by Jaclyn Lewis
The
Silent Rhymes
Of A
SnowFlake
*
Copyright © 2015 Jaclyn Lewis
All rights reserved.
ISBN:
ISBN-13: 978-1508977599
ISBN-10: 1508977593
For Darren
You give wings to my dreams
Part One
“Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.”
—William Shakespeare
Chapter 1
*
Genesis
“You are my sunshine; my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you…”
My mother’s arms are safe. I might be four or five years old, and I can’t see her face, but her raven hair swirls and flutters across my cheeks. Her voice is light—so sweet and cheery—always soft like the gentle tapping of rain on the lilies that I see growing outside our window even as she hums the lullaby now.
She kisses my forehead tenderly. As we spin around and around in circles to the music, the memory fades out like it has circled a drain, and the serenade surrenders to reality.
“What do you see?”
Her voice is high and ethereal. Like a mother. Perhaps, it would be even sweeter if she were my own.
“What do you see?” She asks again.
But I don’t know what I see. Trying to clear my head, I reach for the answer in my mind. My eyes are closed and it feels like it has been an eternity since they were opened. How long has it been?
A slow breath escapes my lips as I try to focus on the chaos in my head. Pictures that have been burned into my memory flash by like a slideshow.
The plume of smoke looks like a mushroom on top. The earth is a wasteland and dust flies everywhere. The streets are mostly abandoned except for a frail woman screaming and holding a child outside in a swirl of earth and wind. Tears stain her cheeks and mix with the dirt to form a sticky brown paste. This same dark mud has covered her child as well--clinging to her with everything he has.
Without trying, my thoughts race on to other things. Now I’m a passenger on a jet plane bound for…somewhere.
Where was I going?
I can’t remember. I see the man sitting next to me, try to focus on his face. It’s all a blur. He smiles.
Are we friends?
Now I’m in a crowded restaurant, waiting for a table. The hostess says there is a half-hour wait.
Do I stay? Do I go? This seems important.
I know I need to answer the question that the woman asked, but my mind is like a funnel with too many recollections fighting for the right of passage to freedom.
“Try to focus, Genesis. See her face. The way she moves, smells, sounds. Open up and give your mind to this memory.”
The gentle voice is there again. I jump at the touch of a hand stroking my hair--like a cat licks her young kittens.
“Something will grab your attention. Tell me what that one thing is.”
The woman. She must mean the woman with the child.
I determine to find the answer, partly because this work of focusing is taxing my energy. Although I’m sure I’ve been sleeping a while, I feel like I could nod off again.
The memory is there again, and I latch onto it and hold it tightly—like it has the power to pull me out quicksand. The mother gives the child her last sip of water and a piece of bread. She loves her child.
Is this what I’m supposed to say? There’s an explosive boom as the building behind her erupts and begins to fall to the ground, but sideways. Two men rush in to rescue the woman and her child and the sun sparkles above them.
I can’t decide what’s most important. Every image seems equally attention grabbing, and even a little exaggerated.
Silence frustrates me, but I continue thinking.
“It shouldn’t take this long.” I hear the woman mutter under her breath. She probably doesn’t even know I could hear her.
I don’t want to upset the woman any more than necessary. Distantly, I hear my mother pick up the ending of the song…faintly…like a ghost—“Please don’t take my sunshine away.”
“The sun.” I blurt out. “Why does it sparkle?”
My voice sounds different than I expected--different than I remember. The moving pictures in my mind have stopped and I didn’t even get to see what happened. I wish I could freeze them for a moment so that I could be there just a little longer now. Perhaps I could make sense of it all.
The woman with the soft voice doesn’t answer me, but I hear the sound of her typing on a keyboard and pushing buttons not far from me.
The distant hum of something machine-like wakens me from the drifting. When I finally open my eyes, I’m pierced by the brightness of the light. I close them again to give myself a few minutes to adjust to the shock of it. When they flutter and open again, I have to squint to see because there is nothing but white all around me.
Everything is blurry and out of focus. My heart rate speeds up as I realize I’m entrapped in light and also naked. The plastic cylinder around me is wet and sticky, but also warm and not uncomfortable. I don’t remember climbing onto this strange bed in the first place, and I have no idea what I’m doing here.
A ghost of something wriggles inside me--like I’ve just been born, but I’ve already lived. I can’t seem to get a handle on anything concrete.
Who am I?
I’m thankful when the lights turn off. Except now I can’t see anything and I feel like the darkness will suffocate me.
Which one is more frightening—the pain of the light or the emptiness of the dark? I suppose they are equally terrifying when there is nothing else.
After a few silent moments, there’s a sharp whooshing sound as the woman comes and lifts the hatch on my—bed? Capsule? I give her a startled look and instinctively curl up. I’m not sure if it is out of a sense of modesty or because the air that has just swept by me is extremely cold, but I start to tremble.
The woman is short and has greying hair. She fills out a white lab coat and her nametag says “Esther”. Is she a nurse or a doctor of some kind? I can identify her, but I don’t know why.
I don’t know how I’m even able to read her nametag. In order to read, you’re supposed to go to school. I don’t remember going to school, but I can picture the schoolhouse in my mind. I can see the teacher with her blonde, braided hair and sweet smile. The desks and students--even a blackboard and other intricate details come back to me. I don’t remember ever actually being there, though.
Again, the pictures flash in a stream that is moving too quickly for me to grasp and I feel like I will pass out any second.
Esther tosses me a white towel to cover up with and her expression is kind and patient as she waits for me to wipe my body dry. Then, she calmly takes my blood pressure and sticks an ice-cold thermometer in my mouth. A light flashes across my pupils and she begins scribbling on a folder. I flash a sideways glance at the folder and catch the word “Genesis” followed by a list of numbers.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?” I ask her.
“How do you feel?” She inquires. Answering a question by asking another question—usually means someone has something to hide. Why do I know that?
“I feel…um…confused. Cold. I have a headache.” My hands go up to massage my temples as if that will somehow miraculously cause the world to make sense again. I’m not sure it ever made sense to begin with.
“Ow!” Yelping in pain, I look down to see that I have poked myself in the eye with my own…talons! My fingernails must be inches long. I stare down at them unsure what to do next. Esther’s right hand sh
akes slightly as she makes her way over to the bed with some silver instruments. It takes me a few moments to realize what they are. Nail clippers. One by one I watch my ghastly fingernails fall and tap on the slab below.
“What would you die for?” She calmly asks, returning to her pen and paper.
“The Com…” I start to blurt out, but stop myself. I was going to say the Company. But what company? That doesn’t make any sense.
What would I die for? I ask myself. I can’t remember--perhaps the mother who sang to me.
“My family.” I answer in a whisper. “I would die for them.”
The nurse stares at me a moment, not blinking. She shakes her hand out like she got a cramp and keeps writing.
“So where am I?” I try to catch her eyes. I wonder if she’s not answering my questions because she can’t hear me or because she doesn’t want to.
I would like to have her attention while I’m talking, but something tells me I’m not in a position to make demands. Sitting here, alone, naked, and cold--I am helpless.
“You’ll have an orientation in just a few minutes, honey. You can ask your questions then.”
After making more notes on a chart, Esther hands me a plastic bag filled with clothing. She tells me to shower and get dressed and then to come out the door and follow the signs to the atrium when I am ready.
“There’s no rush. Just take your time and get comfortable.” She says. She limps a little as she exits, and stops to look at me before she leaves. Her face conveys something I don’t understand. Is it sympathy? Is it pity? Am I in need of either?
I plant my feet on the concrete floor next to the bed and just sit for a moment. It is frigid. I think I must be in a hospital—somehow I know they are always cold and filled with doctors and nurses, but I can’t remember why or how I got here. Was I in an accident?
After wobbling to my feet, I inspect the bed I was lying on. There’s a round aquarium or water tank behind it that is so large it looks like it could hold 50 whales. The glass makes a funny “clink” when I tap it, but the darkness behind makes it impossible to see what’s in there. Tubes and wires stick out all over the place, but for all that, the contraption seems remarkably clean and organized.
Inside the bag Esther gave me there is soap, a razor, shaving cream, a clean towel, and shampoo. Clothes--a white tank top with a blue snowflake and an E in the center. There are navy pants, undergarments and black boots.
I don’t remember ever wearing boots. I try to remember what I did wear. Maybe if I focused on a memory of myself in a mirror that would help.
Focused breathing helped to recall a single memory before so I try it again. Slow breath in—I’m trying to find it—a picture, mirror image of myself, but it’s not there. Other things are crowding out my search now. Spaghetti dinners, a silver car, a crosswalk, running with my dog. What was his name? What was it?
My head has that exploding feeling again so I stop. When my eyes open I’m still here, standing in this strange hospital room with no answers at all. I should run out of this room and grab a doctor by the collar, make him tell me what’s going on.
As curious as I am, I can’t go anywhere like this so I may as well get cleaned up. I step into the shower. Gray tile lines it in a hypnotizing swirl pattern. I don’t know how long I stand there, but after a while I decide that I must be expected to turn the knobs in front of me in order for anything to happen. I try one way and then the other. Finally the water sprays down on me like a rain shower. I don’t remember what that feels like—rain. But I can see it in my mind.
I am so detached from all my memories—like they are just words that communicate something dead and foreign. As the warm water falls around me, and steam rises to encompass me in a hazy smoke, I try to think about one thing at a time. I can’t remember my name. Esther called me “Genesis”, but that doesn’t feel right.
I don’t know how old I am or what I look like. My hair is ridiculously long—I know that. It’s past my knees! I know a lot of things, but I don’t know the most important things. The thought that scares me the most is that I don’t even know what to be afraid of. It makes me want to panic. Instead of giving in, I let the water wash over me and carry away at least some of the terror.
The cold hits me again as soon as I turn the shower off. I wish I could just stay here where the sound of falling drops make sense to me. I dry myself and my very long hair off with the provided white towel. My clothes come on quickly as I’m eager to go to the “atrium” and get some answers. The pants are tight fitting and stick to my wet legs a little as I pull them on. I’m able to button and zip them with no thought or effort at all. For all the gaps in my memory, at least some things are still instinctive.
The boots come up to my mid-calf. I tie them just like my mother taught me. My mother—I can almost smell her. She’s cooking something in the kitchen and I’ve just come in from playing outside. She turns around and her face is a blur.
The memory is gone.
I stand there frozen for a few moments trying to recall my mother. This is the most connected I have felt to my own mind and yet it’s gone as quickly as I called it up.
The mirror offers the first glimpse of myself. I just look…normal. A five-foot-nine, 150 pound, copper-headed girl in her late teens, twenties maybe. Just normal--except my hair falls to my mid thighs. This, I conclude, is not normal.
I don’t remember ever seeing anyone with hair this long. When I think of the word “hairstyle” a hundred thoughts go through my mind at once. Somehow, I can place different acceptable ways that women style their hair and this just doesn’t fit. I can’t understand why I ever would have let it get this long.
Maybe I’m just a freak. My eyes are green—not sharp like an emerald, but soft like a meadow. I use them to stare and stare for what feels like hours. I feel like I’m staring at a stranger, even though it’s all me looking back.
I’m not sure what to do with all this hair so I try to tie it in a bun, but it falls down. It is thick and heavy with water now. I try again with no success. Deciding that my appearance is not a high priority for me right now, I give up with a defeated sigh and walk to the door Esther pointed me toward. Outside, there is a long corridor with two signs outside my door. One way says “atrium” and there’s light coming from that end of the hallway. The other way says “lab” and the dark corridor ends into a heavy metal door.
I’ve never experienced such fear married to curiosity. I decide to take a step outside. When I do, I hear a beep and look around for the source of the noise. I don’t know where it came from, but it was loud.
Now I’m startled and I walk cautiously in the direction of the atrium--hugging the wall the whole way as if it will protect me from the outside world. Nothing is familiar and for some reason I’m unsure about what I’m doing. Maybe I should have hidden in my room until my memories came back in full. Why do I feel like each step I take requires so much willpower?
There are dozens of unmarked doors on either side of the long corridor. My curiosity tells me to try the knobs, but my fear tells me to be sensible and just keep walking.
As I remember, only mentally insane people experience this kind of warfare within themselves. Maybe that’s why I’m here. Did I lose my mind?
The rush of fear that accompanied that thought doesn’t prop up my confidence, so I push it away. As I get closer to the atrium, there is the sound of indistinguishable chatter. They sound like a million crickets—each with something important to say in a universe that's too busy to listen. Finally, I reach the light and see hundreds of people convened in a bright room.
The atrium is spectacular—even breathtaking. In the center there is a glass triangular spire that seems to push all the way to the clouds. It shines from the sunlight pouring into it in shades of blue.
Plants growing in pots encompass the room. There are probably two hundred people or so in this common area alone. In one corner, people dressed in clothes like me have formed organized lin
es down one corridor.
At the front of the line is the woman I met--Esther so I figure this is where I should be too. She is passing out folders to each person and then directing them to other desks or rooms.
I try to let every sense I possess take in my surroundings, and turning slowly, I make a full circle. Everyone around me looks like a lost sheep. So many people here—all looking like they’ve just woken up from a dream to find that their entire world has morphed into something new.
Probably if I could see myself, I would have that same look on my face right now. I can’t get over how blue and bright and...blue this room is.
The light itself is blue.
Because I’m looking up in amazement, I accidentally bump into the man in front of me. He reminds me of the memories I have of cave-man depictions—skinny with long straggly hair, a beard, and he seems frightened.
His clothes are identical to mine except that his pants are not tight and they fall over his boots at the hem. Seeing all of these people scared and being herded in here like cattle for some unknown reason makes me even more terrified. Should I run? Am I being stupid to just go with the flow? With a sudden rush of adrenaline, I’m overcome by the fact that I have no idea who I am or where I am and I feel a suffocating urge to scream.
So I scream.
It comes out as a high-pitched screech. So much anger, fear, anxiety, all released in a moment—until everyone turns to look at me, and the guards in the corners appear angry. Others, including Esther, look my way briefly and quickly return to their work.
I cover my mouth and my cheeks feel suddenly very warm. I think what I’m feeling now is embarrassment and I decide that it must not be acceptable to scream just because I feel like it. But I didn’t know.
If I run back to the room with the shower in it and hide, will anyone notice? I’m about to turn and do just that when I see that the scraggly man in front of me is staring right into my face, but squinting in an odd way like he can’t see me very well. This distracts me from my present predicament. I suppose the polite thing to do would be to talk to him. So I think for a moment.