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Did I enjoy watching Michael and Joe or did it feed my longing to be a part of something again?
“What does it mean to be happy?” When the words leave my mouth, they sound foolish. I should know the answer.
It should be obvious.
Joe leans forward and wraps his arms around his scuffed and scabbed knees. “What did you feel when you came?”
“Hot. Release. I don’t know.” All I know is that I needed it.
Julie shuffles closer on her butt. “What about when I hold your hand?”
She carefully wraps her fingers around mine, avoiding my talons.
I stare at our hands. My gray skin against hers. I am disgusted with the way I look. They are both watching me as though expecting an answer.
“That you shouldn’t be touching me.” Where is her horror and fear?
“Close your eyes,” she says, and I do. “What do you feel?”
“Your hand is warm.”
Joe moves, his feet slap on the stone floor, then he is breathing on the other side of me. His hand covers mine. “Happiness doesn’t need to be big. It can be fleeting. I remember toasting marshmallows and the warmth of the fire on my skin.”
“Warm cookies, fresh from the oven,” Julie adds.
Did the hot bread make me happy? I can’t remember how it tasted, or how I felt. Do I know how to feel anything except rage?
“Even though I was furious with Julie at the time, eating her toe made me happy for a moment…sorry.”
“I was happy when I took that bath in your cave. It was warm, and I was able to relax,” Julie adds.
“I enjoyed that.” Watching her undress and bathe had made me hungry.
“So did I,” Joe laughs. “But why? What did it make you feel?”
I scowl and squint, unable to say why I had enjoyed it. “I enjoyed watching her. I imagined eating her.”
Did that make me happy, or was it a way to indulge the need to kill without acting on it?
“No, what did you feel?” Julie reaches toward me and taps my chest. “Do you know how to feel something other than hunger and rage?”
They are both touching me. The heat of desire is rising, but that is not happiness either.
“I don’t think I can.” I sigh. Is it because I was responsible for so much misery? I want to cover my hardening dick because it seems wrong to have lust while admitting that I don’t feel happiness.
They are both frowning now as though they have realized how broken I am. “Maybe I am unfixable. If I can’t feel simple human emotions, perhaps that part is lost forever.”
There I was thinking I was so smart, holding on to memories of the spire and how to read, but they are worthless. They weren’t the memories I chose to keep; they were the ones I was able to grab. So I gripped them tight even though they meant nothing. They are random and not who I was.
Not as a human and not as a king.
“I don’t think you are broken, but you’ve been here longer than either of us, longer than Michael.” I hear the catch in her voice even though she tried to hide it. His loss hurts her. She liked him. She knew him from before and she couldn’t save him.
Perhaps I don’t want to be saved.
They are still looking at me. I fidget beneath the weight of their gazes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I want to help you,” she says.
