The Secret Garden Part 7

Cry: Oh! He just said one of the words that she was trying to find. Excellent, she has just regained perhaps a small portion of the question she was trying to string. There was just that word. That really important word. It was on the tip of her mind and tongue.

“What.” She mimicked. “you.” It was getting close.

“What you do.” Very close now, she could almost feel the victory within her reach. There was just that word left.

Then a wave of nausea sent her head back down and she buried into The Shoulder. Nausea or not, she was going to find that word. If she had any strength left, she would have wanted to be flipping tables right now. Table flipping would help her channel the amount of exasperation she was feeling from the broken concentration.

She quickly twisted her head to the side. Was she going to lose her precious lunch? No lunch was too valuable to be sacrificed. She spat out a glob of saliva to the side and studied the colour of the half congealed mess. It was tinged with of dark red strings that resembled a pulsing earthworm. Her throat had been bleeding again. That explained the bad taste and soreness. Dealing with that later. Question was more important.

“Name.” Finally the word revealed itself. It was like she had just accomplished her life’s goal and the feeling of triumph was evident in her face.

“What you name?” She repeated again to hear the fruits of her labour. She furrowed her brows for a moment and corrected herself. “What your name?”

Chris: His name? Wow, this must be severe for her to forget something as simple as that. If she didn’t remember his name, would she be able to remember the way out of the garden? Suddenly he was a bit worried, going out into the narrow streets while the sun was closing in on the horizon was bad as it was, but doing it without knowing the way was even worse. Getting out would probably take hours, and by then the sun would be on the other side of the globe. And moving around in the city after dark was dangerous. Obviously.

“Chris.” He said, not doing a very good job of concealing how confused and worried he was.

And now she looked sick too. Wasn’t this just perfect? One sick, shaking bunny with memory loss, and a rather cold, confused guy who didn’t have any idea of how to get them home. He pulled down the sleeves of his shirt, but it didn’t help that much against the wind. Lovely.

Cry: “Chris. Chris. Chris.” She repeated a few times. And another few more times. Bleeding throat was not good for speaking. So instead she repeated it in her mind. His brows were drawn together in a rather interesting expression. It looked strange on him. Was it because of her memory loss or had she never seen him look worried before? A nervousness. Like he wanted to go somewhere. No no no don’t go anywhere. Going places was not in Cry’s list of things to do at the moment. Movement of limbs was not in the list. But it was getting cold, even with the hoodie and jacket that he had sacrificed for her. Sleeping sounded pretty good, except that she could see little goose bumps on the arm she was occupying.

“Chris. Chris. Chris.” There was still something missing from that name. Dealing with that later.

“Chris. Chris. Chris. Cold.” It was also getting dark, but unfortunately that particular word hasn’t returned to her vocab yet. And her cheek still hurt. Ok it was probably time to go check what was happening with her cheek. With great effort, she raised her arm to touch the side of her jaw. As her fingers came away from the site, dots of blood were coating the tips.  Beautiful. She was also bleeding from her face. Probably not enough to be as bothersome like her throat, but it wasn’t going to improve her image of the weird person. Meh. Then she noticed that the hoodie he had painstakingly lent her was also soaked with a bit of her blood. She was running out of words to express her mental sarcasm.

“Chris. Chris. Chris. Blood. Here.” She poked him and gestured to his hoodie and then to her face.

Chris: He looked at the blood. Oh well. Both the hoodie and jacket was already stained after their last late night adventure in town. He’d managed to wash out the worst, but you could still see dark contours of the mess on the fabric. Especially on the jacket, since it was so light. He had intended to find himself new clothes today, but hadn’t gotten that far. Instead he had found a pen in a pizza restaurant and we all know what happened after that.

“It’s alright.” He said. Some human blood was nothing compared to rotting brains, it almost seemed clean, bright red next to the dark leftovers.

“Do you remember the way out of here?” He then asked, carefully. Maybe she didn’t even remember where they were. That wouldn’t surprise him.

Cry: Out. Somewhere out. For the first time since she woke up she looked around. Plants. Heaps of plants. There were heaps of plants here. Why would they leave? There were clearly plants here. It was absurd. Then another chilling breeze wafted over them and it seemed less absurd. Too cold here. Ok leaving time then. Too cold for staying. She glanced past him and located the entrance to the garden. Blink. Another blink. And where exactly was here…? Plants place. And then she saw the big tank and remembered the colossal beast which she got her water to water Mr. Shoulder. Ahh yes this was secret-ninja-plant-project-place-loot-shop. Years of memories would take a harder knock to the head to erase.  And it wasn’t like she had forgotten Mr. Chris, it was just that she had forgotten his name. Wait. Mister. Chris.

The euphoria was even better than when she could recall the word ‘name’. She could now recall his name. His name. Name of him.

“Yes. Yes yes yes. Mr. Chris has name now. Yes. Out yes. Cry remember exit. Cry is also cold. Cry can also speak now. Speaking is good. Mr. Chris is also good. Good Mr. Chris and his goodness. His good shoulder as well.” The life was coming back to her eyes and she was able to somewhat recover her half jubilant mood.

Chris: He couldn’t help but smile a little. That was more like the Cry he’d come to know. It was a relief really, he was getting worried she might’ve lost it for good. But she hadn’t, and she also remembered the way out. Great. This meant they might not have to spend the night in the garden, or worse, out in the streets. If they hurried, they might make it through the most central parts of town before sundown. That would be preferable.

“Alright, then let’s get out of here before the sun goes down and we both freeze to death.” He said. ”Can you walk?” He was guessing the answer to this question would be no. She looked in no condition to start skipping down the streets just yet. He’d probably end up having to carry her. But whatever, as long as they got out of there. This garden was starting to make him nervous, and as the trees shadows were growing longer, he could practically feel the night creeping in. He didn’t like it.

Cry: He looked a little less concerned now. The wrinkles around his brows loosened up and there was even a smile on his face. He must have really had a hard time without his name. It was hard to get around in life without a name. It even made the impenetrable Buddha become concerned.

“It’s ok now. You have name. Good. Everything is good now. Cry no likes being bleeding. But that is ok because everything is good. No Cry is no walking.”  She yawned and snuggled into the two layers of clothing and the comfortable Shoulder. Sleeping would be really good. “Cry is no walking and maybe sleeping. Sleep is good…” She nodded off for a moment and blinked. “Good night Mr. Chris. Cry will be sleeping on Shoulder.”

She had forgotten his urgency to be moving and was feeling comfortable to be not. Couldn’t she just co-operate for just once? Nope this was Cry. She snoozed lightly with a softened expression on her face. It was cold yes, but she was tired. At the moment she was just dozing, and would be easily aroused if The Shoulder was to move.

Chris: Wait, what? No! He nudged her. She couldn’t go to sleep now, this was a very, very bad time to go to sleep. They were supposed to be getting out of there!

“No, don’t sleep now!” He said. ”You have to show the way, you can sleep when we’re out.”

He was looking rather worried again. He didn’t want to sleep in this garden tonight. It was creeping him out now that it was getting darker. There was something in the air in here. It made him nervous and nervousness is not good, especially if you’re gonna try to sleep. That usually ended badly.

Cry: She was startled awake again and quickly looked around them. Nothing was moving like a zombie in the vicinity so she failed to see the urgency of his intrusion. And she was tired. But Mr. Chris also looked not-happy. She sighed again.

“Doesn’t Mr. Chris remember the way out?” She tsked at him. “Ok then Cry will show Mr. Chris way out.” She blinked slowly a few more times. “But Cry does no walking. Cry needs to borrow walking from Mr. Chris. Then Cry can tell Mr. Chris how to walk.”

She yawned again and struggled to stay awake. Being awake was important right now, because otherwise Mr. Chris was going to have a difficult time getting out. She rubbed her chin and more blood wet her fingers. At this rate, she was going to bleed all over Mr. Chris’s remaining shirt.

Chris: He sighed a little. Alright, as long as they got out of there.

“Okey, here we go.” He said and managed to get up without dropping Cry to the ground, and reached out his hand to help her get on her feet. He then turned around and gestured to her to get up on his back.

“Get up.” He said. This was definitely the only way he would be able to carry her all the way out of here. He wasn’t a very strong person, you might call him low average on that scale, so bridal style wasn’t an option. That might work for about fifty metres, but then he’d be all tired out. So this was the one way that would work.

Cry: Standing. She needed to stand. That took effort. For a moment she was tempted to just stay on the ground without the support of The Shoulder. But it was cold without The Shoulder. He pulled her up and she stood swaying on her feet. Low blood pressure not cool. Her vision darkened again and she leaned against him to breathe some more. Sitting for long periods of time did not improve circulation to the brain. Up we go. She fastened his jacket and hoodie around her neck like a cape and jumped onto his back to resume her positioning of her head on The Shoulder. Although she was very light for her age, it was still no easy weight for a half starved skinny person. Bridal style would have been more comfortable, but at least it was better than walking. She adjusted her arms around his neck and finally settled down. She might have been breathing into his ear, but she was too content to bother shifting. She yawned again and gestured to the entrance of the garden. At least she had the decently to speak softly, but that was probably due to her fatigue. She gave a few simple instructions about the first leg of the journey and returned to her breathing spot on The Shoulder.

Chris: And off they went. Into the winding streets. Cry didn’t weigh much at all, so he managed to keep up a pretty decent tempo, while at the same time keeping his eyes open for unexpected movements. Admittedly, the wind fooled him a few times, but only for a millisecond or two. Let’s just keep walking.

He followed the directions of the half asleep Cry and sometimes he couldn’t help but wonder if she actually knew where they were going. It felt like they passed the same street corner five times. But then again, all the street corners looked the same.

Every now and then he would look up at the sky, as one star after another was starting to pop up on the darkening background. He always liked the stars, but right now they should be making him stressed since it meant they might end up walking through town in the dark, but instead they just made him calmer for some reason.

Cry: His steady gait lulled Cry off to sleep a few times, but she was always jerked awake when he stopped and consulted her about the next fork. She looked at the passing brickwork and recognised the patterning and the story that came with each oddity. Like for one, there was a dark coloured brick out of place from the other dusty orange ones. That one came from an incident where Mr Tom’s son had chipped away at the previous block because he wanted to keep the floral designed one for himself. They never caught him because Cry was an excellent liar and she had been keeping guard for him. They had to replace that block with a granite one as they had just recently shipped a bunch for the cake shop down the third left alleyway. She smiled at the memory, albeit a bit sadly. The boy had moved out of town shortly after her 8^th birthday and had never returned to her knowledge. He had taken the brick with him and a promise to meet again. What a promise that was. One that she was glad that he had not upheld. 10 years changes everyone, and she was glad that he did not have to see how those years had broken the old Crystal. 

The darkness settled over them like a soft blanket of quiet. A few whistles from wind echoed from the mysterious dead end alleyways that she warned Mr. Chris to avoid. It was strange how the way this place was built, had a confusing effect on newcomers without their guides. Finally when it seemed that Mr. Chris could work out the last few turns of the labyrinth by himself, her instructions lapsed into silence. It was nice feeling, to be able to doze off gently and listen to the even heartbeat of another human.

“Hey Mr. Chris. What would you like to be in the future?” Her sleepy voice mumbled a little. It was a strange question to ask. No one ever thought about the future now, it was just tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. There was no room for the small ambitions when tomorrow seemed so perilous.  “Cry would like to be a psychiatrist. So the voices will then listen to Cry and she will know what they wanted. Then Cry and the voices can be happy. And Cry can be finally happy.” The last sentence trailed off like it was balancing on the beginning of another one.  

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