Halien, Part 7

Oh, the follies of youth, the eccentricity of age!


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
absence. The beer was cold and invigorating. I was laughing. I couldn't believe it--laughing again! Then, a hand on my shoulder, familiar and transmitting tranquility through the warm, gentle grip. Relying on my own resources I would've probably cracked up, and ran out of the bar screaming, but her spell-casting was incomparable. I've encountered energy vampires before, the kind of person who sucks your strength dry and all you can do to fight the attack is to flee their presence. But Haley, despite her strangeness, was the opposite of that. I could face the music. I remembered everything again, but was ok with it. So it was with confidence, and even a little excitement that I turned in my bar stool to face her.
"What's up, Chuck?" A long Virginia Slim dangled at the corner of her mouth.
She looked a little different, and I couldn't figure out why. The hair? The smile?
"Why are you doing this, Haley?"
"What do you mean?" She looked confused, and a little hurt. I couldn't abide my
hurting her.
"Look, I'm sorry." She hand-signaled to a candlelit booth, and we seated ourselves across from each other. Looking into the little orange pool of melted wax I recalled the vision of kissing her afresh, and the vision of the other world, the New Heaven. But part of me fought fiercely for independence of mind. "We experienced something profound, Haley." I looked down at my folded hands. I couldn't look at her. "But that was a long time ago, and--"
"Yes, Chuck, I know. Was it years ago? You look the same, sound the same. I
had an accident and suffered some memory loss. That's why I'm here. I remembered that
I could trust you."
"Uh, what? It was only three months ago. What happened?"
"They say I was thrown out of the bed of a pickup truck and hit my head. Apparently I was on my way to a Memorial weekend camping trip at Crater Lake. At first my entire long-term and short-term memory were gone, wiped clean--I, tabula rasa." She paused, and it hit me. Her eyes were darker, brown in fact. Where did the indigo go? She continued, and I actively listened. "I was scared, Chuck. There were strange lights--I guess I'm remembering the emergency room. They say I was comatose for a day, but to me it seems longer. I'm missing time. They operated on my brain to save it. It was touch
and go a while, they say. I, I uh, saw things, Chuck. Hallucinating, I guess, or just vividly dreaming, but it seemed like flashbacks of actual memory. There was another planet, and you, Chuck, and we were happy, and then I'd wake up and forget most of it as one forgets most dreams, but the one thing that stuck, Chuck, the one thought that stabilized me against what otherwise felt like madness was the steady, sure, reassuring belief that you existed, that you understood and validated me. Tell me it's still true, Chuck. Tell me I didn't pass up an opportunity to die in vain."
It was too much too fast to process. I had a million questions, but she looked tortured, and her lip trembled, and pitiful bubbles of spittle formed at the edge of her sweet mouth. Her left eye twitched, and it was brown and human and crying out to me to understand her suffering. "I, I've missed you, Haley. Of course I'm here for you." Her eyes went radiant. Her smile was slanted a bit, from the surgery I presumed, but to me that imperfection made her even more lovely, and human.
"Oh, thankyou, thankyou, Chuck!" She grasped my hands and kissed them over
and over. "It's fate, it's fate! We've found each other a second time, and this time it's even
better!"
"Yes, Haley, I feel that, but I'm curious. Your memory loss was total and all you
remembered was me? Did you have to get re-acquainted with your family?" And your
brother, the monster?
"Whew, that was hard, Chuck. I resisted at first. Mom and dad were strangers,
and I just couldn't believe them, that I came from them--they seemed too different from
me, but--"
I couldn't keep my eyes dry, and I gazed intently, questioningly, into hers. I
wanted to believe. "Yes, Haley. Take your time. I can't imagine."
"Thankyou, Chuck. You have the patience of a saint. They showed me photographs. They took me to old places, childhood places which triggered one memory at a time. Slowly, I was able to piece together my past, and then I asked about Jimmy, and they told me what happened to him." She looked away for a full minute, biting down hard on her lower lip as I massaged her fingers.
"I don't remember you telling me about Jimmy."
"My sweet little brother, Chuck."
"Ah, yes."
"After my accident, Jimmy fell apart. A full schizophrenic break, they say. He was sent away." Thankyou, baby Jesus! I thought. I wasn't thinking straight. In retrospect, I should have focused on her statement, "My sweet little brother," but I didn't, so it didn't