“I left my mobile charging up in my room. Want me to call you cab a somewhere?”
“I have nowhere to go. Is there somewhere nearby they’d just let me crash?”
“You can’t go home?”
“No.”
Taylor seemed to stop and think for a moment before stepping uncomfortably close to me.
“Silverstein, do you like me? I mean, is there any chance that--”
“No.”
She looked hurt at first but then broke into a wide grin.
“You really aren’t a pervert?”
“Taylor, I honestly can’t recall if I am or not.”
She looked at me somewhat bewildered, then smirked as I pointed at the stitches on my head. She laughed out loud, a real, honest to God laugh that ended with her clapping her hands together once. I smiled sleepily, my head started to pound. I could see her eyes grow wide for a moment as I pitched forward. I came to rest roughly in front of her, my crumpled form too weak to rise.
“You better not be faking it, old man.”
Taylor grabbed me around the chest and dragged me to the elevator. My vision swam with black and red as my head continued to pound mercilessly. I shut my eyes as the elevator doors closed trying to blot out the terrible music playing in the background. After taking a few moments to rest in the hallway, Taylor dragged me the rest of the way to her room.
“Nice place.”
She looked down at me and frowned as she dragged me through beaded curtains across what felt like every sharp or uncomfortable thing one could possibly think to leave strewn about on the floor. She laid me down and looked me over.
The walls were painted in thousands of colors, and she had a rather impressive wardrobe arrayed across the walls. I wasn’t sure they weren’t all hallucinations until I saw the ancient sewing machine and mounds of cloth. She was some kind of artist, probably the one that made the clothing she was wearing.
“Silverstein, you’re as white as a sheet and your eyes. They--”
“Shock... maybe... get me a blanket, please.”
She wandered over and draped a multicolored quilt over the top of me, and tried to give me some water from a clay mug she likely sculpted herself.
“Is there anything in here you didn’t make?”
“Please don’t talk. You’re really in a bad way. I should call a doctor.”
“No, please. Taylor, I don’t know who I am.”
“So what?”
“What if I’m a bean counter for the mob, a wanted man, or a witness under government protection?”
“That would be awesome! Probably get a reward for turning you in.”
“Or you could get hurt or mixed up in whatever trouble I’m in.”
Taylor smiled down at me. Maybe it was the concussion, but again, there was almost a radiance that issued forth when she smiled like that.
“What?”
“You don’t even know me, Silverstein. You’d die on my floor before letting something bad happen to me?”
“Yeah, I think I would. You’re my only friend.”
“Oh, so we’re friends now are we?” Taylor said shaking her head and smirking.
Taylor took a deep breath and gathered a stack of wet wash cloths and kept me cool through the afternoon and probably past dinner time, I couldn’t be sure. While I was blacked out she must have kept a vigil next to me, because she was there sleeping when I awoke. It was dark outside now, and I felt terrible for being such an inconvenience to her. She woke with a start, her face quickly overcome with relief.
“I thought you’d never wake up.”
“My head still hurts a little, I think I overdid it yesterday.”
“Well, take it easy today then. You can stay here with me until you’re better. I guess. Unless you piss me off or touch me.”
“No deal.”
“What?”
“Taylor, I don’t know who I am. I could be some guy who got mugged, has a regular job, and a family, or I could be someone mixed up in something dangerous.”
Taylor displayed a pained expression then looked down at the floor, her pink and purple hair obscuring her face for a moment. I tried to sit up but the pain in my head was so intense I had to sit right back down. I didn’t want to stay and cause her any more havoc than I already had, but it was looking like I didn’t have a choice.
“Silverstein, you aren’t going anywhere. That someone didn’t roll you for black market donor organs already is nothing short of a miracle in your condition. You shouldn’t go anywhere.”
“Then help me blend in.”
“What do you mean?”
“My shoes, what do you think they’d sell for?”
“Nine hundred easy,” Taylor replied, affirming what I already suspected.
“There’s another three hundred in my pocket. Sell my shoes, and as soon as I can get up we’ll go clothes shopping. By then I should have a beard. Assure Joe I’ll be in to look at his books again when I’m better.”
“You want me to play dress up with a man twice my age so he can hide from dangerous people that may or may not exist?”
“Bad idea?”
“Awesome idea! Gay or straight?”
“What?”
“How do you want to dress?”
“Straight. It’ll be easier for me to pose as your father that way.”
“What year do you think it is? No one thinks that way anymore.”
“Where are your parents anyway?” I asked, not seeing any family photos or other mementos about her apartment.
“I’m twenty-one.”
“Look, I don’t remember a thing, so I can’t break the ice by offering up a tidbit about myself.”
“Really? You got mugged, conked on the head, and now you can’t remember who you are?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were just handing me some lame-o story down in the lobby. So dumb. That’s why I laughed.”
“Cliche or not, it’s the truth.”
Taylor looked incredulous for a moment but seemed to resolve to give me the benefit of the doubt for the moment.
“Would I let you sell my shoes if I was lying and planning to just bail the first opportunity I got?”
“Depends. How many Silversteins do you own, Silverstein?”
“Would you sell your shoes if it wasn’t a real emergency?”
“No, but it is different for guys.”
“Oh no, I might not remember who I am, but I must have been a serious shoe guy to have forked out for even a single pair of these.”
Taylor pulled out her mobile, noted the time, and headed for the door.
“I liked you better unconscious, and DON’T go organizing my apartment while I’m out. I WILL kill you.”
I nodded weakly lying back down. Taylor stood and went out for what I could only guess was thirty minutes. She opened some fragrant takeout she’d procured somewhere nearby and began lifting it to my mouth deftly with a pair of chopsticks. Satisfied I’d had enough to eat she went into the next room and grabbed a large stuffed bear and stuck it under my head.
“Aren’t you going to miss him?”
“I have a backup.”
Taylor winked stepping into the tiny bathroom closing the door behind her. She showered, washed her hands vigorously, and then reemerged in a set of bulky purple leopard print pajamas. She knelt down and gazed at me intently as she finished off the remainder of the takeout.
“Silverstein, do you think we’ll still be friends after you remember who you are?”
“I’m sure. You really think I’ll get my memory back?”
“Do you really think the objective medical opinion of a dishwasher at a strip joint counts?”
“Yes.”
“I think you’ll eventually remember who you are. We might be able to find out if you register as a transient or you have a record.”
“No good. I was already picked up by one of Port Montaigne’s finest. I’m not in the system.”
“And the Citizen’s Privacy Act prevents him looking you up or identifying you until a missing persons report is filed.”
“Right.”
“You really care what I think?”
“Yeah. I believe that if you have a friend pulling for you, the universe takes that into account relative to how things go down.”
“When did you start believing that?”
“About five minutes ago.”
“Convenient.”
“You and a small shred of hope are all I have right now, Taylor. I’m scared, not just for me, but for you, too. I’m not even sure why.”
“You think the normal instinct for someone in your position would be to assume they’re a normal person conked on the head?”
“Yeah.”
“However, because you can’t reconcile being an average Joe, your instinct is that you’re in some kind of trouble.”
“Correct.”
Taylor picked up her mobile and snapped a picture of me. She turned the screen toward her, her fingers gliding across the touchscreen.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to see if a missing persons report has been filed yet.”
“Probably not yet. Might not have been long enough to allow someone to file. I don’t know how long the police make a person wait before they can declare someone missing.”
“I’ll keep looking. Try to rest, Silverstein.”
“That’s a nice mobile, where’d you get it?”
“Bought it with tip money, it’s the only one I’ve owned that I haven’t lost.”
I nodded weakly, my insides knotted up from the anxiety I felt. What if I was a wanted fugitive, or a rapist, or someone who would hurt Taylor upon recovering his memory? I had to believe I wasn’t a horrible person. That in the wake of forgetting who I was, I would garner the power to change for the better.
“Taylor, ever fantasize about falling asleep and waking up as someone completely different?”
“Sometimes.”
“Take it from someone who knows, be glad you are who you know yourself to be. Revel in every moment you live your life with a known identity.”
“I’m a dishwasher at a strip club.”
“No. You’re an artist, and a good one. This apartment is filled with nothing but things made from your own hands. It’s beautiful, and while I can’t remember much, there’s no place I’d rather be laid up. Whatever my life was before, getting hit on the head was worth the chance to see your works. Please, show me some more of your stuff.”
Taylor smiled, her eyes glistening slightly. She leapt up and grabbed item after wondrous item from her apartment. This girl was truly a diamond in the rough. She had taken the rare scrap of color found in the gray dingy streets below and brought it up to her apartment to be made into something beautiful.
In truth, she’d done the same with me. I was something that obviously didn’t belong in the downtown of Port Montaigne, and through a strange twist of fate, I found myself along her path. Like everything else in her apartment, I was brought here tattered, then made whole by her hands.
“Taylor.”
“Yeah?”
She looked down at me over a garment that she’d just put the finishing touched on. It was a marvelous creation that must have taken her months to collect the materials for. I could tell she was proud of it, the sequins lovingly stitched glittering in her excited eyes. I looked at the garment, then up at her, and uttered the only words that seemed to make sense.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
Chapter 3
Downtown, Port Montaigne - Peddler’s District
2:37 PM, December 20th, 2199
Silverstein’s Log, Part 2
I wasn’t back on my feet an hour before Taylor was dragging me, and her largest bag, to something she called the Peddler’s District. According to the flier I nabbed from the Tourism Booth, there were several huge concrete malls and attractions being constructed by the seaside. They were to be concrete forms, mass manufactured to have shops, condominiums, and manufacturing facilities installed easily. Apparently none of that panned out.
In the place where those attractions were to have been built, the Peddlers District sprang up instead. It’s a twenty-four hour flea market where one can procure anything produced downtown, a few things from midtown, and the odd item from uptown. There were thousands of people, each carrying a pack or pushing a cart of goods fighting for space and customers every hour of every day. Taylor navigated it like a fashion-seeking missile, sometimes playfully shoving vendors and patrons aside in a mad dash for what she wanted.
Everyone else appeared to be physically polite but they did their best to thrust their goods in the face of anyone who didn’t appear to be a vendor. Under every overpass, within every tunnel, and squatting in the half-finished commercial storefront, there were people. There were all kinds down here, trying to simply survive beneath the shining uptown that seemed to have forgotten them.
There was a triage tent, a couple of makeshift libraries, and folks charging for access to electricity so one could charge their mobile or make use of a toaster. Even fettered by profound amnesia the sight affected me deeply. I wondered if the world I’d forgotten was worth remembering if it had left so many people destitute.
I trailed behind taking in the sights while trying to protect my pockets from sticky fingers. As many vendors as there were, there was at least half that many children squirming their way past in the crowd. Some carried packages for delivery, others were empty handed and looking for a handout.
“I know a gal who will buy your shoes. Then we can get you a full spread to wear for a while.”
“I can’t wait,” I replied sullenly.
“Stop sounding so excited,” she scolded, her voice trailing off as the linen section of the district and all its glittering splendor came into view.
The fully contained concrete labyrinth was gloomy except for a few emergency lamps and strings of holiday lights venders had arrayed across their carts and attached to old car batteries. Windows were never cut into the sides of the concrete forms, so one could only hear the sea as opposed to seeing it. The whole of the place was a tapestry for graffiti artists, every wall covered in murals and bright colors.
The Peddler’s Market would have been a very drab and depressing place without the artwork that adorned most every wall and pipe. To a trained eye it probably related the lay of the land, social boundaries, and turf held by various underground organizations. To my own eyes, conveying the sight to a mind with no memories, it was an expression of hope and fear, a pair of emotions more interrelated than I was willing to admit at the time.
“Let me borrow your mobile for a moment,” I asked her.
“Don’t make any long distance calls,” she said handing it to me.
I held it up and activated the touch screen so I could look at some of the murals obscured by darkness as we walked along. I felt a bit like an archaeologist unearthing ancient cave paintings. Some of the work was pretty good and very political with regard to the segregation of rich and poor in Port Montaigne.
The most striking was a depiction of a shining city built like a ground stopper to keep what was below from bubbling up. In that crevasse beneath was a multitude of peoples toiling to escape some sort of terrible oppression at the hands of shadowy individuals in rubber suits wielding shock batons and shields. Above it all was a machine, its mechanical tendrils reaching down through it all slowly transforming into pipes and concrete
the lower in the mural it got.
Barter seemed to be the primary means of making a transaction as few of these poor souls had currency. Nevertheless, among the hundreds of merchants jostling for space here, I could hear and smell money, and lots of it. I could tell that several shadowy hands were at work behind the scenes, laundering and moving massive amounts of currency through this place unseen.
Taylor’s shoe guy, wasn’t a guy in any way, except perhaps anatomically. She eventually got argued down to eight hundred thirty seven for my shoes which seemed a bargain relative to the price of most everything else in the district. Proceeds safely in hand, Taylor began going through all the shoes looking for my next pair of footwear. As I watched the merchants wander by, it was as though I could see the numbers and values of everything they were selling floating by with them. In seconds I could easily advise any of these merchants on how to maximize their profit while minimizing their cost.
“What are you staring at?”
“Numbers, Taylor. Just numbers.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“Yes, you do. You see colors, textures, and the means to combine them into something pleasing. So much better than numbers.”
She smiled reflexively, but immediately swallowed it, returning to the calm expression she generally put on display while we wandered the streets. It took me a day or so to figure out why, but she didn’t dare show anyone her smile. The more I traveled the downtown, the more evident that the smile was a sign of weakness, naivety, or being an outsider. Worse, the people that seemed allowed to smile were always well dressed, and widely feared.
Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, Taylor acquired a pair of canvas slip-ons. She sprayed them with disinfectant while inspecting the interior of them and the laces.
“There isn’t a single place to wash your hands in this district, Silverstein.” Taylor said, offering me my own pair of latex gloves.
I nodded grimly, taking a pair of the gloves so I could handle the merchandise.
“I am certain I’ve never worn a pair of shoes like these before. Likely for very good reason.”
Uroboros Saga Book 1 Page 3