Damnatio memoriae

iii. the compact

I must have fallen asleep. I wake when I feel a hand on my shoulder. It's gentle, but insistent, and for a second I wonder if I had fallen asleep in my office. Even as embarrassment creeps in, a more self protective alarm slams down over me. I'm at home.

I live alone. I jerk away, a gasp ripping through my teeth, and as I sit upright, I see no one before me. I'm alone.

A let out a sigh, and I realize a headache is starting to build in my skull. I groan, reaching up to press against my temples. The previous part of the evening seemed distant, detached. Dreamlike, in a way, and somehow shameful in the way that dreams could be. Something furtive and taboo. I need water. I stand, hearing my joints creak.

"Leaving so soon?"

The voice galvanizes me, and I can't stop the yelp as I jerk around, turning to the sound.

A young man, bathed in shadow. His eyes shine in the half light. I can't read his expression. If we had been embroiled in a fight before, one that had simmered down and been reconciled, it would have explained his expression. As it was, pity mixed with muted contempt and something like longing was etched there.

This is insane, I tell myself. My headache is building. I close my eyes, determined that this is a worrying but momentary break with reality. When I open them, he is still staring at me, but there's more pity than contempt now.

"Really?" His voice is soft, with the same tone one might use watching an animal fight against something it's trapped in.

"You came back," I say, not believing the words myself, not believing the figure before me. My doubt is like water in a desert to him. He smiles. It looks grateful, and the wrongness of the emotion sparks a wave of dread from me. I shudder unconsciously, like a dog shaking off water.

"You wanted your answer," he replies, patient. His tone is almost apologetic, and my thoughts ricochet back to the email. Dear Dr. Faust, we regret– My eyes snap shut, predicting the course of the bullet before it can strike me.

Of course, I think. Of course. It would be funny, if it weren't so pathetic.

"I want the answer to many things," I say, and I hate the strained note in my voice, half despair and half anger. "I want to understand why I'm this way. I want to understand why man brutalizes man. I want to understand if we are alone on this cold little rock floating in a vast, uncaring universe. I want to understand if–" and the irrational question, so quick and so close to my being prevents me from saying it aloud, and it's truncated into a quick breath.

He waits, patiently, silently. Then, quietly, "Say it."

"-if I deserve." I can't finish the sentence. It's like the words are crawling from my tongue, animated by some outside intelligence. "To be alive."

There is a pause, and then he says, in a tone that I am familiar with immediately, as a man giving a gentle lecture. "Man craves answers, Faust. It is the nature you have been imbued with since the dawn of your species." There is another pause, and I open my eyes to meet his. His brows are drawn together in consternation, and he looks tired.

"Sometimes," he says, his voice soft in the darkness of the room, "That answer is no."

He is right. He is right, of course. I can't bear to face him. My eyes drift over his shoulder to the gray swath of wall behind him.

"Sometimes," he continues, a bit of steel in his voice. There is a venom there that chills me, like listening to something feral and mean growl. "The questions are irrelevant. What would you have, Faust?"

I look at him, taken aback. "What do you mean?" I fight a rise of fear in my chest. The shine of his eyes have nothing to do with the light, I realize.

"What would you have, Faust?" His voice is a hiss, insistent. His eyes bore into mine, challenging me. I have the sudden, stark sensation that I am on the edge of a precipice, staring down. A churning gulf of nothing beyond me.