Immortal Memory (Iris' Atlantis 1)

1: Missing Memories

Timothy

I lived. I breathed air into my lungs and sighed and the sun warmed my back. It felt nice.

I was sitting on stone stairs in the university's northern campus. Just me, an ordinary twenty odd male university student enjoying the last warm days of autumn. No one paid any attention.

I smiled at a pretty female student that happened to glance at something in my general direction. She looked away. My smile widened.

I had been human again for a year. There were days when I thought I had dreamed everything. On sunny days when deadlines were pressing, it was hard to even vaguely bring to mind the other world I had formed a part of for two whole years. Yet remembering it gave me happiness in an oddly illogical way: Just mere moments ago I had been sitting in the library by myself, anxious over deadlines. Then I had used the toilet. There had been blood. Just a small amount on the broken machine that rolled the towel out. Probably due to someone having a paper cut. Yet it had drawn my attention. And suddenly I couldn't fathom why I wasted such a beautiful day agonizing over papers under lamplight.

I turned my head a bit to feel the sun on my cheek. Warm. Really nice. The day was worthy of long walks and deep gratitude. I would yet have to go inside though and finish the essay. Just not yet. Not quite yet. Maybe I could even do it on the lawn? There were no sockets though...

"Nice weather. I see you can appreciate it." The woman speaking was one of the students. She too studied linguistics. Most language students were girls. I was an oddity as a male student there. I didn't know her name. Just that she studied French as I did.

"I definitely do," I responded to her. She was pretty with her dark curls and well groomed brows. Most women did that, groomed their brows. Some took them even out altogether and drew them back with dark pens. She had painted her eyelashes too, and powdered her face to perfection so subtle you could hardly even see it wasn't quite natural.

I felt a bit appalled by that. I had seen perfect faces once. Especially one with inky black hair falling back.

I pushed the memory back with another thought: How much time would it take to paint that unnaturally natural looking little piece of art? Did she do it every day? Humans were so curious.

No, wait. I was a human too.

"Why do you sit here by yourself? I never see you anywhere except at lectures, Timothy," she said.

"I like it by myself," I shrugged. "And I am not really a drinker." The university extracurricular events tended to be humid occasions. Not all of them. But most were. Without inside information the distinction was hard to make in advance.

"Alcohol makes me nervous," I added, rising to my feet. "What was your name again?"

I could tell I had offended her by a tension in the air. I had told her the truth. I didn't like what alcohol did to people's minds. And I didn't know her name. She was offended that I didn't share her enjoyment of forgetting everything I did the evening before, and that of all the university people I couldn't recite her name from memory. 

Memory was an interesting power and people were fragile. They got easily offended. Easily forgotten. Easily hurt. Every conversation and gesture was like dancing on thin ice. I had just cracked some open water. Yet I wasn't really scared of offending her. She was after all just a human. A fragile, emotional being.

Yes. Those two dark years brought great happiness to my life.

"Rune. I'm Rune. We have been studying the same subject for over a year now."

"Yes, well, as you pointed out, I haven't been around much."

That was the end of the conversation. I took my backpack, flung it over my shoulder and went searching for a less offensive spot for enjoying my time on earth.