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Lust is too, and that seems more painful.
He knows he’s forgetting things.
That the other monster is too…they are both…
What am I becoming?
What was I?
Who was I?
The sad stick figure is the last entry. My heart breaks again for him. I don’t want to go through the same process. The unravelling until I don’t remember what was lost, only the sense that something has been forgotten, until even that is gone.
“I didn’t want to interrupt.” Michael says as he sits opposite, elbows resting on his knees, propping up his chin. He doesn’t bother trying to look at the pages of the book, as they mean nothing to him.
Talon waits nearby as though he doesn’t know where to sit.
If he sits next to me, then he’ll be sitting on Joe’s tail, and it seems kind of rude to sit on someone without permission or invitation.
I make a move to get up, but Joe puts his hand on my thigh. He jerks his chin at Talon. “You can sit.”
Talon makes a show of keeping his claws up as he carefully perches on one of Joe’s coils. I open the book to the most important page and show Talon the note.
He stares at it for long enough that I have a sinking, greasy feeling that he’s somehow forgotten how to read today. Finally he speaks. “RIP Joe.”
Michael repeats it, as does Joe.
“That’s me, isn’t it? I’m Joe?” He seems almost confused by the idea.
I want to know when he forgot his name, and did he realize he’d forgotten it?
“I think so,” Talon says. “You are thinking about going to the center. Maybe you had given up on life and were planning on dying.”
Joe grunts. “It might have been better if I had.”
I put my hand over his and shake my head.Don’t be like that. While you are alive, there is hope.
With nothing to write on, I can’t share that. And he and Michael had lived without hope for too long. Had meeting Joe given Michael hope for a time? Is that why he was willing to help me, because somewhere he remembered that feeling?
Somehow, I have to keep hope too.
Talon glances at my other two monsters. “You both have real names now.”
I can hear the hurt in his tone. I hadn’t thought to give them real names. I had given them monster names. But maybe Talon is right and having real names matters. He won’t call me Prey the way Michael did.
But does having a name actually change anything? I study Joe, as though I’ll be able to see the slightest change.
He flashes his fangs at me. “I can tell you that learning my name didn’t do anything.”
Damn it. Maybe it will when we all start using it?
Talon seems hunched, but I can’t be sure. “I want a human name.”
I open my mouth but can’t name him.
Michael sits up a little straighter. “I can’t think of any names.”
Joe scowls. “Fuck, neither can I. What the hell?”
