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You wake up late because you couldn't sleep again last night—oh, that's not entirely true. You refused to sleep if you're honest about it, but intentional and unintentional insomnia look the same from the outside, and who's counting really?
You make your bed after you get up because even after all these years, it's your grandma who keeps you on the straight and narrow. Sometimes in your youth you'd tumble home from a full day of rolling in the mud and chasing tinkerbulls, and she'd say, “Go wash your hands and make your bed, and then we'll have some supper.” Over time, you got into the habit of making your bed first thing in the morning. After breakfast you'd see her peek into your room to check and feel a swell of pride, knowing what she'd find there.
You use military corners, like she taught you; you smooth out the creases and wrinkles with quiet sweeps of your hands, like she taught you. It's raining hard and you're in no rush to be out of doors—when are you ever, though? It's not like the old days, when your grandma kept you on a schedule structured by calling you in to meals and lulling you to sleep with black-and-white movies. You were up again watching them last night, and you should really stop yourself before you wander too far down this mental path, there's no place for such thoughts in the daytime.
--
The rain never really stops here. It just manifests as hyper-humidity, a perpetual mist that condenses on your skin. You open your mouth to drink it in and get nothing, as per usual.
Your surroundings are so terrifically riotous with both plant and animal life that it barely registers for you anymore unless it's in your way. You leave your guns in your sylladex and pull out your machete, slicing through the vines with quick, efficient swings. You think Dirk would be proud of your fancy bladework—you can measure your progress in yards, not inches as you used to.
In truth you don't think he'd last very long out here, even with fighting skills as terrific as his, if Brobot is anything to go by. Brobot is, after all, a robot; he doesn't need to know which plants are poisonous, and which insects are good for snacking.
There are about a million ways you could die out here, and you've had close brushes with at least half of them by now—when you're not falling out of trees, you're falling into holes, or open monsters' mouths. But you're not afraid! Not you, not Jake English, gung-ho adventurer and hero of blue ladies everywhere.
(...Oh, who are you kidding.
You can choose the movies you lose yourself in—you can choose to imagine yourself as a foxy leading lady, or a well-meaning gent in a hilarious mix-up that will turn out well in the end, or a debonair spy on the last great mission of his life. You can imagine yourself living Dirk's life, or Roxy's, even though you're not sure you'd want them; you can imagine yourself in Jane's quiet house, even though you're not sure what you'd do there. But you don't need to imagine yourself here, the star of your own personal movie on Hellmurder Island, and you think that makes up the lion's share of the problem.
You shake yourself. You need to stop letting your thoughts get away from you like this. It's really unlike you, and frankly a bit dangerous.)
You're out to find a new fishing hole today! Your old one's been running a bit dry, and you've been hearing ominous splashing sounds upstream that probably mean some nasty beast has taken up residence and claimed your primary source of protein for its own. It's all the same to you—just another excuse for an adventure that you can regale your friends with later this evening.
Then you remember your plans for the evening, and you pause mid-swing.
Well, tomorrow, you amend. A story good enough to tell is a story good enough to keep, as you always say.
--
You take your supper of fish and fruit and climb to the roof, slippery and spherical as it is. The overgrowth helps your boots find traction on the stainless steel surface, and you plunk down in the center and look up at the stars overhead. It's very dark, so the stars are very bright, and you grin at them. You wave briefly at the constellations that are your favorite, that were your grandmother's favorites, too.
Your computers are off for once. You light the candle you've brought and huddle against it to shield it from the wet, tucking into your meal as you converse with the open air, as you always do. The small heat against your skin makes you shiver. You tell her about the new fishing spot you found today, and the plants you picked up on the way home, and the new cave you discovered that you'll look into tomorrow. You're a master storyteller after years of study and practice. Your bruises are trophies, not punishments, and fear only serves to keep the story interesting. You keep the unsavory bits for yourself.
After a while you listen to yourself instead, your own captive audience—the way your accent sounds foreign when compared to the voices in the movies you watch. The inane things you talk about because your life isn't actually interesting, you just know how to lie. Your body hums with bug bites and leftover aches.
There's no one else here. Of the people you love most in this world, all of them can look up at the sky at this very moment and none of them will see the constellations that you are seeing. There's only you and the jungle and this small fire, because that's the closest you can get to her now. There's only you and you are not enough.
“Happy birthday, Grandma,” you whisper, and bury your head in your arms.