ASIM_issue_54 by ed. Simon Petrie Read Free Book Online Page A

Matty? Mog! The cat’s name was Mog. They’d be missing her right now. Who was feeding them? Surely he’d be doing that, wouldn’t he? But no matter how hard she tried, why couldn’t she grasp some hint of him in her memory the way she could her dog and cat? The way she could the night nurse’s name? Who had drilled a hole in her brain and sucked out all memory of him?
    After that introduction he was not so shy. No longer hovering at the periphery of her vision, he would loiter by her bed, help her dress, attend the physio sessions with her, cheer her on. Buoyed by his angel wings she made a good recovery, reclaiming her mobility; her power of speech; her memories—save the one of who he was. Finally she decided the specific amnesia didn’t matter. He was in her life now, and felt so comfortable there that he must have spent a long time her familiar, close at hand.
    When she no longer oozed blood, she was infused with a cocktail of—hitch-hikers? … parasites? … road-cleaners?—a microscopic workforce that swept through her veins carrying out repair work, reinforcing thin walls, kept the platelets moving along, made sure clots didn’t form. Nanobots! And when she was finally given the all clear he offered her his arm to steady her as he took her home.
     
    * * *
     
    Home: warm, welcoming, filled with hope and love and dreams. She struggled up the stairs to get back into her house, pat her dog and stroke her cat again.
    “Take your time,” he warned her as she stumbled, using the newly installed handrail to haul herself towards the shut front door.
    There was a security keypad, but she hadn’t even thought of the access code and couldn’t remember it now. She began to worry. Another memory sprung to meet her. “Keys!” she cried out anxiously. Keys would let her in if she couldn’t remember the access code. “I’ve forgotten my keys!”
    “I have them here.”
    He gently manoeuvred her out of the way and unlocked the door while she fidgeted, excited as a child on Christmas morning. She tried to sneak past him, but he lifted her up in his arms and carried her across the threshold like a grey-haired bride. “Welcome home, my love,” he whispered in her ear as he lowered her down, holding her arm as she stood on unsteady legs and looked around her.
    One open doorway beckoned to her more strongly than all the others down the hall. Following her instincts she found herself standing in the room where the winter sunlight could be cut with a knife. The room smelled of dust, as if—like her mind—it had been shut up for too long.
    And there was the large old … no, antique … wooden desk, polished to a deep brown hue and smelling faintly of beeswax, the laptop closed on top of it. Her fingers itched to open it, to return to the tools of her trade. She had long ago remembered that she’d been an author—a successful one, apparently. She caught sight of a few awards scattered among the bookcases, their shelves crammed full of leather bound books waiting to greet her like old friends. And there were copies of titles she’d written, thirteen in all. Seeing them again was like greeting her children; it made her tingle with excitement.
    Her exploring hands touched all her books, palm to leather-bound spine, her eyes drinking in familiar authors and titles until she saw one name in particular embossed in gold. She turned to her Guardian Angel lingering silently by the door as she reacquainted herself with her library. Finally she had a name to put to his face. “HG,” she told him confidently, “Thank you for bringing me home.”
    No hesitation at all as she’d said those words, it was like the old her, before the stroke, had reasserted itself in these familiar surroundings and she was whole again.
    “You’re welcome,” he replied also with no hesitation, so she must have been right in selecting his name.
    “Oh, Mog,” she sighed as she approached the cat sunning itself on the wide window sill.