10 — Memories
Having my own apartment was a bit of a drain on Daelus' finances — or rather renting out a flat for Sheam was a drain on
my
finances — but I was growing more incapable of lying to myself. I was doing this because it felt
good
.
It was small. Just a studio. It overlooked a narrow street that ran behind the museum. The view was
terrible
. Natural light was non-existent, particularly during the shrinking autumn days. I had caught myself worrying about the winter in the small space being too cold, and felt silly. If I was too cold, I would just de-manifest, right?
Still, in spite of the concerns and imperfections, somehow felt more like
home
than the estate that the delegation had procured for Daelus — for me.
The plan had become that Sheam would go home quickly, and once settled, it was my turn to make the much longer voyage to the southern hills to my estate. Navigating the twisty streets of the city on my way to the nearest public transportation platform, especially late at night, wasn’t something I could do safely while controlling two bodies at once.
It had been an hour and my other body — Daelus, so, me — was still sitting in my office. I'd get to him. I wanted just five more minutes as Sheam.
I was arranging the items on the top of my dresser. It was just fussing about. I didn't need them. I couldn't use them. My hair didn't need brushing and the jewelry was just decoration for the flat, each piece on their own fancy display pedestal. I
could
wear them, I
liked
wearing them. I had even filled my small wardrobe with various outfits, fun little experiments, to see how it felt to do.
It felt good. It was impractical, on the other hand. If I needed to de-manifest quickly they'd fall to the floor in a pile.
Something nagged at my mind. It wasn't quite déjà-vu, but the sensation began the same way. There was something about how I had arranged the items on the dresser. It reminded me of—
Eyes lifted up from the items on the small dresser.
There was an open window. Drapes were caught in a light breeze. The room was filled with the glow of the morning sun.
Outside, one could see over the tops of small buildings. They were flat; the climate here didn't necessitate pitched roofs. Beyond, was a distant tower.
There was the sound of calling birds. The wind carried the scent of the sea.
My skin was needles and pins. I sat down on the bed.
It was a memory of the old world — of my own room in my family's villa in the town where I had grown up. I vaguely recalled that my father — whose face I could not picture — worked in that distant tower, though I couldn't remember what he did.
I had always arranged my items on my dresser—?
No, that
couldn't
have been right.
What
items would those have been? I was a
boy
. I must have been growing confused.
Daelus got up from his chair in his office in the museum, locked his desk and his office, and bid the night watchman a good night.
He wound through the streets of the city to the nearest elevated trolly station that would bring him most of the way to his estate. As he collapsed into a small bench near the back of the trolley, he thought about how thankful he was that his stop was the terminus. He wouldn’t wind up in parts unknown. He was distracted, and intended to go on being distracted.
He thought about his old life, in the old world. Everyone said it was a thousand years ago. Calendars cited the current year as 951 NWR. In mere months it would be 952. Using clues from the encyclopedias, Daelus had put together that he had been born around the year
40
.
He told himself that remembering anything from
nine hundred
years ago was
more
ridiculous than the idea that a creeping, insidious amnesia had by now claimed all but his most vivid memories. It was simply a natural effect of the passage of time. A memory that old wasn’t
supposed
to be able to exist.
It pained him. When he thought of his family, all he could clearly remember was that they were all completely devoted to the Benefactors. They were true believers. It was they — his
mother
in particular
who set him on the path to becoming a delegate, even as a small child.
He trusted his family’s devotion, and wanted to make them proud, even if they were long gone. No graveyard had survived from that time. He no longer had any connection to them. Why cling to the concept of their approval? Why couldn’t he accept the fact that he’d never hear his mother say that she was proud of him for all he’d accomplished?
What did it even mean to be a true believer, at this stage? Daelus had long considered himself one too, but had he ever been given the choice? Every aspect of his life had been under their shadow, first through his family, and now as a delegate.
Did he still believe? He knew that there hadn't been any single moment in particular that had challenged his faith. At the same time, everything, an unending cavalcade of small things, rolled over and past and through him for the last year. It had been wearing him down.
One thing was true. There was something very special in his life that actually gave him joy — that made life feel worth living; the entourage ability — Sheam.
The Benefactors
had given it to him. He knew he should be grateful. The gratitude he felt to them needed to be expressed as loyalty — as
obedience
.
And yet, he was misusing the ability. He was behaving in a way that he would be punished for if it were discovered. This thought filled him with dread. He knew that what he had discovered was something pure —
good
. He knew they were wrong for not allowing it.
Daelus thought to himself, what else were they wrong about? They were supposed to be about preserving society. They were supposed to be about protecting everyone; stability, safety, comfort.
If that was true, Daelus began to understand, why was so much of what they had been making him do focused on justifying and shoring up support for foreign wars? What did that have to do with stability for our home nation? Much effort was made in painting the other countries as weak, and backwards. Surely the point of this wasn’t to protect us from them.
Even those thoughts confused him. What
other nations
were those? It was so clear that foreign wars were happening, and yet everything about the society of the city painted it as the center of the universe. He had been forbidden from using the names of any other land in any of the museum displays. He wasn’t even allowed to know them.
The people of the city were made to believe that there was nothing outside of it worth knowing about.
Why didn’t even
this fucking city
have a name?
He clenched his eyes tightly together and
tried
to remember. He knew that he grew up in a town somewhere on the coast. What was the name of it? What was the name of that sea? Why did only flashes and vibes remain?
Why was the only thing he could remember with any certainty about his old life was how
devoted
his entire family had been to the Benefactors? Why—
There was a sensation in my head, like when a fast train entered a tunnel, and the air pressure changed. I
did
remember.
My father was a mechanic who worked in a tower where atmospheric measurements were taken. He always complained that the researchers there weren’t devoted to the Benefactors and couldn’t be trusted — that their work was
biased
. He needed the money, so he kept the job. He rarely interacted with us children — he mostly returned home to sleep.
My mother had been a baker of ornate cakes and other confections, but she abandoned her career to raise her three children. I was the middle child. She seemed ever–present. No matter what I was doing or what I was involved with, she was right there. Yet, she always acted like her children had wronged her somehow — that we had
forced
her to sacrifice her career and her future for our sakes.
I remembered how she was
always
unhappy with me for
some reason
.
Stop daydreaming, Daelus. Those are the wrong books, Daelus — full of degenerate ideas — here, read these instead. Why are you walking and holding your head like that? Do you want people to think you're weak?
Where were these memories coming from? Why were they resurfacing now?
Why could I —
Sheam
— remember, but Daelus couldn’t?
Shit
, I had left Daelus in the—
With a start, Daelus returned his mind to the trolley. With embarrassed relief, he saw that there was still one stop before the terminus.
He decided that these memories were hallucinations caused by over-exerting himself. He had been misusing the entourage ability. He told himself that the memories that had awakened were going to fade, like from a dream after waking.
As he exited the trolley, and began the wall up the path through the small hills that would bring him to his front door, he realized that the memories had
not
faded.
Then, a series of thoughts occurred to him —
questions
.
What if the memory loss
was
something the Benefactors
intentionally
did to delegates?
What if the Benefactors made their delegates forget their old lives, because knowledge of the old world was actually a
threat
to their domination of this world?
What memory, if they were truly
all powerful
, he asked himself carefully, his mind racing, could be a
threat
to them?
Was he still a true believer?