Someone else’s memories buzzing to the surface

Status: Pulse stable. Respiratory functions approaching baseline. Someone else’s memories buzzing to the surface.

I sit at the edge of a pier, between a cormorant preening with its orange beak, and a white fluffy dog sniffing a river-damp coil of rope. It’s quiet here. Few people, no crackle of radiation detectors, no smell of burnt rock and human effusion. Just old jazz music drifting from a shop along a busy promenade, distant ducks and insects calling, wooden boat hulls knocking, and water lapping at pylons below. Water that’s safe to touch.

An old couple stands nearby. The woman wears a gold and black qipao tinted pink by sunset; it looks like a relic out of time. Her silver hair is pulled and pinned in a vintaged style. She turns away, nestled in the arm of the old man. He wears a beige suit and matching hat. His hand rests at her waist, fingers pinching the fine fabric at her hip.

The perfect picture of a lasting love. Something about his voice reminds me of you.

Qing.

One word: my name. A call from Origin through the neural lace grafted to my brain and nerves, connecting me to another place in another time. A reminder of what I’m here to do.

I clutch a bottle cap; its sharp metal edges ground me in the present. It’s funny, don’t you think, to consider this moment the present, as if the past and future I came from aren’t supposed to exist? If you were here, I’d ask. You’d smile and kiss my forehead and say you love my nonsense questions.

But you’re not here. They want me to forget you ever were.

✨ Until We Met Again is now available from most e-book retailers ✨

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JL Peridot writes love letters to the future on devices from the past. Visit jlperidot.com for the full catalogue of her work or subscribe to Dot Club for a collection of her tiny stories.