoved me away and screamed. It had hurt me deeply, had triggered and ten played upon the single memory I still had from my past, the one that told me love and physical rejection were intertwined. The one that made me want to stay away from the rest of the villagers lest I become like him and hurt them out of love.

So I stayed back and watched Cooper progress from hysteria to disbelief. Over the course of the evening the whole village banded together and went to talk to him, offering words of support and encouragement.

Sunset picked out every blade of grass in the clearing sharply, gold light dusting sharp green edges, throwing elongated shadows around the village in splatters of black paint. Nobody would sleep much tonight.

I lounged under the broad expanse of the monkeypod tree, pulling weeds away from my circle of flowers, delicately brushing dirt off the petals so they could pass through the night unencumbered. Cooper wandered the north end of the village, shuffling past the final row of tents, a dozen yards away.

Finn approached.

"Hey man."

Cooper looked over, nodded.

"How you feeling?"

Cooper shrugged. "Been better, ya know?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I do."

They stared at each other in the fading light like two awkward middle school dates. Wind rustled through the leaves above my head, whistling softly.

"So," Finn said, "you really don't remember anything? Nothing from the island at all?"

"Sorry, mate. Not a lick."

"Well, I'm Finn." Finn put his hand out. "Good to meet you again."

"Cooper."

They shook.

"We're... uh... well, we were, friends, you and me. We've hung out a lot over the past couple of years. Used to play pranks on all the others."

Cooper smiled at that, and my heart wrenched at the familiar lopsided grin; it transformed him back into someone I recognized.

"Oh yeah?" Cooper asked. "Mates? What kind of stuff did we do?"

"All kinds, really. The people around here can be so dumb sometimes." Finn laughed at some memory, then frowned. "We used to hide Mads' pots and pans in trees until she started screaming in French and her faced turned red, then we'd tell her that the monkeys must have taken them again."

"Mads?"

Finn's face fell. "Yeah, Mads. She was our friend, too. She's... well, she's not here right now." A slight pause. "Anyway, there was a week not too long ago where we tried to see how many stones we could stack on top of Gabriel while he was sleeping without waking him up. I think we got up to thirty-seven one time. It made him really mad. He never found out it was us. Or the time we squeezed kiwi juice all over the handles of Felix's tools so they would get sticky and piss him off. Or the time we cut off one side of Mohammed's hair while he was napping then let him walk around all day looking like an idiot. One time you distracted Bev and Arun while I moved all of their stuff into the other's cave. Arun thought he'd been robbed and almost killed us."

Cooper started laughing. I moved down the line of flowers slowly, weeding and brushing more dirt off the petals.

"Sounds like a riot," Cooper said. "I wish I remembered."

"Yeah, me too. Maybe you will one day. Or I can just tell you all about it." Finn hesitated. "We can still be friends, you know, even if you don't remember anything from before."

"I'd like that."

"Here." A silly smile stole over Finn's face. He held his hand out, thumb and index finger in a circle. "We used to play this game. You make a circle like this and try to get the other person to look at it. You have to hold it below waist height. Then, if they look at it you get to punch them in the arm. But—" Finn held up a finger, "—if you reach out and manage to hit the hand making the circle without looking, you get to punch them in the arm."

The sun had almost fully set. Light drained from the sky like a running watercolor painting.

Cooper looked down at Finn's hand, frowning, then back up. He raised an eyebrow. "I don't get it. Is it a joke? Or is it just an excuse to hit each other?"

Finn's smile faltered. "Ah, well, it was a stupid thing anyway. It's not a big deal." He half turned, as if he intended to return to the village clearing.

"Wait," Cooper said quickly, reaching out and grabbing Finn's arm. "Wait. Please."

I looked away, the desperation in Cooper's voice almost more than I could bear.

"Please," Cooper said again, "try explaining it one more time. I want to understand."

"Right. Of course, man. Of course. Here, let's grab a seat in the grass... So, a few days after we all woke up, you and I went to..."

They began to laugh again, but I still felt cold inside. If we didn't find a way off this island it seemed that we were all sitting on a giant time bomb. What did it mean if we could just be reset in the blink of an eye? How many times would we have to start all over again?

My hand slipped and I accidentally ripped a soft white petal from the flower I was working on. I looked down at it sadly, knowing that there was no way to reattach it to the stem.

I bent over it and whispered a gentle apology. Then I tossed it up in the air, to be blown away by the night.