“So, telling me Ella was leaving was to trick my unconscious brain into showing itself,” I say.
“To put it crudely,” says Creel.
I could put it a lot more crudely, but I’m too busy losing my mind.
“Tell me how to stop it,” I say.
“If your brain no longer finds consciousness useful,” says Creel, “then I don’t think you can.”
#
The sky is wispy grey-blue, and in the distance I can hear my heartbeat coming from another life. I can’t think straight. I need a drink, or a sedative, or a bullet to the brain. Ella’s talking but I only hear every second word.
“…cancel the course…not important…”
I take her hands and look into her eyes. I’ve always loved her stern, melancholy eyes.
“It’s okay, Ella,” I say. “If you love me, you’ll go. And if I really love you, I won’t expect you to come back. If this keeps getting worse, I won’t know what I’m doing. I won’t be there for you. I could even hurt you.”
Ella just closes her eyes.
“Yes,” she says.
“What?”
She kisses me gently, then pulls away.
“The other you will understand,” she says.
#
She’s gone, and every night hangs over me, ready to steal another day. I keep missing my job interviews, and getting confusing messages from old friends. My fridge is full of ingredients I don’t recognise, and I’ve done my knee in doing god knows what.
Sometimes, I stay up for days at a time, trying not to fall asleep. My head starts to tingle like a restless leg until I can’t take it, and I wake up with a two-hundred-dollar phone bill.
Odd jobs keep me going, but I don’t know how long I can keep this up. I’m losing the battle, but I won’t give up.
No surrender.
#
I wake in an unfamiliar bed. Lemon-coloured wallpaper, and curtains that smell like old shoes. Warm arms are wrapped around my chest. It’s Ella.
“Morning,” she says sleepily.
“Ella?”
She sees my confusion and kisses me softly.
“You came to Port Siroc,” she says. “You got a temp position at the student office.”
“I don’t like students.”
“No one at the office does.”
She has to run to class, but promises me a tour of the city later.
“It’ll be okay,” says Ella. “We can make this work.”
I nod, but I wonder if she’s talking to me or the other me.
#
I’m left with pieces now. One day in seven, one day in ten. The rest of the time, I’m not here. I’m fading and I’m not ready.
Ella’s finished her course, and she’s looking for work in bio-archiving. I think I’m working, but my memory’s flaking at the edges. I secretly take tricyclics and benzodiazepines, but the other me keeps throwing them out. I’ve stopped talking to Ella about it because it upsets her too much. It doesn’t matter which me is here for her, but I want it to be me.
I want to be here.
#
The days are gone.
It’s moments now. Moments in the dark, unable to move. I wake up staring at the ceiling – usually my ceiling, occasionally an unfamiliar one. My body is going on holidays without me.
All I have are breathless snatches, brief moments of consciousness in the blue night. I can feel Ella beside me, warm and unreachable. I want to scream, I want to run, I want to wake up—
She stirs, and I struggle to move my lips a fraction, shape my throat around silent words.
Don’t give up on me.
Her eyes meet mine, her lips part as though to speak—
#
I’m left with dreams, and random frames from a life that isn’t mine anymore.
A wedding dress hanging on the door. A child crying from the next room. My life goes on without me.
These thin melon-slices of night are more intense and precious to me than the broad, wasted days I sailed through mindlessly. But I’m still here.
I can imagine that she’s happy, and maybe that’s enough.
Now I know what’s on the other side of that endless fence.
I am.
#
It’s morning.
The air smells of orange juice and jam rolls. I flex my hand weakly, and the rumpled blankets fall away as I get up. I feel like a visitor in someone else’s life. The dreams still cling to me, more real than the cool floorboards beneath my feet.
The kitchen is papered with cheerful amoeba, and Ella is showing a three-year-old girl how to mash a banana.
“I found a recipe to use up that coconut cream,” says Ella.
She stops when she sees me. There are fine wrinkles around her eyes, and her waistline is looser. I imagine I’ve changed in the same direction. Translucent memories ripple through my mind, resolving into a single point in time and space.
“Morning,” I say.
Ella smiles.
“Welcome home, Mark.”
###
About the Author
DK Mok is the author of The Other Tree, Hunt for Valamon, and the Aurealis Award shortlisted story ‘Morning Star’ (One Small Step: An Anthology of Discoveries).
DK grew up in libraries, immersed in lost cities and fantastic worlds, populated by quirky bandits and giant squid. She graduated from UNSW with a degree in Psychology, pursuing her interest in both social justice and scientist humour.
She’s fond of cephalopods, androids, global politics, rugged horizons, science and technology podcasts, and she wishes someone would build a labyrinthine library garden so she could hang out there. DK lives in Sydney, Australia, and her favourite fossil deposit is the Burgess Shale.
Discover other books by DK Mok
The Other Tree
Hunt for Valamon
Connect with DK
Website: https://www.dkmok.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dkmokauthor
Twitter: @dk_mok
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/dkmok
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The Other Tree
by DK Mok
It’s been four years since Chris Arlin graduated with a degree in cryptobotany, and she’s still no closer to scraping up funding for her research into rare plants. Instead, she’s stacking shelves at the campus library until a suspiciously well-dressed man offers her a lucrative position on a scientific expedition.
For Chris, the problem isn’t the fact that they’re searching for the Biblical Tree of Life. Nor is it the fact that most of the individuals on the expedition seem to be lethally fashionable mercenaries. The problem is that the mission is being backed by SinaCorp, the corporation responsible for a similar, failed expedition on which her mother died eleven years ago.
However, when Chris’s father is unexpectedly diagnosed with an incurable illness, Chris sees only one solution. Vowing to find the Tree of Life before SinaCorp’s mercenaries, Chris recruits Luke, an antisocial campus priest undergoing a crisis of faith. Together, they embark on a desperate race to find the lost garden of Eden.
However, as the hunt intensifies, Chris discovers growing evidence of her mother’s strange behaviour before her death, and she begins to realise that SinaCorp isn’t the only one with secrets they want to stay buried.
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