The Heartbeat of a Million Dreams by Halo Scot

Author:Halo Scot [Scot, Halo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent
Published: 2022-07-24T22:00:00+00:00

17

Structure Is a God

Slade

No routine. No repetition. No saving grace.

Time dissolves while we wait out the dust storm, and as someone who worships each tick of the clock, this upset undoes me. Structure is a god. Stability is a titan. Yet I have neither here, so I unravel.

“Slade, come back. Slade, I’m here. Talk to me. Let me help you.”

Koa tries…and fails. Because I can’t talk. I can’t explain. I can’t express what I need and why. She sees me, though. She analyzes, observes. Soon, she may understand.

“Everything’s loose,” I say. “Sloppy. Messy. Overcooked spaghetti. I need structure.”

“What’s your usual routine?”

“When I’m not running for my life?”

She grimaces, embarrassed or ashamed. Too fried to tell which. “Yes.”

“Days are chaotic,” I say, “but I re-anchor myself at night, in the subway. Dinner is one bagel with one pint of milk. Then chapters from The Martian Chronicles. Then one hour of television near the janitor’s closet. Then I sleep in a dumpster, preferably my favorite one.”

“A dumpster?” she asks.

I can’t read her expression, but her pale skin blanches further.

“You know this,” I say.

“I do, but…never mind.” Koa sighs, shakes her head. “What do you keep in your favorite dumpster?”

“The Ray Bradbury book, a six-pack of beer, my ‘Write It & Leave It’ leather notebook, and my harmonicas. I installed a fake floor and hide them underneath.”

“What’s a ‘Write It & Leave It’ notebook?”

“If anything bothers me, I write it in the notebook, then I don’t let myself think of it again.”

“That’s brilliant,” she says.

“It’s necessary,” I say.

“How’d you learn to write, to read?”

“Books. The doctor taught me, starting with Bradbury.”

Another mystery crosses her face, but even if I weren’t injured, I couldn’t decipher it. So I let it go.

“What would make your time here easier?” Koa asks.

I stall. No one’s asked me that before. No one’s stopped hunting me long enough to care. “Consistency,” I finally say. “Predictability.” Two words the doctor lent me in case this situation ever arose. At the time, I said this was impossible, but here I am, and here she is…

“How about I serve meals at the same times each day, give you books to read in the morning, teach you how to cope and darkshift in the afternoon, and change your bandage before bed?” She eyes me with uncertainty, but whether she’s uncertain about me or routine, I am unsure. Regardless, she’s given me a new anchor, a new shore.

“You have books?” I ask.

“Hundreds,” she says.

A smile’s shadow twitches my cheeks. “Okay. But you don’t need to do any of that. And no offense, but I doubt you can help me cope.”

“I want to, Slade. And maybe not, but I’d like to try.”

“Then try,” I challenge. “If I’m not broken, as you say, then how can I feel whole?” I wince as agony twists my gut, but I ignore the wound, the blood, the draining pus.

Koa notices but says nothing, though worry contorts her features. “Structure. Routine. Consistency. Predictability. Those things you already know. Also, practice transitions.

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