DAY TWO

Women know instinctively when things must die and when things must live;

they know how to walk away, they know when to stay.

Women Who Run with the Wolves - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

4

MOTHER

FRIDAY 18 DECEMBER 2021

The incessant ringing of my Wearable woke me. I was curled up, on the carpet, in a patch of sun, like a cat, in my soon-to-be ex-housemates room, and according to his digital clock, it was 11:11 am. I felt like death, which meant I was very much alive. Congrats, Regan. You can’t even get suicide right. No matter how many times you try.

I remembered the bazaar and epic dream about the blue man, the pink boy and Child Me. Child. Me.

I was exhausted, and the fucking Wearable would not stop ringing.

"Speak," is how I answered. It confused telemarketers and debt collectors, but right now, it confused a woman named Cheryl.

"I’m sorry, is that Regan? Regan Grace?"

“Yes?”

“I'm a friend of your mother's,” she explained.

With less patience and more suspicion, I asked, "Yes Cheryl, what can I do for my mother?"

There was a pause, then, "She's been arrested." Cheryl breathed, "For fraud," and sighed. She spewed the rest of the story out. "She's serving a suspended sentence of six months."

"At least she's not dead," I said. Cheryl gasped and hung up.

The memories of last night were beads of a broken necklace scattered all over the floor of my mind. Had I made an irrational decision? Probably. I picked up a memory bead and slipped it onto the golden thread that appeared in my imagination.

After quitting my job last night, I was riding high, and the news about my mother killed my buzz. Every time I walk away from one of the soul-sucking endeavors we call jobs, it feels awesome, until the end of the month. What do I do, you ask? Does it matter?

I turned the corner, car keys in hand, and squeezed the button. There was no ‘beep beep'. Having a car was a novelty. It must have been a problem back in the day, coming out on the wrong level, having forgotten the colour, the alphabet or whatever clever way they tried to help us remember where we parked our cars because our brains were so full of crap we forgot things. Important things.

Most people worked from home after the virus killed millions ten years ago. In Scandinavian mythology, Ragnarok is the end of the world of gods and men, and Scandinavian scientist Mimir Erikson dubbed our world ending the same.

Kids are not doing well psychologically. Who am I kidding? None of us is doing well psychologically, but Ragnorak was the straw that broke the camel's back. Suicide is common. Hell, I contemplate it at least three times a week. And euthanasia was legalised two years ago, with much less stringent requirements. Thank you, Jesus. Most of us want it all to end. Every day. Just make it stop. Please.

Like a dog looking for a place to pee, I circled the spot where I stood. I glared up at the street light. The light glared back. "Fuck you," I said.

It winked out as if to say fuck you too.

After the giant waste of time of the formality, for the insurance, which surprisingly, I possessed, of reporting the crime at the police station, which remarkably, still used paper in a virtually virtual (by definition paperless) society, I retreated to the furthest corner of my vast sun-soaked, north-facing bedroom. The size made up for the state of it. Dilapidation meant cheap rent and the landlord not minding when it was occasionally (often) late.

It was the height of summer and a pleasantly balmy evening for a nervous breakdown. The panic of quitting yet another job had set in.

For Fuck's sake, I berated myself. You are almost thirty-three. What the fuck are you doing with your life?

Further, self-negging began a maddening trickle into my brain. I wanted to cry but felt dry as a bone. I put my back to the wall hoping it would swallow me whole. The sun and I sank.

My memory mala was almost complete. I laughed at the idea of using such a thing. A prayer necklace. Who would I be praying to? I added another bead: This wasn't the first time hunger had saved me from suicide. I trudged down the passage to the kitchen. Was it biological hunger? Or was I just hungry for something else?

I've been so good at maintaining a routine.

I don't know what happened.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Honestly, you can't keep your shit together for five fucking minutes, Regan.

You'd better call them tomorrow and get that fucking job back.

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, REGAN.

Get!

Your shit!

Together!

Tomorrow had come, and despite the voice and the self-loathing, I was still sure about not getting that job back.

Bead by bead, I went. I'd fallen asleep in my housemate’s room. On the floor, to be exact. What the fuck? I enjoyed copious casual coitus with him but not much else. When he asked if he could paint, I thought he meant his room, but he was painting the house and had taken every door off its hinges. I abhorred having a housemate and a chirpy, useful, fuckable one, at that. A smile twisted itself onto my face. I made a mental note to leave the notice of eviction on his door as soon as he put the damn thing back.

The last bead slipped into place, and I tightened the knot that bound them: I stood in this doorway last night bathed in moonlight. An inexplicable surge of excitement coursed through me. This guy was extraordinarily, annoyingly neat. I burst into a hysterical cackle as I relished the idea of evicting him. Even now, I felt the corners of my mouth turn up with the memory. What was wrong with me?

I was heading back to the kitchen when a peculiar sensation took shape around me: the air sharpened as if a camera lens focused. The detail of his desk, the digital clock that read 23:23 and the crisp white linen etched their way into my eyeballs. Gooseflesh lifted the hairs on every inch of my body. The blue man seemed to be born of the moonlight.

I had a deja vu for what felt like a second time. What did you call that? A deja vu vu? I have experienced this moment at least twice now. I closed my eyes and let the sun warm my body. I stretched, like the cat I imagined myself to be, in my patch of sun, and then I immersed myself in the memory of the blue man.

His skin was translucent, a silvery blue. His hair, shimmering Indigo, swept back from a calm brow. A loose pony struggled to hold the curls threatening to escape. As if in slow-motion, a cobalt blue tendril fell onto the smooth canvas of his blue brow. Sapphire eyes emitted a contradictory warmth as they looked into me. He could have been fifteen. He could have been fifty. He smiled, and I felt it in my bones.

The tears that eluded me earlier coursed down my cheeks. I reached out and sank into the enclave of his arms. He held me. I shivered and emptied myself until I sighed a signal of peace.

There was silence for aeons.

“Regan,” he said, “You have forgotten yourself.” Then I slept in his arms, and I dreamed.

The dream sprang to life in my memory. My heart quickened, and I trembled. I needed coffee.

***

I suddenly possessed within me a steely reserve. After some mild ablutions, I stood in the kitchen as I poured my second coffee. The voice screamed ARE YOU FUCKING MENTAL? I cancelled my few appointments for the week and sent a message with my official resignation. For the first time in the years of trying to fix whatever the fuck was broken in me, I recognized the voice.

You can't do this, she said. You can't just walk away, screamed Eleanor Grace, mother dearest. She had been imprisoned long before her two-year suspended sentence, and, good God. It was time to get her out.

***

I picked up the car provided by the insurance. I use the term ‘car’ loosely.

"I'm not picking up your Onboard. Pull back, and let me try again." The lethargic androgynous young person at the front desk attempted to sync my bio-metrics to the vehicle.

"I don't have one." I scanned his chest for a name tag. Nathan? I expected something more androgynous, like Tegan or Quinn or River "I don't have one, Nathan," I repeated.

Nathan sighed. I'm sure he assumed I was a Freeranger. Freerangers lived off-grid and independently. Self-reliance is discouraged, and large purchases even remotely associated with sustainability and self-reliance cost a hefty tax levy. Being alive is very expensive, and Onboarding is cheap. Onboarded living means free access to amenities like healthcare and education and is mandatory in almost every country. I received my third and final notice warning. I didn't know what came next. I only knew those who understood the cost of total surrender were scared.

When I waved my hands like a fool, trying to get into the 'car', the only scan I had not received was rectal. Nathan did not suppress his eye roll or moan when hovering his hand near the magic portal, Bingo! An entrance to my spacecraft popped open and slid down the side of the car.

“I guess we have to move with the times.” I shrugged and tossed my stuff in. Inside was minimalist and sleek with a curved, very cosy seat with ample room. The dashboard housed nothing but a wide black panel. A scanner dropped down from where the rearview mirror should be.

"Please open your eyes without blinking.” The car was polite, British and female.“ The scanner travelled across my eyes. “Welcome Regan Grace. Please hold your destination in mind." The scanner scanned, and I writhed in discomfort as the ‘car’ accessed my nervous system and my DNA through my retina - as well as my entire history on file somewhere in the fucking MIST. The Internet 2.0. Multi-National Information Sharing Technologies might know everything about me - but they didn't control me. Yet.

A holo appeared with an image of the cottage I had spent many a happy childhood holiday in.

“Please confirm the destination, Regan Grace," said the car.

When staying in meant staying online, governments upgraded everything. Governments outsource IT to independent companies. So you figure out who runs things. The Powers that Be implement heavy fines, incentives and military intervention to enforce protocols.

The DarkNet became the BLACK MIST. Human Trafficking and depravity of all kinds increased. Human-to-human is expensive on the black market, and prostitution has never been more lucrative. Bodies get hijacked all the time.

Some countries have no access to the MIST at all. Freerangers think the countries with no access came out on top. I tend to agree. It’s illegal to travel to areas without the MIST. Punishable by death. How civilized we are.

“Yes, Karen,” I said through gritted teeth. Since I had a visceral dislike for the car that was equal to my dislike for my housemate and Eleanor Grace, she deserved a name.

“Destination confirmed,” chirped Karen. With less chirp, she said, “Your destination is not safe. It is out of range for Onboard access, Regan Grace.” She used my full name the way mothers do when children do something worthy of punishment.

“Confirm destination, Regan Grace?”

“Destination confirmed,” I replied with scepticism.

In this space bubble that probably knew my bra size and my favourite band, at 13:13, I headed to a place I had not been to in years and the only thing I owned. I had almost been desperate enough to sell it several times, but something always stopped me.

Another holo gave me entertainment icons to choose from. I tried but swiped it away and looked out the window, which was hi-jack proof, according to the suffering Nathan, who told me things the Onbaord would have.

It was an eleven-hour trip in which the panic and anxiety clawed at my insides in a car that drove itself. I kept seeing the boy beating the girl until she was bloody. I knew the look on his face. Hell, I knew that feeling: shame.

When the sun set, two panels slid open on either side of the car, revealing blankets and pillows. I accepted the blanket and pillow, and the seat reclined and extended a further panel for my legs. Surprisingly, I slept. Not surprisingly, I dreamed another vivid dream.

Child Me drew me in, and my consciousness became one with hers.