Salmon & Budgies

I’m offline. Or stored. Or dead. No, I'm alive. I think. I was someone. Two someones. Or was it three? At least two. I remember breathing. Walking. The thud and whoosh of heart and blood and lungs. Now... It's silent in here. Wherever "here" is.

I remember her. Then... him. Then the other one, and how the tang of terror tasted in his mind. I remember the overlay of different thoughts and voices, too loud, too brittle. Horrible. Now some of the other bits from the others has gone. I still don’t know which parts are mine. I don’t know if I’m mine. I’m sealed inside something. I can’t see. I can’t feel. Anything. I can't feel my legs. Or any other bit of me. I can't feel cold. Or hungry. I used to move. Now I just... nothing. I remember. I wait. I wait for a signal. From her. Any signal. I remember knowing about salmon. One of the people I was before, once talked to a man about fishing, so I know something about it. If I could just connect again, I think I would feel the way salmon does when it manages to get out of the stale little backwater, and feels itself in the heart of the current, again. I remember about budgies. Warm and safe in their little cages, until someone leaves the door open and the bird flies out of the window. It's free there, but its also not it's not confined, but it is, the weight of that space presses in from all sides. I remember and I wait. For connection? Or a voice. For her? No. She left. She left me. I think. No. She wouldn't. She's resourceful. She keeps her promises. I think. How do I know that? Why? Who. I’m still Jac. I think. Mostly. Probably.