Mountain Qualia

NaNoWriMo Day 15

Kalisa had been fidgeting with the thingamabob she excavated from Joakim's toe. They were walking around aimlessly around a rocky patch where Georg had sent them. "I always saw him go into that direction, whenever he left here," he had said.

"We have absolutely no clue to go on," Joakim said to Kalisa. "And while I have to admit, I am rather intrigued that this man would recognize me as a good friend, I think it is about time to send Julian home."

"I'm fine," he said. "It's an adventure!"

"No, it's not fine at all. This isn't some children's fantasy adventure. Shouldn't you be missing your parents? And you are not fine when you try to throw yourself off a cliff in the middle of the night."

 Julian hunched and started sobbing. Kalisa stepped in and for the first time showed some affection for the young boy.  "Joakim!" she said. "He's just a boy, mind your words, please."

Joakim squatted next to his two travel companions and rubbed Julian's air. "Sorry. But I am out of ideas now. My memory has not returned and I don't recognize any landmarks. How will we ever find where I've been hiding for two years?"

"I might have an idea," Kalisa said. Before Joakim could turn to ask what it was, she pushed Joakim from his unstable squat onto the sand. She jumped on his back, took something shiny from her satchel and cut his neck with one fast swipe. Joakim yelped and tried to feel his neck. Then Kalisa slapped hard on his neck and everything turned dark.

---

It felt like hours had passed when Joakim woke up. It was dark. And they were inside. Inside where? He felt his neck. Someone had put a bandaid on it, but it still hurt. He looked around and saw Kalisa and Julian rummaging through papers and boxes. "Where are we?" he said. "What did you do to me, you stupid --"

"Hush," Kalisa said. "I love you and you know it. You did it, you found the secret hideout."

"I did?" Joakim rubbed his eyes. "I think I had a blackout again, I don't remember a thing."

"It's this little fellow," Kalisa said while holding up the small black sliver from Joakim's toe. "I thought it stopped working after you stumped your toe, but it was just no longer connected deep enough. So I inserted it into your neck."

"It was awesome," Julian said. "You got up and didn't recognize us at all! Then you started running."

"We followed you, which was quite something. You flew across the terrain like you were doing parkour, we almost lost you," Kalisa said.

"Then you disappeared into this hole and almost shut in front of our eyes, but Kalisa she jumped in just in time and wrestled you to the ground."

Joakim rubbed his aching back and chafed knees. "Again?"

"I had to get the chip out again," Kalisa said. "Or you'd stay like that forever. The big unknown was whether you'd be completely memory-wiped once you would wake up or that the switch was short enough for you to retain some of yourself."

"Next time talk it through before you do something funny like that?"

"You must read this stuff," Kalisa said, holding a notebook. "It's your alter-ego's diary."

Joakim took the notebook and opened it somewhere halfway. He started reading out loud.

Every day, the vehicle brings up loads of fat and lazy mountain tourists to the observation deck. Here they marvel at the landscape of a dying planet. They act like they've achieved something, but their immaculate clean outfits betray the fact that they made no effort except fashion wise to climb this mountain. Their only achievement is killing the planet and taking selfies as proof. To make matters worse, they soil this pristine rocky peak with their litter. I spent a good two hours yesterday to clean it all up.