The Pieces of My Self

2 - Loumissala

HENRI J. KNIGHTLY'S JOURNAL

Aboard the Ángel de Mer, The Gulf of Mexico, 15 March 2140

Entry #4:

It's now two a.m. on our first day aboard the Ángel de Mer in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm in a cabin of the trawler, bobbing on a troubled sea, juggling the baby and a bottle in one arm and making handwritten notes in my journal with the other.

I can't let myself become a victim of my own memory—my perfect recall.

And yet, my hand trembles when I hold the baby. My forehead drips sweat. Memories flash before my eyes with the suddenness of a bullet to the brain. Older memories, joggled loose by trauma, snare my soul like a gator in a slow death roll with a squirming child in its jaws.

I remember details from childhood: my father telling me at age four why you have to fly the shrimp nets above the bottom and not drag them; my mother showing me how to set up a robotic shrimp sorter; my grandmother telling me the old Houma Indian myths of creation; my best friend dying in the jaws of a gator when I was six. Now, Perri's death goes on the list of unforgettable events. Eidetic memory is God's gift and the Devil's curse.

The baby's finally dozing. Now, I must sleep. Stop the memories.

Entry #5:

When I awakened, the clock near my bunk read four a.m. and the trawler's engine thrummed like the heartbeat of a dream. I remember a demon—Perri's demon—chasing me, and it was gaining.

I blinked at the early morning darkness, closed my eyes, and pulled a damp sheet over my shoulder, hoping to return to oblivion.

Zeke and I were dead on our feet when we boarded yesterday evening in Matamoros. We had driven all day over rough, dusty Mexican roads, only to be forced to prove our identities to some tough-looking contrabandistas who doubted our ability to pay. Very stressful, particularly when the captain with a tattooed face and a wicked scar under his right eye pointed a gun at us. Now, I'm taller than most people, but the captain had me by at least four inches. He smelled of sweat and garlic and gun oil. Maybe the baby was the only thing between us and the pull of a trigger. It seemed to give him pause. When the infant smiled, he gave her a tight grin.

I think the child was as exhausted as we were when we got to our quarters. She slept fitfully, two hours at a stretch.

More sleep was not in the cards.

I opened my eyes to see a young boy prodding me with a stick. He had straight black hair, the hard eyes of a coyote, and the playful grin of an eleven-year-old. He pointed his switch toward a clay pot of café de olla on a small table near our bunks. The sweet acid aroma of coffee beans, cinnamon, and raw dark sugar opened my sinuses. I swept away the brain fog, swung my feet over the edge of the metal bed, and sat up. Zeke, who had also received a poke, slipped down from the upper bunk onto my mattress.

I poured a cup and took a sip, my hands shaking. In the dim light I could make out the grayish stain-mottled walls and white ceiling of our spartan cabin. There was no porthole.

The boy placed a tray of chocolate buns and a bowl of frijoles on the table. "Gracias," I murmured. He nodded but said nothing before departing.

We ate quickly. Our clanking spoons and dishes must have awakened the baby, coddled in a blanket on the floor. She started screaming. I put down my unfinished beans and clawed through my backpack for a bottle of formula and a pack of diapers.

Zeke put on a pair of fire engine red shorts and climbed, shirtless, out of the cabin. "Got to check the equipment and make water," he said. I could tell from his sneer he couldn't stand the wailing or the smell of poop and urine.