This morning Great Water does not eat in the way she has taught me. Her hands flail about as she pours the eggs into the saucepan, but she manages to cook them without creating too much mess. There are even edible this morning, as it takes much longer to remove the eggs from heat with her fingers shaking, not able to fully wrap themselves around the handle.

Now that the eggs are in front of her, she starts using the utensils in an efficient and wasteful manner. Her fingers pat the silver, trying to find a grip, but they just slip into a clumsily drawn fist. Great Water's skull suddenly becomes more defined as her cheeks are drawn in with frustration. Finally, she holds the wavering fork, but it's upside down. Unnoticing, she plunges the blunt end into the egg and tries to slice, ignoring the knife entirely.

I slowly eat the morning meal and try not to make it seem like anything is out of the ordinary.

Great Water licks the yolk off her fork, and this time presses the long edge into the egg, increasing the surface area. Her face is getting yellower with each clumsy repetition, but she acts completely nonchalant about the entire affair. When she does finally acknowledge my presence, it has nothing to do with the wet yolk dripping down her face or the events of last night, still burned harshly into my memory.

My name isn't Great Water.

You made that clear some time ago.

I know. I just wanted make sure you remembered.

I suppose it's rational that she would test me. Perhaps that the purpose of eating the eggs in such a way: to see if I was unsure of what I had learned. My curiosity is peaked.

What is it, your real name?

Mare.

No, that's a female horse.

I'm not a great water either.

Yes, you are. You are Great Water.

No, a river is a great water, and I am a woman, not a river.

You said Great Water is not a river, but is only like a river.

And you assumed that meant I was describing myself? That I was somehow like a river?

This is going nowhere. I would like to learn more letters today.

You shall learn my name today.

I know your name. It is Great Water.

You do not. I am named Mare.

But a Mare is a horse!

Great Water exhales, the yellow still sticking to her face, now almost dried and crusting with the subtle movement.

I know it is difficult to exchange ideas like this. For you, without any language, there are no synonyms, no...

You're not making sense again.

Sorry. In your mind there are no concepts with the same name as other concepts. Everything is unique, for the world, as you know it, is smaller than your mind ever will be.

When will that not be case?

Perhaps not in your lifetime, but it was in mine.

Great Water often thinks like this, but we never seem to go anywhere when I enquire deeper into the subject. Instead I pause and ponder what she has been teaching.

So mare can be a horse, and Mare can be your name?

Yes.

But why?

It means more than you can ever know. Had you been born earlier, in the time before, this would all make sense. I hope one day it still will. For now, we must learn to make do with what we have.

You also learn?

Great Water/Mare's face softens.

It is the only thing that makes life worth living. Now, go to the parlour. Latin characters was yesterday. We'll work on "Greek" today. Tomorrow we shall start on "kanji". I want to have you writing as soon as possible.

Why?

So I can finally have something new to read.

∞

Mare brings no breakfast this morning, but instead sits at the table and nervously picks at her fingers.

It's best we try this on an empty stomach, in case something goes wrong.

I am not particularly encouraged by this.

Now that we've covered the basics, we should be able to significantly increase the rate of your learning. The entire reason for allowing people to share minds in the first place was so that only one person would ever need to learn something, and everyone else would be able to instantly gain the knowledge.

Why didn't you just start with that?

Because knowledge is useless without the reasoning to apply it. We are so different, you and I. You wouldn't be able to understand even the most infantile of what I've learned over the years. Not without some common reference.

"Reference"?

Not without some common points of understanding between us. Even now, I have to be incredibly careful about what I share with you. You mind might not accept it, just like your digestive tract wouldn't have accepted the eggs.

Please don't bring up eggs again.

Don't worry, I won't.

Mare leans forward and touches my hand.

Later, if we do this more often, we won't need to make physical contact, but right now it will probably help. Are you comfortable?

I'm fine.

Good. We're going to focus on teaching you how to read today. Your muscles need to learn how to write, so that will take some time in the real world, but we should be able to transfer reading skills just with a simple tap, like this.

A book is open on my lap. Mother points to each word, written in large, unmistakable print and mouths their sounds to me. I repeat after her, but my tongue is sloppy and unfocussed. The words are totally meaningless anyway. I want to go play. Where are my cow girl toys?

You must experience these memories "objectively", otherwise they won't help you in any way. You'll know the feelings but you won't grasp the information. Try picturing yourself as you are now, inside of the memory. Just watching, not actually participating.

I try to write two words on the board that rhyme. I start with "horse", and carefully draw out every letter with my marker. Then I move on to the next word. My mind is absolutely empty. The teacher is waiting expectantly. The other children have giant, mocking smiles plastered all over their stupid faces. I start to breathe faster and harder, sweat starting to ooze out onto my forehead.

That probably wasn't a good one to show. It's difficult to be precise with which memories I share. It's been so long since I-

The class starts laughing at me. Roger, with his fat face and ugly glasses, is pointing at me, his cheeks flushed red with cruel guffaws and juvenile insults. Mrs. Teacher tries to settle them down, but there's no point. The tears are already flooding down my face.

I fall from my bike and tear a giant hole in my shin. Blood washes down my leg, covering the gravel that's been lodged inside the gaping wound. I cry for help, but I'm in the middle of a lonely country road. There's no one around for miles.

I'm riding, and I'm suddenly bucked off without warning. I fall flat on my chest, and the air is knocked from my lungs. I open my lips, but nothing comes in. The air is heavy and unwieldly, and I can no longer breathe it. I feel the world rapidly collapsing in on me, like I'm being squeezed through a tube of toothpaste.

A tsunami kills thirty thousand people on the other side of the world. I feel nothing. Why do I feel nothing?

I can't believe they elected that guy President.

I've never felt so hungry before. Why is the supermarket always closed nowadays?

My house is on fire. Everyone's house is on fire. Her hair is burning. His body is in flames. They're running in opposite directions like decapitated chickens. There's nowhere to stop, drop and roll. The whole world is burning to crisp.

They want us to fight back. I can't kill somebody. I know I can't. I can't even hold a gun.

We're running out of places to keep the bodies. Our tractors can't pile them that high.

They're screaming. The waters are going to be over their heads any minute. There isn't any more room on the boat. They still shriek and cry with increasing desperation as they begin to drown. They scramble over each to get closer to us, but they just form a macabre pyramid of bodies leading nowhere. Finally the last of them give up and the screams cease.

I'm on the kitchen floor, my spittle covering the white tiles. I pulsate wildly while Mare watches over me, waiting for it to stop.

I'm sorry. I'm so terribly sorry.

∞

You must have questions.

Yes.

First, I want you to know that not all those memories happened to me. There are things in my head that aren't from the real world. I imagined them, saw them in books or movies, embellished them. I have so many memories it can be difficult to sort through-

This makes no sense to me.

I still have a question.

Mare sighs and crosses her legs tighter on the rug on which we sit. She straightens her back and firmly plants her hands on her knees, every muscle in her body suddenly becoming tense.

What is it?

Who is the yellow-haired man?

You don't want to know about the memories?

No. Why?

Nothing. What did you want to know?

Who is the yellow-haired man?

What man? There's no one here but you and I.

I've seen him. He comes at night, walks with you.

I don't go walking at night. I can't see anything. It's dangerous.

You've done it seventeen times in the last month.

You're imagining things. Your mind can play tricks on you, make you see things that aren't there. It's important to sort out what is real and what is not. That's the trick to learning my memories.

How can I know what is real and what is not? My eyes were open the entire time.

Mare pinches me. My arms hastily retreat behind my back.

That was painful.

I know. I'm going to do it again. This time, close your eyes and imagine you're in the adjoining room, watching someone else get pinched by me.

I close my eyes and imagine the room with Mare sitting across from the yellow-haired man. She smiles and playfully pinches him. He laughs and-

That still hurt.

Good. Try it again.

I'm watching from the parlour's door. Mare pinches the yellow-haired man, and he grimaces in pain. He tries to pinch her back, but she rolls just out of his reach. He growls, like a night beast ready to make a kill, stalking his-

Why are doing this?

Because in reality, if you imagine yourself somewhere else, you'll still feel what happens to your body. In a memory, if you separate yourself from it, if you experience it "objectively", you will feel nothing, only learn.

Do you want to try with a memory this time?

Yes.

My feet are blistering from an intense heat only a few metres below. They're naked and smooth, but slowly being blackened by the hail of soot. I'm sweating rivers, the salt sticking uncomfortably to every nook and cranny with its steam burning my exposed skin.

I look down and see my feet standing on a flimsy board of knotted wood over an effervescent pool of thick, fiery liquid. An enormous bubble suddenly burst, sending flaming spray into the air, only the most infinitesimal particle of which lands on my right ankle, but it burns through my pants, sending the smell of singed plastic and cloth straight to my nostrils and scorching the skin beneath.

I scream in anguish, and I thrust my foot into my hand, trying to put pressure on the wound. I lose my balance, hopping over the narrow, wooden plank only to feel my toes against its edge, slowly slipping and then the heat roasts my succulent flesh as I fall into the pit.

Every hair, fingernail and piece of cloth stuck to my body bursts into flames before it is extinguished by the all-encompassing mass of the red liquid. I try to swim to safety, but the fluid is too heavy. It pulls me down and eats away every strip of flesh until I'm only a pile of sinew and bones, buried beneath the weight of endless of despair.

You're making progress, but you need to imagine yourself outside of the memory, as an observer. Let's try again.

I can't breathe. The liquid is solidifying around me, and it's filled my lungs like cement. My sight is gone too, as my eyes melted into streaks of grease and slid away through inscrutably tiny cracks in the rock.

I try to imagine what the world must be like outside, but it's so dark, so impossibly dark. There's no sound, my ears were singed away to useless carbon stubs. No taste, my tongue is burned to my jawbone. No touch but the excruciating rock slowly moving into the marrow of my bones with the efforts of time and gravity.

I try to imagine being outside, but I can't. The world is nothingness. Its complete vacuity, just my thoughts bouncing through a hollow skull, the blubber in my brain already liquefied and leaked through my nose cavity.

It's an emptiness I cannot escape...forever.

That's was a difficult one, I understand. You're getting there, though. Let's try one more time.

Suddenly, there's a booming crack somewhere far above me. Then, there's another, much closer, and somehow I can feel the vibrations in my frame as rocks are tumbling around, falling and shattering into a myriad glassy shards. I can feel the light as it shines over me. I can feel the-

A brown-haired man, dressed in green pants that cover over his shirt as well, lifts a blackened skull from jagged, pale mountainside.

You're lucky. If it weren't for that rockslide I'd never have found you. You probably would have been trapped until the rain ate away the whole mountain and the ridge fell into the valley.

He brushes away the stray obsidian from the skull, breaks it open and pulls a small white box from its centre.

It's a good thing we still have a few spare bodies lying around. The replicator isn't working as well as it used to.

Why can't Claudia fix it?

She's gone.

When?

The man slips the box into his breast pocket and begins his steady descent from the serrated edges of the summit before sliding down a slope of smooth, pebbly gravel several miles tall. Dust rises in a dense and smoky cloud, covering the landscape in grey and ash.

When?

A very long time ago.

∞

We spend most of our afternoons like this now, sitting in the parlour, reading our books. Mare is re-reviewing the works of Jane Austen, and I look over issues of National Geographic Kids. The pages are somewhat unusual. Instead of rectangles, each page has a completely unique shape. Some have square holes in them. Others are simply little "L"s or "T"s or even single columns. It keeps me guessing, which is a good thing. It's healthy for the brain to exercise.

After I'm read enough to summon the courage, I put my magazine down and look over to Mare.

Mare, will we ever procreate some day?

Mare's eyes don't even leave her book.

No.

I return to my magazine and try not to look back at her again.

∞

There's a "theatre" hidden away on the inside. Its seats are red and plush, with armrests and reclining functions to stretch out one's back. Mare never taught me how to use the projector, but she has tiny paper squares attached to it which explain how to project images onto the screen. There are squares like these all over the inside, on the stove, oven, washer, drier and several hundred stuck to an elliptical screen in the study which Mare hasn't specifically addressed yet. Mare never acknowledges these squares, but as my reading improves, I've been able to use more and more of them. The first square reads: "1: Press palm flatly on mini-screen and hold for three seconds."

Mare only shows pictures of classrooms, of people writing on chalkboards, for my education. She tries to demonstrate herself, but some days she isn't even able to grip the pen tightly enough to put it to paper. The ink just scatters in countless, tiny drops as the pen vibrates on the paper, her hand constantly shifting over it, trying to find the correct fingering. It's easier if I watch someone else.

But I'm alone now. Mare is with her horses, and I'm ready to see more. I place my hands on the projector and see what wonders it has to offer.

There's a variety of classroom exercises with boring titles such as "grammaire facile française" or "اردو میں لکھنے". I move through these, my right middle finger quickly pushing them away from sight. Then are pictures of the interior of buildings, something called the "上海中心大廈" and a few other unrecognizable names.

It takes many minutes of sorting through these boring, metallic pictures to find the single blotch of green for which I was searching. I had seen it only once before, out of the corner of my eye, while Mare was finding my cursive lesson, and I have not been able to take it out of my mind since.

I've been imagining rooms lately, with the occasional tapestry or painting. When I'm flying, it's no longer through skies and forests, but through kitchens and parlours. I see whites and greys, never brown and green. I've forgotten what a fish smells like when it's freshly plucked from the river or what sand feels like falling through my fingers after waking up in the morning. I've forgotten the wind against my back or the rain stuck to my shoulders. I've forgotten the runs in the forest and blood in my mouth. I've forgotten what it feels like to have absolutely nothing in your belly and have the fear of death in your heart.

I've forgotten the outside, and I want to remember.

I hold my finger above the floating image of the green, wondering if I am doing something wrong. Mare has never made it clear that I was not to see films without her permission. But why did she did make this so difficult to find? Does she just not have more pictures of the outside? Was it an accident to hide it from me? Was she planning to do it later? Will I ruin the moment if I see it now?

I hold my finger over the projector, but it starts to falter and I return it back to my fist. I can hear Mare coming back up through the laundry room anyway. For now, I'll wait. I'll see the outside later. I'm sure of it.