When I hear the final bell, a sigh of relief
escapes my lips. I rush through the throngs of socializing students
toward the double doors that separate me from freedom. Just as I
reach the threshold, I lift my arm to catch the door and realize
that it’s already being held open for me. I recognize that golden
hand. I reluctantly lift my eyes to meet his, and I see something
in them that I did not expect. David is anxious. He looks at me,
and his eyes seem heavy. For a moment, I am unable to look away.
Our eye contact is broken when someone shoves past me and I
momentarily lose my balance. I can’t be irritated with whoever
pushed me; I’m the one standing stationary in a doorway, after all.
David holds my forearm to steady me as more students rush around
us. He holds onto my arm more firmly and leads me away from the
doorway to the stone steps in front of Nineteen. Now that we’ve
broken eye contact, I cannot stop looking at his hand on my arm. I
feel electricity enter my body at all of the points where his
fingertips touch my skin; my heartbeat quickens. When we reach the
steps, he turns to face me and I allow my eyes to move from his
hand on my arm to the bicep that is half covered by the sleeve of
his black shirt, to his neck and up over his jaw line. My eyes
linger for a moment at his lips then move up and meet his gaze. His
eyes still look sad.
“Violet, are you upset with me?”
Upset with him? I’m not, but still, I had
avoided him, and I don’t really know how to explain why. He had
only told me the truth; that’s what I’d asked of him. In fact, at
the time I’d been flattered, even excited that he would trust me
with details that could probably get him into a lot of trouble.
Despite this, knowing the truth has changed something in me. I knew
that Cerno was a second chance for humans, but I didn’t realize
that it had come at the expense of so many lives that could have
been saved. I didn’t realize that we had ever decided that some
lives are disposable. And David is the one who told me this. David
is the one who changed the way I feel about my life and even my own
father. Simply the possibility that my father knows about this
makes me feel even more distant from him. I feel so much guilt that
my ancestors had been able to leave Earth while so many others were
left for dead. And it was David who placed this burden on my
shoulders.
“I’m not. I just… had nothing to say.”
David drops his hand and takes a step back.
After looking at me for a moment longer, he turns to go. Now I
regret blaming him. I had asked him to tell me. I had almost begged
him to give me the details I needed to understand the gaps in my
father’s story. I had been so desperate to answer the questions
that plagued me that I didn’t stop to think about what the answers
could mean. I had relinquished my own ignorance, and this guilt is
the price I have to pay.
“David, wait.” I allow my bag to fall to the
stone steps so I can catch up to him more quickly. He is only a few
steps away, but I don’t want him to be lost in the crowd that still
mills around us. He hears my voice and turns to me. Seeing what I’m
sure is a look of urgency or even desperation on my face, he begins
to make his way back to where I’m standing. I look at the ground
until I see his boots. Now he’s standing right in front of me. I
look up at him and for a moment, neither of us knows what to
say.
Until now, David and I have only been friends
here at the Academy. He’ll tell me a funny story about hacking into
the Headmaster’s computer only to find him playing computer games,
or we’ll laugh about something he says to Madam Aldine. Today is
the first day that David or I have shown emotional attachment to
one another.
Well, I certainly won’t be the first to speak;
I’m sure we both know that. In order to remedy what has
unquestionably become what one would call an awkward pause in the
conversation, David says, “You dropped your bag.”
Breaking eye contact, I look down and say,
“Yes.”
I lean over to pick it up by the strap, but the
opening is facing the ground and before I realize it, the contents
have spilled. I sigh and begin to pick up assorted books, papers,
and other accoutrements of academia when I realize what David is
doing. My sketchbook has fallen open to the page that I was working
on earlier today, and he has retrieved it from the steps to get a
closer look.
Before I can snatch the book from his grasp, I
see that he is smiling and he says, “Violet, this is great! It
looks just like me.”
Embarrassed, I immediately seek to rectify this
situation. How eerie would it be if I sat around drawing him
without his knowledge?
“David, don’t be silly, that’s not you; I don’t
just sit around drawing you all day. I was drawing a dream I’ve
been having.”
His smile brightens and his voice takes on a
note of teasing, “Oh, so now you’re dreaming about me?”
I’m frustrated, but I can’t help smiling at his
playfulness. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been having that dream
since before I met you. Now give… it… back!” As I say this, I lunge
forward to grab the notebook from his hands, but he anticipates me
and grabs me around the waist with one hand as I try to wrestle the
book from his grasp. We are laughing and fighting good-naturedly,
but I gradually become aware of his arm around my waist, of his
chest pressed tightly against mine. It seems that David becomes
conscious of this situation at the same time, because he stops
smiling immediately, releases me from his arms, and gently places
the book in my hand.
“Yeah, here you go… You’re right; I guess that
doesn’t really look like me. Well, I’ll see you later.”
David turns and walks away, and for a moment I
watch him go. When he is almost out of sight, I lower my gaze to
the sketchbook in my hand. Same lips, same eyes, same tousled hair.
Now that I think about it, I can certainly see the resemblance that
David had seen, but David couldn’t be the man in the dream.
I hadn’t even known him when I dreamt it.
I am hiding. I don’t know why I am hiding, or
who I am hiding from, but I have the distinct feeling that
something detrimental would happen were my position discovered. I
am holding something, but it is too dark for me to see what it is.
I rest the object on my thighs and note that it is very cool. Its
texture is smooth, almost like stone but of an odd shape. The shape
is geometric, with six faces. Each face is roughly the size of one
of my hands. I turn the object in the darkness in an effort to
discern what it is. Maybe if I can figure out what to do with this
object, I can fix the situation I’ve apparently gotten myself into,
whatever that might be.
I feel panicked. My heart beats so quickly and
so powerfully that I feel it’s a hammer trying to pound its way out
of my chest. I turn the object in my hands again and realize that
it is broken. Tiny fractures on the faces tell me that this object
was once in several pieces. As I continue to run my hand along its
smooth surface, I feel something sharp. Startled, I jerk my hand
away. A sharp edge. Tentatively, I return my fingers to the edge.
Not sharp enough to cut. I move my fingers further and find a deep
crater that extends almost to the center of the object. A piece is
missing. This object is some kind of artifact that has been
shattered and then reassembled, but one fragment is still
missing.
Suddenly, I am aware that I am not alone.
Someone is sitting within a few feet of me. I hear a scraping sound
as this person repositions.
“Violet.”
I know that voice.
“Violet.”
A warm hand placed on mine.
“Violet, please. Don’t do this.”
Who is pleading with me? What am I going to
do?
I squeeze the hand, and then push it away.
“I’m sorry. I have to.”
I feel an overwhelming sadness. I feel despair.
I feel regret.
What have I done?
I feel pain. I feel warmth. The stickiness of
blood.
Tears overflow from my eyes and run freely down
my cheeks.
A light begins to emanate from the artifact. It
begins as a subtle glow, but grows so rapidly that in mere moments
it is just as blinding as the darkness.
I hear myself talking, but my voice is very
quiet, as if I am a great distance away.
“I’m so sorry.”
* * *
Today, I do not wake gradually. I pull myself
from sleep so violently that by the time I realize that I am awake,
I am sitting upright in my bed. The sheets are twisted tightly
around me, and I stumble as I struggle to disentangle myself.
I cannot stop thinking about the dream. What had
I done?
I sincerely hope that I do not look as haggard
as I feel when I say, “What are you doing in here?”
I’m speaking to my father. He is standing in the
doorway of my bedroom, no doubt drawn by my cries. I know that I’m
being short with him, but I am frustrated with my memory. What is
my brain trying to tell me with these dreams?
“I heard you call out, V. Are you remembering?
Is that what your dream was about?”
“No, I’m not remembering! Stop asking me if I
remember! Don’t you think I would tell you if I did? Don’t you
think I’d be happy to actually remember who you are, instead of
knowing that you’re my father because you told me so? Don’t you
think I wish I could remember my mother? I can’t remember. I don’t
think I ever will, so just leave me alone. You’re not the one who
has to live with this. I do. Let’s not forget, I’m the one who was
injured. I’m the one who lost everything. You walked away from that
accident without a scratch.”
My father could not look more hurt if I had
slapped him across the face. I shouldn’t have said any of that, but
it’s true, and I’m too angry right now to regret speaking to him
that way.
When he speaks, his voice is small and
quiet.
“Violet, if you would tell me what these dreams
are about, maybe we could figure it out together. I’m not trying to
push you; I just don’t want you to give up.”
My father stands, waiting for me to respond, to
give him some kind of sign that I want to keep trying, but I’m
tired of trying. I’m tired of wishing. I do not look up.
Before he turns to walk away, he says, “You’re
wrong, you know. You’re not the only one who lost everything you
had. So did I. When we had that accident, I lost Violet. I lost my
daughter. And I want her back. So I won’t stop trying to help you
remember. I’ll never stop.”
I watch his back as he walks away. Perhaps a
second opinion could help me to decipher what these dreams mean.
Maybe these dreams are the key to unlocking my memories. I know
they’re there somewhere; I just have to find them.
Sheepishly, I walk into my father’s study. He is
sitting at his desk piddling with one of the many hobbies he has
adopted since his retirement: survivalist research. Right now, he’s
classifying plants. He is fascinated by the legends of those who
have escaped into the vast wilderness beyond Eligo. For most
people, this hobby would be a lot of work, but not for my father.
He misses his days in the Claro; I can tell.
He looks at me over the top of his magnifying
glasses and waits for me to speak. I suppose this is payback for my
harsh outburst earlier. We have a staring contest for what seems
like an eternity, and then I begin to speak. I tell my father about
all of the dreams I’ve been having since I awoke and we relocated
to Eligo. I tell him that the dreams are all different, but they
seem linked in my mind, as if they refer to the same situation. I
believe that my brain is using the dreams to tell me the same
thing, only telling me in different ways so I’ll understand. I even
show my father the sketchbook that I keep to record what I can
remember about the dream. Finally, I tell him the details that I
can remember of the dream I had last night. When I begin to
describe the artifact, my father’s face registers something
unfamiliar. He seems confused and uneasy.
“All right, now I’ve told you everything. What
are your thoughts? Do you agree that perhaps these dreams are
somehow related to my lost memories?”
“Well, Violet, it’s difficult to tell with these
types of things. These dreams might have nothing at all to do with
your memories. Perhaps they’re just synapses firing and producing
random images.”
My excitement at sharing something with my
father begins to dissipate.
“What? You’re the one who said these dreams
might be important, and now that I’ve got my hopes up, you’re
saying that they’re probably nothing?”
My father shifts uneasily in his chair, and I am
reminded of his similar behavior when he told me about Earth.
“I’m sorry, V. I didn’t mean to get your hopes
up. I thought that I could help you decipher the dreams, but now
that you’ve described them to me, I just don’t think anything in
them is pertinent.”
My father returns his attention to the plant
samples on his desk.
“Well, maybe the dreams could relate back to the
accident itself. What happened, again?”
“Violet, you know what happened.”
“Yes, I just want you to tell me again.”
“I really don’t think that this line of thinking
is productive, Violet. I don’t think we should discuss it
anymore.”
He looks down again. I’ve been dismissed.
Fuming, I return to my bedroom. I’ve got to talk
to David. At this point, I feel like David is more honest with me
than my own father. I arrange to meet David in a meadow near my
house. I shower, change my clothes, change my clothes again, and
then set off to meet him. I feel ridiculous about having changed my
clothes again. Since when do I concern myself with whether or not
David likes what I’ve chosen to wear? Ever since our confrontation
outside of Nineteen, our friendship has become somewhat
complicated. As I walk, I wonder,
Do I care about David?
Well, I certainly value his friendship, but lately, there’s been
something else. I find myself wishing to be around him. I do silly
things like change my clothes and fix my hair when I know he’ll be
around. Perhaps I’ve begun to have feelings for David in a way I
hadn’t thought about before. I know that David enjoys my company,
but I doubt that he changes the way he looks for me. I doubt he
thinks about me when I’m not around. As I have this thought, I feel
a pang in my chest.