Affinity 4.1 Avery

“Come on—there’s a desk you can sit at,” she says, pulling my arm. She does it gently, but I yank away.

“What are you doing!” I scream at her, not paying mind to the spittle that lands on her face. Good. “Why are you in this nightmare, too? Get out! Leave me alone!” My voice cracks on the last word, the scream dwindling to a shrill squeak. Not very convincing.

But my wild shove sends her flying, her beautiful head snapping back against the white wall behind her.

Or at least that is how imagined it happening. How I wished it. My fingers never come in contact with her skin. Her movement is faster than thought, her hand grasping mine and twisting mercilessly up—wrenching my entire arm out and over. Pain arcs up my body and I clench my teeth to hold back the scream.

For a moment, I retaliate, throwing my weight around in a vain struggle to get a better position. But she kicks me in the gut, and I become too concerned with trying to breathe to do any more. My entire body convulses in pain, and I slowly sink to my knees, clutching my stomach with every ounce of my remaining strength. I feel as though I have no breath, and cannot inhale. All I can do is kneel there. Kneel and tremble.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Just breeeeathe.

After a moment, I am able to draw in a normal breath (although my stomach still hurts something awful) and she nudges me with her foot. I scramble away, putting my fists up in a lame defensive gesture.

“There is no need to fight me,” she says, pulling me up and adjusting my hospital gown.

“And you’re saying that after you just—” Wait. I look down at my clothing. The pants are gone. My botched hair is gone—well, I have more hair now. The blonde curls around my shoulders, a long and probably unmanageable tangle. But my hands. I turn them over slowly, almost in admiration… because they are beautiful. Whatever transfiguration that took place in the whatever-the-bloody-hell-it-was room and before, with the blood and the gouges in my soft hands, the rips and tears—they are all gone. Now my hands are as they were before. Soft and white. I am not sure if I am pleased or not. Now I look even weaker than before.

“What just happened?” I whisper, still staring down at my appearance.

“Over here,” she says. “If you will sit down, we can explain.”

“About time,” I mutter, and when she offers a hand to help me up, I almost accept. The gesture is friendly, but I just remember the same hand twisting my arm, my throbbing stomach helping me remember what else she did. So I shove myself to my feet without help, ignoring the hand and pushing past her.

The woman turns away without another glance, but points to something in front of me to move my attention forward.

I see One-Arm sitting behind an actual wooden desk—something antiquated and almost obsolete in the wake of manmade wood, which only looks somewhat real, but more like plastic—with a cup in his hand. A teakettle rests on the desk beside him, steam rising from its spout. A rich aroma hangs in the air like a heavy fog. My mouth waters instantly.

“Take a seat,” he says. Sitting down, he doesn’t look as intimidating as he did in the other room, but his voice dominates all else in the room. The deep pounds through everything, almost like an ocean of water toppling down.

I eye the seat suspiciously, then back to him. “Why? Is this an interrogation or a friendly chat?” I hesitate for a moment, then continue—although my voice, admittedly, bears a different tone. “Is any of that tea for me?”

He nods, and sets out another cup, pouring the tea silently. Without asking if I want cream or sugar (which I do), he reaches out and sets it down near my seat—assuming I am going to sit down where he wants me to.

“Sit,” he says again, although this time his voice is much harsher. A tone that says do-as-you-are-told-or-else.

I sit down, however slowly. At least I can take comfort in the scowl which seats itself across his face.

The woman comes around behind the desk and stands beside One-Arm. They exchange a glance, a small smile twitching at the side of the woman’s mouth. But not his. He remains dead serious.

“How many left, Keisha?” He leans over in his chair, and moves about, obviously trying to find a different position in the seat. Maybe his butt is sore. Good. “This last kid asked so many questions.”

“Only twenty-four more after this one,” Keisha says. So that is her name. Keisha. Fits her, I guess, although it makes me think of food. “A question asker? What did you tell him?”

“What he needed to know,” One-Arm says. Even while talking to Keisha, he looks straight at me. At first, I pull my arms in and scrunch my body close to me, feebly protecting myself from his gaze. But then I realize what he is doing. An assessment. There is no other purpose in his eyes. Nothing else that taints his reason for his heavy scrutinization.

“Are you just going to throw me around permanently or are you going to explain something to me someday!” I lose my patience, and scream at him over the desk. The tea in my hand vibrates beneath the verbal onslaught. “I have been tossed and dropped and slammed and insulted and humiliated and everything-else-possible for the past who-knows-how-long. I want answers! Now.”

One-Arm leans forward in his chair, and his gaze is so intense I begin to regret my outbreak. “Just mind what you say, child.” He says it in a demeaning way, belittling me even further, and suddenly I realize how much taller he sits in his chair, and how my neck kinks to look in his face. Our chairs are at the same level. “We will tell you when we decide to. Watch your mouth.”

“Okay, fine.” I slouch back in my chair, and his frown deepens. “Why am I here?”

“You're here because you showed talents above other children when you were an infant—tested when you were a mere newborn, like all babies are even though few people know. But I wonder if we should have tested a few of you”—he looks pointedly at my position in the chair—“to see how your upbringing went.”

“I would tell you what curriculum my school used, but I’m afraid I don’t remember,” I retort. So they tested me when I was a baby, and kept tabs on me for when I was fifteen and ready at their disposal. Sounds lovely, and not at all like stalkers.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, completely pokerfaced. It’s impossible to see what emotions flash though his mind. “We have all the necessary information to progress with you.”

“Say that again?” I ask, still clutching for the meaning of the last few words. ‘Progress with you’. There are too many meanings those words could entail. Too many of them sounding not so cozy.

“Karsh doesn’t repeat himself,” Keisha says. “He says things once, and if you can’t understand, or if you didn’t hear him—too bad. Don’t expect him to repeat.”

Karsh. The name fits him too well.

“So, Karssssh,” I say, drawing his name out. “What is going on? Keisha told me you would tell me everything I wanted to know.”

He takes a slow drink of tea as if he enjoys the flavor, but I can tell he’s thinking. Probably scheming some lie to tell me. “Your memory is gone, correct?”

“I have no memories that I know of,” I say. An image briefly flashed through my head. A small face, chubby and round, peaking out of a blue blanket to smile at me. A babies’ face. The image evaporates. “None,” I say again. Even if it’s a memory, and something he wants to know about, I don’t trust him with anything.

“And what about knowledge—like math and such?”

“Well, two plus two is twenty two,” I recite. “And Los Angeles is the capital of Brazil.”

“Wonderful.”

Karsh looks away from me, his eyes saying what his mouth does not. That he is disgusted with my behavior. What is he going to do? Put me in a time-out chair? Keisha and he exchange glances, her hiding a smile and him grimacing. From their expressions, it seems as though they are communicating… somehow. Their expressions are too well synced for them to be merely standing idly.

But after a moment of awkward lounging, waiting for them to stop their bloody staring contest, Karsh finally nods and swivels in his chair to face me. He touches a black circular object indented in the middle of the desk, his fingers finding a button in the small face.

A screen slides up into life between us, a tangible-looking yet not physical object. The translucent picture is easily two meters wide, stretching to both sides of the desk. But I can still see Karsh behind, the blue background showing an eerie picture of his already intimidating face.

“This is all we could recover of your previous life,” he says.

I stare at the blank screen. “Gee, that’s a lot of stuff. It looks like I had a big life.”

Keisha stifles a laugh, but Karsh merely reaches out and swipes from the top down—his hand seeming to go through the projected image. A list of greenish wording flashes into view, but a quick scan tells me this is information for him—not me. The language could be Greek for all I know, something so weird I can’t even place it, let alone decipher what it means.

“All information pertaining to number two,” he says—obviously speaking to the machine and not Keisha or me. The computer doesn’t respond to him, but a different screen slips into view. This time I do see things.

“Start at the top,” Keisha says, pulling my attention to the head of the page, English words welcoming me to a more understandable screen. “It will be easier that way.” She pauses for a moment, almost like she is hesitating. “Your name is Avery.”

Avery

I turn the name over and over in my head, looking for a hint of familiarity, that moment when you have a clue and everything fits into place. That moment when all of my past—both the things I would want to remember and those I wished to forget—would come to the surface and reveal themselves.

               Nothing like that happens.