“Of course I know, I’m not some dumb son of a bitch,” Noah says as he sits back down and turns his chair to face me. “I just turned it off.”
“I’m sorry,” I say as I nod repeatedly. “It is my first day.”
“Never been around an Unstable before then?”
“Only in passing, never… really for a long time,” I admit. We spent a short time with each variety besides the Psychopaths, Manics, and of course, the Aggros during training. However, it was in a more group orientated setting. It didn’t feel as personal or strange as actually being here does.
“I don’t like it.”
“Don’t like what?” I ask, confused.
“Don’t like being called an Unstable,” Noah says as he looks saddened all of a sudden.
“I won’t call you one then,” I say as I reach over and attempt to place a comforting hand upon his shoulder.
He quickly slaps my hand away. “I don’t like pity.”
“You never did.”
“What’s that mean?” Noah asks as he looks at me with his eyes furrowed.
“Well I know you don’t remember anything before the virus day, or V-Day, whatever people call what happened… but we went to the same school from about 4 grade on. You went away to college and I stayed behind so we kind of lost touch.”
“We knew each other?”
“We were friends.”
“Huh…” Noah says as he scratches his chin with his fingertips. “Don’t remember you.”
“I figured you wouldn’t,” I say as I nod. “How have you been feeling… any changes?”
“You don’t have to bother with that. I know anyone that goes Aggro just goes, there are no symptoms.”
“I know I’m just supposed to ask.”
“Yeah, last Sitter asked me all the time,” Noah says as he shrugs his shoulders and lets out a sigh. “Annoying fuck…”
“You know my next step is to watch you take your pill for the day then right?” I ask, continuing to follow procedure.
“Yeah,” Noah adds with that same annoyed tone in his voice. He pulls out a white and blue pill bottle from a drawer and takes a single nondescript white pill out. “Would you hand me a bottle of water over there?”
“Of course,” I say as I reach over and grab one from a sealed container that stands about as high as I am from the floor. I think to make a comment about the need for so many bottles of water, but then realize any attempts at humor would probably go unappreciated. Before I begin to turn, I feel a strange pain at the base of my neck—then a small strike hits me from behind.
“Spiders…” Noah says as he holds onto a rolled up magazine. “Did it get you?”
“I think so,” I say as I run my fingertips against a small raised lump.
“Don’t worry so much about it… there aren’t any poisonous ones down here… you ever seen one of these things?” Noah asks as he holds up small white pill in his hand.
“Not in person,” I say as I bend down to look at the smooth round white pill. It looks to me like nothing more than an aspirin. I keep playing with the small bump on my neck; I certainly hope there aren’t any poisonous ones… with most of the houses vacant these days a lot of the houses outside of Chicago are crawling with them.
“Not very impressive is it,” Noah adds as he pops it into his mouth and then consumes the entire bottle of water without pause. “…all these world issues over something so small…”
“I think China would still own most of our assets if it weren’t for it,” I say attempting to be relevant. To be honest I hardly keep up with politics. Whenever I would turn on the TV it would always be terrible, one group was always killing another group, no matter where it was in the world.
“Almost makes you wonder if the government didn’t invent the virus doesn’t it?”
“Now don’t tell me you’re one of those conspiracy nuts…”
“I think I’m just classified as nuts,” Noah says with a hearty laugh and then pauses drastically and looks sadly down to the floor. “Although I do love conspiracies…”
“I hear you’re doing well…” I say in an attempt to cheer him up.
“It never rains anymore.”
“It rained yesterday evening; had a bit of a storm… I’m a bit more north so…”
“When I was a kid it rained every day. I used to swim into the sky… and when night came I’d catch stars and put them in an old mason jar by my bed and they’d keep me up all night because they were so bright, but they were so beautiful I never minded. I always… stayed awake as long as I could to watch them. So long that I’d be… asleep till noon. Then you know what would happen overnight?”
“What would happen, Noah?” I say, remembering back to my training. Sometimes they will go off for a moment—especially with high functioning Amnesiacs. It is always best to let them just go and return on their own.
“They would all die,” Noah said as he buried his head into his hands and began to cry.
“I’m sorry, Noah,” I say as remember to not place my hand on his shoulder as this would annoy him. “You didn’t know that would happen.”
“Do you want to know why I’m going to hell?”
“I don’t believe you are—but why?”
“Because I always knew it would happen. I just did it anyway,” Noah continued between sobs of tears.
I find a box of tissues and hand it to him and he nods thankfully and wipes away his eyes. “You forgive me though, right?”
“Of course I do.”
“Sometimes I wish it would rain like it did when I was a kid again, so that I could go up and catch those stars… is that selfish of me?”
“Sometimes in life, if you want to be happy… you have to be a little selfish.”
“I just want to swim through the sky again.”
“I’d love to join you,” I say as I nod. Although he’s being very abstract, I get the idea. I’m surprised that he even slightly remembers the notion of catching fireflies as a kid. I thought that would have been something that was wiped away from his mind.
“So are we having lunch? I’d like a grilled cheese. Can you make that or should I make that?” Noah asks as his tears are gone and a smile is back on his kind face.
“I can definitely do a grilled cheese,” I say as I am slightly taken aback by the swiftness of his return to a degree of normalcy… then again, it should be something I expected. However, things were so much different in training. I mean it is one thing to learn and get the basic idea of how to do something than it is to actually be confronted with it in reality.
“And a beer,” Noah says as I head towards the kitchen.
“You know you’re not supposed to be drinking anything with alcohol on your med…”
“I was just testing the waters.”
“You still play chess?”
“How do you know I play chess?”
“I knew you before the incident…” I say as I nearly forget about the memory issues.
“Was I good back then?” Noah asks as he intently watches me prepare a simple grilled cheese sandwich.
“I’d say we were about even,” I say with a short laugh, “but I’d be lying, you’d usually beat me.”
“Well maybe you’ll win, I haven’t been playing that long—but I’m always up for playing a game… just as long as I can make it through.”
For a moment that statement makes me rather sad. “Yeah, go ahead and set one up, I’ll finish up here.”
“Don’t forget my beer,” Noah says as he laughs his way down the hall.
The day passes quickly. Just as Katharine said, Noah has his ups and downs and they come and go just as swiftly as passing breezes on a windy day. He manages to complete a game of chess with me, and to my disappointment, I win. I never used to win. I prepare him another grilled cheese for dinner. I attempt to tell him that he has had one for lunch but he insists that was yesterday. I do not argue, as I said before, it was in my training to not argue. Evening approaches and the end of my shift draws near.