[Jupiter's Lament]
Memories are strange things. They fold and fade like burning photographs, or jump and dance like madness against the flames. Who's to say what strands of true and false are intrinsic to human perception. Is it personality or experience that can make you lean more towards one than the other? Is a man without a soul only a man because he remembers he was? Do you exist only because someone remembers you did? Maybe some memories, like questions, are better left alone.
I remember (and it's best to note I only recovered most these memories years later) being frogmarched down to the hangar, scowling with every step. I didn't know these men and they didn't look military. They looked like the men who hung out with Jeffrey's dad. I remember Jimmy saying: "You can't keep us here.", because it made me want to laugh. The sad realisation that these guys could do anything they liked because we'd put ourselves at their disposal, was about a hair's breadth between me and my sanity. Shuffled into an empty hangar, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night.
Jeff brushed beside me and I could see Louise's lips start to tremble. Bad sign.
"What were you kids doing out there." One of them asked. He was tall, dark-haired, sour-faced and authoritative.
"We were making out." I replied deliberately and bluntly.
Out of the corner of my eye I could almost see Jimmy explode.
"No we weren't." he spluttered, daggering me darkly with his eyes.
Some of the men behind the one questioning us were whispering amongst themselves.
"What were you doing then, son?" the Talker, asked.
"If you'll forgive us, sir," said Jeff, "that's none of your business."
I smiled sidelong at him.
"We only wanted to see the planes!" Louise suddenly blurted.
Christ! If that girl didn't know to land us in it. I was pretty sure none of these Men In Suits were buying our line in bullshit, but it was worth a try. You know, like the Bay of Pigs: if it went wrong - deny it.
"Well you see, miss," Talker nodded to Louise, "that's where it becomes our business. I'm afraid you kids are going to have to come with us."
Jimmy looked at Jeff and I could tell Jeff didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do either. And then it was too late to do anything.
A hand gripped my arm.
"Ow! You're hurting." I squeaked, a little shocked at the cadence of my voice.
Neither the man holding my arm, nor Talker seemed to care. I was almost bodily dragged along. Jeff bolted towards me but somebody I couldn't see grabbed him.
"Jeff!" I almost wailed.
I heard Louise echo me far of on my opposite side. There seemed to be a scuffle around Jimmy but he was shouting too.
Someone grabbed me around the waist lifting me off the ground and I kicked, screaming. I could hear Jeff calling my name before his voice got muffled. And I could only hear vague kicking and the sound of fabric against fabric over where Louise used to be, while I squirmed and kicked. I heard Jeff again. He growled: "No! Don't." then try to add something else and trail off mid-sentence, like a tv going off.
Someone gruffly said, "Turn her over." and I doubled my efforts. The world kept swaying crazily, I was being held close to the floor. I felt my chest flip over my throat and a sick taste in the back of my mouth. One of my hands worked free - all other limbs held in place - and I pushed against the grit of the floor trying to support myself and wrench free at the same time. The cold bled into the skin. I tried to look up for a moment, seeing Jimmy's feet (one sneaker, one sock), limp and unfeeling, drag past me. He was being yanked away. My neck strained to see him but the lights were all awry, shadow chaotically everywhere at once. By accident it seemed, I saw my dad again, not too far away. He neither moved to help or said a word. He just looked at me.
"Dad! Dad! Please!" my voice sounded hoarse and desparate. "Ow!"
I pursed my lips, a needle pick on the lowest part of my back where someone pulled the jeans back. More hands oppressing me. My vision of my father swirled. I called out one last time, "Dad, dad." but my voice sounded quiet and weak.
***
My eyes opened. A bed, a pillow and the ceilings, everything white. Am I dead? My body felt drained. People in white uniform drited past me. Am I a ghost? My throat, sore and cracked, tingled with itchiness and I was taken with the burning desire to cough. It came in stubborn stabs of air. It felt like I was suffocating. Yet the coughing continued, my body wracked with the effort. My mother suddenly floating into view above me. Her expression restless and harrowed.
"Mom-" I cut off coughing, wheezing. I could barely breathe and between these coughs. "Mom. Where's. Dad...?"
Doctors and nurses now. And silence. And dark.
***
"And where are you now?" pondered the voice on the tape.
My voice replied, but it sounded like a little girl.
"I'm c-cold." The voice trembled, audibly in a cold place. "I'm so c-c-cold. I'm in a box." It said. "But the box is like glass."
"Is anyone with you?"
"No. I'm alone...and my fingers...hurt."
"Why?"
"So cold..." The little girl said.
"Can you see anything beyond the glass?"
"Yes."
"What can you see?"
"Jimmy and Louise."
"Where are they?"
"They're in boxes too. Boxes of glass. Like me. Only...they don't move. Like they're sleeping. I'm cold...I'm...I'm wiping the glass to see."
"Is anyone else-"
"Jeff!" The girls voice jerked uncertainly.
"Where is Jeff."
"They're taking him...He's going with them."
"Going with who? Where?"
"Them! They're taking him to the table...to be tested...they're stealing his mind."
"Who are they?"
"I don't know." The girl answered earnestly as if she were trying to remember. "Can't move...so cold...arms are heavily...my eyes...are closing...Can't..." Her voice trailed off.
***
I was coming around.
I coughed again. The woman beside my bed noticed and smiled at me.
"Oh," she said in mock cheerfulness, "you're awake. You've been asleep for almost 12 hours."
It was Mrs Dawson from next door.
"Where's my mom?" my voice scraped the bottom of an invisible barrel.
"She's- She's in the living room, talking to...some people."
I noticed her hesitate betwen thoughts. She moved to the other side of my bed and opened the curtains. The dull light of evening emptied in around her. I squinted slightly and slipped delicately out of the bed. The carpet felt peculiar under my feet. The door was open and I walked into the hall, hearing her behind me.
"Wait! I don't think you should see your mother just yet!"
"Why not?" I croaked. "Mom?"
I picked up speed and turned into the living room. There were people there all right. The living room was full of people and everyone had a sombre expression. They turned and parted a little when they saw me and I caught a glimpse of my mother, sitting on a chair, her back to me, her head bowed, her shoulders shifting in words and feelings unheard to me. A man was there beside her, his hand moving to rest on her shoulder smoke rising, from the silhouette of his dark coat.
"Mom?"
She turned, her eyes red-rimmed, her lipstick faded, mouth distorted in grief. And the man at her arm, C. G. B Spender. My spine went cold. She didn't have to say it. None of them did.
I simply wailed. "Dad, dad..." without quite knowing why.
Mrs Dawson took me back to my room, where I simply cried, as we sat on the bed and she held me.
It was inexplicable why I felt so bad. My thoughts swam and fought for the surface. I seemed to recall Jeff Spender brushing against me in the darkness but it seemed so like a dream.
Only later did she tell me that I'd been in an accident. That I'd nearly drowned. She could only guess that I had gone off with them - Jimmy, Jeffrey and Louise - and fallen into one of the trenches on the training ground. Heavy rainfall had made them slippery and filled them with water. I had fallen in. Louise had gone for help and some officers had brought us home. The very same night, my father had died in what should have been a routine night flying recon.
***