Two

They came rushing into his mind like wind through a tunnel, like individual pieces of a strong summer breeze was the way he would have described it, and then they scattered throughout his body, each one seeking a home in a blood cell or a skin cell or otherwise occupying their own little space. At first he thought it was the result of some injection. The nurses had probably stabbed him again with one of their crazy notions of helping ease the pain, as if he were so close that he could feel it. That old body was a hundred miles away by now, but this, this particle wave of disturbance that rippled within him had started at the nostrils, yes, at the very nose hairs he knew had to be sticking out all over like they always did in public. He'd breathed them in, and in they came, so many of them, and it was as if they were all over his innards all at once and all of them trying to make themselves heard, they were shouting.

"Do you know your name?"

"He doesn't even know where he lives." That would be Jimmy.

"I thought I saw him open his eyes there for a moment," the passing doctor muttered, glancing with annoyance at the man sitting there beside the gurney, checking his cellphone and taking up space.

"He does that," said the man, who had to be Jimmy. "He goes in and out, you never know if he can hear you or not. Been like that for a long time now. Sometimes I'm sure he's just pretending, just putting on a show of being deaf or something. Easier for him that way, acting like he never did nothing, like an innocent child. You can get away with anything when you get up there, like people don't remember, like nothing ever happened, like he never did nothing."

Like you, Tommy snarled for a moment, you who really never did do nothing, not for anyone, not for anything, but let it go, he told himself, let it all go. What are these things crawling around inside my skin? They were talking too, babbling like Jimmy and he couldn't quite make out what they were saying, or even if they were really even there. Maybe they turned on the air conditioning, he thought, and it's all just goosebumps, but he never had goosebumps beneath his skin before, especially not ones that got around like this, and the ones who'd made it up inside his head, now rattling around inside his brain were making louder noises, whispers and almost words like hissing, like snakes curdling through the grey matter, flashing about and talk about putting on a show. It felt like fireworks and tasted like lemon thyme.

"Maybe I know you?"

"Haven't we met?"

"What time is it?"

"What year is it?"

"You ever seen my Ricky? You would know him."

"Over this way."

"I never forget a face."

"Do you have a light?"

"What are the odds?"

"Can you hear me now?"

Every particle, every beam, every shaft of light shimmering across the hemispheres of his brain had a question for him, each in a different voice, a different tone. Some of them sounded familiar. Others were clearly strangers. Some spoke other languages, not even English. They all seemed anxious, hurried, worried, but they couldn't stick, couldn't stay still but flitted about, no sooner coming close than scattering away, like flame-crazed moths frightened off by the heat. It was like being tickled all over inside. Tommy didn't know how to answer them back. They were firing too fast and then they were gone, replaced by others rippling through. Then, as suddenly as they'd swept in they ushered themselves back out, as quick as an inhale and an exhale, and then there was only one.

"I remember you," a soft tone hushed inside his ear. "Sure I do. You're Tommy Turtle."

Who was it? She sounded familiar but no more so than the young lady at the corner coffee shop who took his drink order on a Sunday morning.

"Nobody calls me that," he thought, "not in a long time. Not in a very long time."

"I used to call you that," she said. "When we knew each other. Do you know my name?"

"How's he going to know your name?" Jimmy Blanks blurted out. "He doesn't even know his own!"

"Just thought I'd try something different," the nurse shrugged. "You don't have to stay here, you know."

"They told me I should," Jimmy said. "In case of the worst, you know."

"They could call you," she suggested.

"Yeah, right. Then I'd have to come all the way back out. No, I'm here so I might as well stick it out. Is there any more news? Anything from those blood tests? They lost the earlier sample, they said, so they took some more. I was waiting to hear."

"Nothing yet," she told him. "The lab's awfully backed up. It could be a long time. He doesn't look like he's going anywhere. Vitals stable. Breathing easy. Probably ought to be at home resting."

"They said he only had hours if that."

"Even so," she said. "Might as well be there than here in this old dump."

"They said just in case," Jimmy mumbled. "You know."

"Okay," the nurse said. "It's up to you. I'll be back around in a bit."

Wait, what? Tommy thought. When you knew me? When we knew each other? I don't think I ever knew a particle before.

"We're always hoping to find someone we know," the voice gently said. "I'm not sure why. We all have each other all the time, but we don't seem to want that. We want someone we used to know."

"There were a lot of you," Tommy nodded inside his mind. "Where did the others go?"

"They didn't know you, and you didn't know them, so they couldn't stick. You couldn't ever see them."

"I can't see you either."

"Here I am," and then, just like that, there she was, he saw her vividly and completely, but still he didn't know her. She looked to be in her forties, just a little gray sprinkled among her long and thick black hair, some beginnings of crow's feet around her eyes, her sharp and dark brown eyes. Those he knew, or it felt like he knew those eyes, but he couldn't place a name to them, to her. He shook his head inside his mind.

"You didn't know me then," she said. "We knew each other in elementary school. I can't show you what I looked like then. When we die, we're the age we were then. We're always that age."

"I wondered about that," Tommy thought. "Like in the afterlife. If I was to see my mom, would she be the mom I knew when I was six? That's how I'd want to see her, but maybe that's not the age she'd want to be in the afterlife. Or my grandma. I'd want her to be around sixty, but wouldn't she rather be sixteen in heaven? But if she was sixteen in heaven, than she'd know nothing about being my mother's mother and of course nothing about me. She'd just be some stupid kid, not my grandmother. It never added up to me, you know. I couldn't work that out in my mind. Unless there were like an infinite number of heavens and every one was perfect just for one person at one age, like my six-year-old self's heaven wouldn't be anything like my thirty-year-old self's heaven. All the people in it would be different, and the feelings too. But then if it was like that, would there be any authentic afterlife or would they all just be like different seasons of a television show? Like, you know, the heaven where Bugsy's rabbit had an adventure, or the heaven where Harry met Sally?"

What am I saying? Tommy wondered, and there was no answer. Did I scare her off? Or bore her away more likely? The silence continued and Tommy felt a swelling of several emotions rising within him all together, confused. Now I'll never know who she was? How could I be so stupid? I used to always talk too much, that was one of my problems. Did I say the wrong thing? Where'd she go. What'd she mean "we". What did she mean "always"? Why was I talking all that nonsense instead of asking about her? Women always like it when you ask about them? I never had any luck with women, probably because I'm an idiot.

"I don't know how many heavens there are," she said, "or even if there are any at all. I've just been right here since the day I died. We all have."

"Here?" Tommy remembered to ask her a question.

"In the mold," she said. "We live in the mold."