This park was the “touch of nature,” my apartment complex had promised to me. Scenic sights and a touch of nature – who could resist? My name was on the apartment lease before the guy was through selling me on its highlights. To be honest, I knew they were lying through their teeth. The place was just one step above a dump, but the view they promised was good enough to make up for it, and I was in a hurry. That was back when I was still a rookie detective and all I wanted was a place to sleep at night. Who knew I’d still be here all these years later?
The park had a narrow walking path circling around a small, dirty pond approximately seven feet in diameter. On the west side, there was exactly one picnic table, and on the east side, all it had to offer was the wooden bench I was currently sitting on. The silver lining was in the shade of the tree overhead. Despite nearly half of its branches being bare, there was just enough foliage to shade me from the summer heat. The end of the season was fast approaching, and I wasn’t about to miss all the sun and humidity that came with it.
A can clattered nearby as it hit the sidewalk. I looked up just in time to see Gabe heading my way. Other than a few people passing through, the park was deserted. People could sense the cop on us from a mile away. Whether or not we were in uniform, we seemed to give ourselves away. It’s not always easy to leave your job behind when you clock out and head home at the end of the day.
Gabe took a seat next to me on the small wooden bench, only big enough to hold two.
“How’s your arm treating you?” he asked.
“Well,” I said. “Some days I want to chuck the thing out the window; let’s put it that way.”
He nodded and nothing more needed to be said. We both knew that physiotherapy could be a living hell. I was not the first person in the precinct to go through it and I certainly wouldn’t be the last. The clinic walked me through simple tasks; simple tasks that would have been easy enough to be insulting just a few weeks ago. Now, they left me sweating and gritting my teeth in pain. The arm was synthetic, but my shoulder sure wasn’t.
“Didn’t invite Ethan?” Gabe asked, arching a brow.
“He needs to spend time with his wife,” I said. “I can’t lean on him too much.”
I scattered a handful of bird seeds and a few grateful birds gathered around to peck at them. I was always more willing to give help than to receive it.
“And about work,” I continued. “The doctor said it won’t be anytime soon.”
“Is it gonna fall off if you hit something?” Gabe joked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I wasn’t sure if I believed it considering I had yet to find any newfound strength. Perhaps what doesn’t kill you makes you stranger instead.
“I’m closer to the way those cultists were now,” I said. “I don’t know how to feel about it.”
Gabe leaned back thoughtfully, propping up an arm on the back of the bench.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Most people have work done these days; walk down the street and you’ll pass five on the way.”
“And you?” I asked.
“That goes for me too,” he said, tapping on the side of his head. “Back when I was young, and on top of the world. Mostly, I just wanted to party.”
Our college days predated the time we knew each other, and I had a hard time imagining the Gabe I knew as the type to live it up, getting high on Ether between his classes, completely carefree and irresponsible. Those were wild times for him; for me, not so much. I chose to keep my nose to the books.
“Good times,” he laughed. “I was broke; all I could get my hands on was the cheap stuff, but it didn’t matter. The comedown wasn’t half bad compared to booze.”
“Do you miss it?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t go that far,” he said, rubbing his hand on the stubble lining his jaw. “Different time, different place.”
Ether could create a sensation of transcendence when combined with a neurochip implant and immersion in a physical floating chamber. That type of long-term haze was only enjoyed by rich kids with more money than sense and those who liked to break barriers, being on the cutting edge of spirituality. The most common version required nothing more than a neurochip download and an electronic inhaler, which was good enough for a short trip with a bit of a buzzy high.
“It doesn’t work anymore,” he said. “Can’t even get it running long enough to get hit with ads and malware. I’d toss the damn thing if it didn’t mean going under the knife again.”
“Wait, you mean to tell me you’re not eager for a little recreational brain surgery?” I teased. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
When the first line of recreational chips hit the market, they transformed what was once a last resort of medical necessity into something the everyman could partake in. The frenzy of consumer demand made them blow up in the market overnight, and demand also led to innovation. The result was a feeding frenzy with many models ageing like milk. This was one of the few instances when the government actually stepped in with new regulations requiring standardization and mandated ongoing maintenance. As it turned out, people couldn’t pay taxes when they were dead, and going under the knife repeatedly was a bad way to keep breathing.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A small family came into the park and settled down for a picnic across the pond. Apparently, neither the poor maintenance nor the brooding cops sitting less than thirty feet away hadn’t deterred them. With our privacy out the window, I made a move to stand, but Gabe put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.
“I didn’t come here just for me, Lana,” he said. “Ethan asked me for a favor, told me to give this to you. He found it while you guys were clearing out your parents’ house. Said he couldn’t find a good time to hand it to you himself.”
Gabe handed me an aged photograph. Apart from a few scratches and a notched corner at the bottom right, it was in pristine condition. I suspected it had been sitting around collecting dust in a small frame or photo album until now. My young, smiling face was front and center. The blanket fort I was laying in was barely big enough to fit me and the army of stuffed animals at my sides.
“I’m sorry we keep making you play the middleman,” I said. “What can I say? Communicating openly is just not the Walker way.”
Gabe just grinned and shrugged.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “It’s no skin off my back.”
There were quite a few things you could say about our family: we were strong, hardworking, dependable, and more neurotic than we had any right to be. That is, other than Noah, my mother’s little miracle baby who had long since outgrown the title of “little brother.” He was the carefree one that took each day as it came, and I could have talked to him about how I felt at any time, but it took our father dying before I finally brought it up. A long list of long-overdue emotion was released in that little diner over half eaten Chinese food and cans of pop.
“Want me to drop you off?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I’ll walk. If I don’t move, I’ll go crazy.”
He nodded, and then we each went on our way. When I got home, I emptied out my pockets, tossing my keys on the counter, but when my fingers grazed the edge of the photograph, I stopped to take a closer look. Nudging the notched corner aside revealed a QR code. My Iris pinged on it, and a notification box popped up asking me if I’d like to play the video. A moment of hesitation and a click later, the video was loading with a small spinning icon.
The video picked up right where the photo left off. It must have been taken immediately after the snapshot. Now, instead of a stationary image, my younger self was in motion. Looking left and right, she held a small finger to her lips and shushed the teddy bears around her.
“We have to be very quiet because this is a secret message, okay?” she whispered before turning back to the camera. “Hi, big me!” she cried, waving, having already forgotten all about being quiet.
“Quess what? Now that it’s summer, it’s real hot, and all the cicadas are singing really loud. Mom says they look weird and keep her up at night, but I like the cicadas. They climb all over you and get into funny places. When I find them, I always say, ‘Hey! That’s not for bugs!’ and then I take them outside so they can go home.”
Home, huh? Memories of my parents’ house swam through my head. Back before the green floral wallpaper was peeling from the walls. Back before the house gave off the sense of a mausoleum. Back when it felt lively and youthful, full of the sounds of a young family – those were days long past.
“Mom says bugs don’t have families like we do, but I think everybody has a family. Where do baby bugs come from if there aren’t mom bugs and dad bugs too? Dad says our family is going to get bigger. Mom said someday her belly is going to get really big, and when she’s all done, we’ll have a new baby to bring home!”
This must have been before Noah was born. Back then, it was just the four of us: mom, dad, Ethan, and me. And I was still the youngest back then; it had some perks. I got away with more before I became one of three and was demoted from the baby to the middle child.
“Dad says we have to protect the baby because we’ll be big kids and the baby will be too little. I told him if anybody was mean, I’d beat them up! And then dad patted me on the head and told me I was a good kid. I was so happy and dancing and singing like ‘Lah Lah Lah,’ but Ethan told me not to be a baby about it. He thinks he’s so cool because he wants to be old like mom and dad, but that doesn’t mean he gets to tell me what to do.”
Shifting into a sitting position. She crossed her arms in a huff, ending with a pout. Her head bumped against the top of the blanket fort, nearly bringing it down. The blanket was now more supported by her head than the piles of pillows on the sides, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“When we go to the park, I’m going to catch way more frogs than him, and then he’ll be sorry! Oh, did you know? I’m the best at catching frogs and bugs and climbing trees! Mom says Ethan gets to climb trees because he’s a big kid, and I don’t because I’m still little, but I think it’s because Ethan is a boy and I’m a girl.”
And there it was – the invisible barrier that separated good little boys from good little girls. Even at that age, it was a thorn in my side.
“Mom says girls have to behave really good and not jump in the creek and stuff, but that’s just because mom is old and boring! Old people don’t know things that kids do. I know that jumping in the creek is fun! And catching frogs is fun! And cicadas are fun! And bugs have families too! See? I know all sorts of things.”
I found myself smiling wistfully. Back then, I was so confident I knew all the things I’d ever need to know, and I was practically on top of the world, knee-deep in optimism for what was yet to come.
“When I grow up, I’m going to save a lot of people too, just like Dad. Dad told me I could too, but mom said that’s not for girls. Nuh-uh! I’m going to be a really cool detective, and then I’ll show everyone – like all the other kids and Ethan and everyone! And I’ll be so good that they’ll have to like me, and if they all like me… Maybe mom will too.”
The video stopped abruptly as she leaned in to stop the recording, and her forehead blocked out the screen. I missed that youthful confidence I used to have that the world was black and white – good was good and bad was bad, and you could do anything as long as you tried hard enough. I wholeheartedly believed those words back then.
Over the years, I’d learned quite a bit, and the more I learned about the cruelty and relentlessness of the world, the more I felt the walls close in around me. My tears fell, rolling down my cheeks, and dotting the photograph with dripping lines.
Slinking down to the floor with my back against the counter, I collapsed into myself, my knees clutched tightly to my chest. When did I forget all those things I used to know? My work may be thankless, but any life I saved was another person who got to keep walking on this tiny speck of dust floating through space, and that was something I couldn’t take for granted. No, I wasn’t going to let that little girl down, the one I used to be, who looked up to me with bright, shining eyes, seeing the best in me and the beauty of the world in the smallest things.
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image [https://i.imgur.com/Hm0El2w.jpeg]
A painting of Lana and her younger self.