ASIM_issue_54 by ed. Simon Petrie Read Free Book Online

have to suffer?
    “What is it, love?” the nurse asked, knowing her mind had strayed off their session.
    A skinny arm, still oozing blood because they couldn’t get the anti-coagulant dose right, shook as she pointed at her silent observer. Carefully, as she had been trained to, she tasted each part of each word she wanted to speak, as if it was ripe fruit. “Can … you … see him … too?”
    The nurse looked over her shoulder, acknowledged her Guardian Angel with a warm smile. They weren’t supposed to do that, were they? She expected the nurse to say ‘Yes love, that’s the one who’ll take you home when you die. Won’t be long now.’ But the nurse didn’t address her at all. Instead she said, “It’s alright. Come closer if you want.”
    And shyly, hesitantly, he did.
    The gentlest smile curved his lips upward as he looked down at her. “Hello, my love.”
    My love, he’d said. Not just “love”, the generic title the nurses used. My love, as if it were personal. And the look in his eyes said that she meant a lot to him. But who was he?
    “How are you feeling?” he asked her, as he tentatively touched her hair.
    “Like …” Oh damn it all, it was like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands sometimes! Not in a barrel, but swimming in the ocean. You plunged your hand into your vocabulary and all the words just skittered away!
    But he was looking at her anxiously, expectantly. Clear grey eyes, a rarity these days. She tried again.
    “Like … I’ve been …”— put the words together, make the connection —“hit by a bus.” Yes, that was it, dredged up from somewhere in her grey matter, the last spoken all in a rush. That’s what she’d wanted to tell him.
    And he smiled, and stroked her hair again, and she thought she’d walk through hell in her bare feet to see that smile once more … but why couldn’t she remember him?
    “You’re doing very well.” His words were a breeze tickling her on a hot summer’s day.
    “Take … me … home,” she implored, though she had no idea if she meant her spiritual home or her physical home. Did she have a physical home? She must belong somewhere. Another door was unlocked, a slide presentation of rooms carouselled through her head. Winter sunlight spilt like runny cheese into a room with a desk and leather bound books. Something comfortable stirred within her.
    “Of course, my love; when you’re better.”
    “You’re well on your way,” the nurse reassured her.
    She nodded and tried to stifle a yawn, suddenly very tired.
    “You’ve had a busy day,” the nurse told her.
    He took the nurse’s hint. “Catch up on your sleep,” he suggested, and he bent to kiss her lightly on her brow. Her heart fluttered at this simple caress. She had no doubt now that he loved her … but who was he?
    She closed her eyes, imagined her mind as a computer, tried to get the relays to interconnect, make the web that freed the memory. He must be in there somewhere! But why couldn’t she remember?
    The night nurse’s name was … Margaretta? No. Mary? No. Maria? Yes! She was married, and had three children: a boy and two girls. Yes, her mind could unscramble and work normally sometimes.
    And her own name was Eliza. Or so they told her. It sounded familiar, right. Like the room with the books and the sunlight, it suited her.
    She knew she had a dog and cat waiting for her back home, and that she drove a … that she drove a … oh, bother what was it again? Her car. An electric/solar hybrid called a …? Called a …? Think of the dog. Blob, no, Bob. Think of taking Bob to the beach. He jumps into the back of the Tessler . Yes, that was it, she drove a Tessler. Amazing how her brain worked out its own detours, sometimes took the scenic route, but got her there in the end …
    She pictured the cat sitting on her lap, could feel its warm weight on a cold winter’s day. An overfed tabby, sleek and content. And the cat’s name was … Frog?