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Analogy 7 – In Silicate

Whenever you enter an unfamiliar place, it smells like something new. It doesn't matter where you are or what kind of place it is, because even the cleanest room still smells like something. Whatever was used to clean it, maybe. The absence of something familiar registering as a thing in and of itself.

The absence of you.

And yeah, it'll change if you spend enough time there. You won't even notice when the constant feeling of being a stranger in someone else's world flips into familiarity; when you breathe in and the air makes sense, smells like air's supposed to. Like home. It's nothing new. It feels like you've been there all your life.

There's no guaranteed way to flip that mental switch. It's nothing concrete. Maybe one day you sit down somewhere and realize you've been sitting there every day for a week, you recognize the view. A positional anchor dropped down by habit. A territorial claim given weight by time.

Maybe it's someone's smile.

Because that's how it's supposed to go, isn't it? You make a friend and you feel at home. It's a relief because there's an anchor dropped, there's something tying you down. You're not gonna float away. You're not gonna die alone. You feel safe. You're supposed to. I'm supposed to. I shouldn't be afraid.

Where is he taking me?

It's not like I know him well. Glances from a doorway don't count for much in the game of trust, but it's the way he looks at me. It's the way everything is, in a new place. Lives shuffle aside to make space for you, and you never know where it'll be. You take what you're given, because it's better than nothing. Learning new ways to be is better than being alone.

It doesn't make my smile come easier, though, when it sinks in that I'm lost. At his mercy. There's something a little twisted in his eyes and it's not fear because I don't get afraid but it's something and it makes me stop in my tracks. It makes him turn around and open his mouth.

I know the sounds that should come out.

I'm trying to be friendly, Natalie.
"Initiated. Examining. Ten percent."

And I respond the way I should. The part of me that screams inside is mute and cold. Thoughts stream past in my own voice, drowning her out. I'm watching a film of myself. I don't like that he knows my name; he hasn't earned it.

Come on, it's just a couple more streets.
"Twenty percent. There are anomalies."

There's something in his eyes—They're dead—that moves me more than it should. They haven't moved—It might be the newness of it all—an inch since he turned around—I could just be lonely.

You know what, it can't hurt. I can't move. What's the worst that could happen if I go a little wild? His eyes are painted on—Been wound so fuckin' tight I guess I just need to—They are grey and cold—stop worrying. Why can't I see it?

I take his hand in mine and smile. It feels like nothing. It's warm—There is no sensation—and I want to feel warmer. I lean in closer, and I'm—terrified—relaxed, safe, for the first time since I moved to this fucking town. I'm not letting go of that. Run, why won't you fucking—

Nat, what—?
"She senses something."

We're eating lunch. It's a Friday. We've been together a while now. I know what he tastes like. I stare at him and think of it and smile and wish we weren't in public but here we are. The two of us. It's not perfect but it's close—I'm happy—and really, that's good enough, isn't it?

There are the times we don't see eye to eye. There are the times I don't feel safe. That's the way of it, though, in a new place.

You take what you're given.

And there are times I—Eighty percent—feel like a shell of myself. There are times I know I'm missing something. It's slipping—Ninety—away, bit by bit, but I remember meeting him like it was yesterday. It was yesterday. Have I even—Complete.

The world grinds to a halt. Simple things—raindrops, pedestrians—become inanimate. Years fly away. Logic flies away. Color flies away and I'm in black and white and as we fade to wireframe I know there's been no difference, no life, just a series of flickering played-through steps to keep me looking somewhere else. It's grey. There's nothing but his face.

I remember, though.

I never met him. There might have been a guy with his face who waved to me once or twice but I ignored that outstretched hand because that's what you do, isn't it, to strangers who don't look right? His eyes. Not dead eyes, just something wrong with them, something human and dark and wrong. I stuck it out alone. I walked and he followed.

The knife. The white-hot pain in my chest. I remember.

There's nothing of me left. I don't have a mouth to make sounds, a brain to make words but my voice is there nevertheless. It echoes in emptiness.

I don't even know your name.

He's bright and colorful. His eyes flicker with life.

"I don't have a name."

He smiles, but he doesn't know what smiling's for.

"All distinctions are artificial."

He's saying goodbye.

"It's calibrated."

I wake up in a new place. There are mountains in the distance. I call out and nothing comes back but the breeze in my hair, the beat of a dragonfly's wings. There's nothing holding me back, no one pressing me down.

It makes no sense, but it feels like home.

A/N: Nothing to say this time. This is really one part of a two-part thing, but I wanted to get it up. More soon.

~12/07/14