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It hurts.
That’s what CH – Or, Eden, now – thinks whenever he remembers things. Most times, it’s just every time he’s died – which never bothered him before… before…
Well, before BB gave him his memories back. Death was just a natural consequence of his work. He never wore his oxygen tank, what was the use? He’d just come back if anything went wrong.
Now his memories only serve to remind him of every single time he defied what was thought to be impossible. He came back after death. Every time.
The memories mocked him. Mocked Lenny.
The memorial was put up with gentle care not long after they came out of the facility. F and STL standing nearby while BB stood just behind his shoulder whilst he adusted all the parts of the structure, fighting the tremor in his hands. The cans of food, definitely expired, were stacked. Her bag laid against the pole. A dozen flowers planted, some intertwined and made to wind up the stake in the ground. Some drawings of hers that he found in between the book pages – that strawberry jam she never got to eat. BB found that one.
Going to the hideout was like carving out his heart again. It felt worse than the hundred times he’s died. It felt worser than any word that could be used to describe it. To describe ‘grief’, what a strange thought. To grieve.
Everything was right where it was left – everything. Lenny’s books. Her doodles, her clothes. Her bed.
God, her bed.
The sheets had been undisturbed. Completely undisturbed. The pillow still indented where her little head had been laid –
Where her body stained the tiling.
– and the blanket kicked up where her feet had pulled at the sheets. Where she had rolled up against the wall, feet to the sky. So alive. Miniscule, small movements of her toes and her hands – her eyes moving. Seeing. Living. What had she thought, when she stared up at the ceiling of the container?
What did she get up to, when he was gone? When he was meeting with BB – with ‘Crow’? What was her life like before she had met him? What did she think about? What did she like – (Strawberry jam, sunlight and puddles) – and what did she not?
What could her life had been like?
The state of the container, dark and dismal, was like a capsule in time. It was as if she was still outside the shipping container. As if she was still on her way to the powerplant, still close enough that he could chase after her. Still close enough that he could still follow. Before she went somewhere he couldn’t – not for a long time.
He could follow her now, now that CONTACT was done. Now that he knew he wouldn’t be able to come back after death. It was all that he was waiting for… for years. Yet. Yet something kept him tethered here.
It was a humiliation ritual. It felt like irony that after… After Lenny – that death was never permanent. Not for him. It wasn’t fair. He had learnt for so long that he could just come back if anything went wrong. He’s had long deaths. Short deaths. Instant deaths. But he always came back. There was always a backup plan.
What a mockery. She died and he lost his reason to keep going and then he had his memory erased and for so long, too, he forgot about Lenny. She died again, in a way. And he lived, though he didn’t know why – and finally, finally, he remembered her and she isn’t here anymore and…
He wants to live, now.
It was hard to be hit with all that the moment the active danger receeded.
He couldn’t go into the container, not for a long while. BB had to go in and collect the books. Eden was shaking so bad that he almost considered taking his helmet off for any air, any air at all but the nest had spread so far that the air here wasn’t any good. It was a miracle he was even breathing as is.
So, all he had of Lenny was what was in his mind (and BB’s, though he didn’t speak much about her) and the feeble objects he could carry to the memorial.
He didn’t have any pictures of her. That’s what hit him a couple of weeks later when he was trying to remember her face moving in a certain way and was surprisingly jarred by the fact he couldn’t quite remember how she smiled.
So, he tried to draw her.
The thing is, he wasn’t any good at drawing. He tried, anyways. To illustrate her. To put something up of her face, to always remember her by – to have a small corner of golden sunlight always shine in one part of this shitty world.
He had filled a notebook with hundreds of bad drawings, shitty doodled. Damned pictures. Nothing ever looked like her - nothing ever really captured that smile. The grief turned to anger.
He gave up for a long while after that.
It was when they were all sitting around a fire, BB staring up at the sky above and STL writing in a notebook about CONTACT, that Eden went about trying to illustrate her again.
The earnestness could have been there, could have been in the wobbly line that was her smile or the dots for her eyes – the unsightly shapes for ears he had tried to draw – but nothing about it felt earnest. It felt like a mockery. It was humiliating.
He was shaking again when F – Freshman – placed his (its?) hand on the top of the page to still the trembling.
He looked up and a burst of static came from the A.I. Of course, he didn’t understand what he was trying to say – no one did – but he swallowed and nodded shakily.
“I’m fine.” He murmured, placing the pencil down at his side and turning the page over. He puts the notepad down on the ground.
He stares into the flames and props his head up on his hand, feeling for the edge of the stickers on his helmet. He sees Freshman lean down and pick up the notepad – he jolts and reaches for it.
“Hey! Don’t–” He starts, trying to get up.
F is too tall, though, and so he just lifts it to face-height and looks at the horrible drawing of Lenny with zero courtesy to Eden.
“Give it back, you!” He says louder, hands reaching up for the notepad as the A.I turns his back to him.
His hand begins to move – Eden can’t see what he’s doing. Eden looks down and sees the pencil gone – he’s vandalising his beatiful illustration! Damn his own self-hatred!
“Come on!” He begins to try and clamber onto his back – but he drops back down to his feet when Freshman tilts back a little bit to shake him off—
This little…
He turns back around and stares at the page, the pencil in his other hand limp. Eden angrily stands there, arms crossed.
“Did no one teach you not to touch other people’s stuff?” Eden asks.
Freshman replies with a long fizzle of static.
“Quiet, you two.” BB’s voice comes from over the fire, sleepy and low.
“…What’d you do to it anyway?” Eden asks quietly, putting his hand on the edge of the page to see–
F turns it around.
It looks nothing like Lenny, not really anyways and… it’s gorgeous.
The lines are crisp and directed, with little margin for error – still artistic, still… stylistic. But just effective. Efficient. Capable, not extensively shaded or realistic – but overlaid the shoddy guidelines Eden had put down – it looks like something grand. It almost looks like her, almost looks like what he’s been desperately replaying in his mind’s eye for… for years.
“Woah.” He sighs, tracing the pencil with his finger. “I didn’t know you could draw!”
F replies with static. Eden stares at the page a little longer.
“Could you draw something if I tell you what to put down?” He asks, softly. Something vulnerable in his tone.
There’s a strange pyre of flowers and books near a fenced section enclosing a large radioactive area of the city.
There’s stacked cans, a bag, and a large pile of books. Come by and you can take a can or two – but there’ll always be some more that appear to keep the stack in tack. The flowers grow up the wooden pole. It’s best not to touch the whole thing, though. You never know who put it up…
But, had you come by it nowadays… you might see something different.
There’s a paper.
It’s pinned to the very top of the wooden pole with a nail and it’s enclosed in a clear, plastic bag. Inside, on that clean sheet of paper, is a smiling image of a little girl with shaggy black hair and ruddy cheeks – it looks clinical, highly-detailed – as if it’s a picture of a little girl laughing at a joke behind the frame. As if it was a picture taken yesterday. Look closer, though, and you’ll see the mechanical scratchings of the lead on the page. It’s clear now: This is a drawing. Made with precision, made with diligence. Notably, though, made of love.