Goodbye to the Jungle by Wayne Mansfield

Author:Wayne Mansfield [Mansfield, Wayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2017-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

For the remainder of that day and most of the next, a tense silence existed between Jahl and Brocknor. Jahl spent the night in the room set aside for him—a small annex off Brocknor’s room. It was barely large enough for its small bed and table, but Jahl sensed that when Brocknor got over his guilt, he wouldn’t be using it much.

To keep boredom at bay, he took to helping Mari, asking her for chores since he didn’t want to ask Brocknor for anything, even jobs.

“It gets better,” she said.

They were on their hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor. Mari was naked, but for a makeshift turban, which kept her long, black hair out of the way.

“What does?” asked Jahl.

“The aching in your heart. In the pit of your stomach. In your spirit.” She dipped her brush into the bucket of water. “Sadly, your memories fade as well. I suppose you can’t have one without the other.”

“But I don’t want to forget my old life. My family and friends. I’d rather tolerate the pain than have that happen.”

“It happens whether you want it to or not. I tried to hang onto my memories for as long as I could. Every night, without fail, I pictured my mother first. I imagined her smiling at me, speaking to me so I wouldn’t forget her voice. I’d hear her telling me that everything would be all right. That I was strong, and that I was loved. I pictured my father and my sisters. Each of them talking to me, telling me the things I needed to hear. I’d imagine the sound of my sisters laughing, the sound of their giggling often making me laugh. I saved my husband till the end. I remembered all the sweet things he ever said to me, and the way he said them. I remembered the way he used to smell and the way his lips felt when he kissed me.” She sat back on her heels and looked at Jahl, the hand holding the scrubbing brush resting on her thigh. “But even from the very first night I started, some small detail was forgotten, not quite right, until all I was left with were vague impressions.”

Jahl had stopped scrubbing to listen more carefully to her words, words that had stunned him to the point of being incapable of moving. When at last he regained control of his senses, he sat back on his heels, mirroring Mari. “And now?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “And now I don’t think of them at all. I can barely remember what they look like. I’ve forgotten what they sound like. My ideas of all those I loved are distant memories, so distant they feel like someone else’s memories. I walk around this villa every day. I know every corner of this building and every bush in the garden. I know this man’s life more than I know my own.”

Jahl shook his head. “I won’t let that happen to me. I’ll find a way to return to my family.

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