All the Things I've Lost by Shiloh Hollis

Author:Shiloh, Hollis [Shiloh, Hollis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spare Words Press
Published: 2015-10-15T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter six

I couldn't stop eating meat just because I'd once believed something that was nowhere inside me now; it would feel like a ploy, play-acting. Trying to be someone I wasn't anymore and didn't know how to get back. But every time I ate lunch meat or a hot dog, I thought of it, and wondered how I'd have felt back then. I felt bad, too, because I couldn't reconcile my selves.

I had spent so long fitting in desperately in every way I could, blending in; being a vegetarian would've cut directly against that goal here. But once, it had meant something important to me.

I asked if there was any way to restore my memory; he said he knew of none.

"Can't the crystals . . ."

He shook his head sadly. "I don't see how. There's . . . maybe if you went back home, they could do something medical to you, but if your memory hasn't come back in all this time, it's probably gone forever." He touched my arm. "I'm not a doctor, of course." He looked at me with large, liquid, worried eyes. "Do you want to go home and find out?"

I hesitated, and shook my head. "But show me the pod anyway."

He did. One weekend, we packed a lunch and went to find his pod. It was a long trek, but we made it eventually. He'd hidden it carefully in a cave. A brown, natural-looking thing, like a bit of poop-colored thatch. It looked grown, not made; it blended in easily where he'd hidden it.

I went inside. The outer walls were like bits of root and dried moss all pressed together hard like a coconut shell. The inner walls were more like opaque glass with bits of clear, crystal-like shapes in them. I could see it wasn't quite crystals, not the way we think of them here on Earth, but I could also see why he'd described them that way. I reached out to touch one, and a low hum started. I drew back, startled; it had been as though the pod was asking me what to do — stay asleep, or wake up and go somewhere.

I looked around, then got out.

It made me shivery and anxious. The man I'd once loved had died in a place like this; I remembered death and sorrow, and explosion. This calm, almost comforting pod seemed too strange now to be real. I was afraid to be inside it — afraid.

"Maybe we can come back sometime," I said.

"Sure," he said, watching my face, standing very still.

"But not for a while."

"No. I'll just . . . get some books, all right?" He grimaced. "I mean . . . you know. What we have in place of books. Man, this language really gets into your head, doesn't it? I can't even . . . the old terms get harder and harder. I almost called you 'husband' yesterday instead of my pair."

He gave me a quick, cheeky grin that held a hint of defiant humor underneath.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.