As we drove, I looked out the windows and watched as everything went by. On the way out of the forest, there were notably more animals. It was strange how many animals were present now when previously I saw no animals outside of the deer we almost hit. Maybe I was just too nervous to notice them if they were out there. Now, driving through the forest, it was filled with squirrels, rabbits, birds, and so much more.
Upon leaving the last of the forest, I felt an immense surge of relief as the rest of the negative feelings the forest gave me left. It was just too bad that the beautiful tree lines turned into ugly, gray buildings.
The ride was, once again, a mostly wordless drive. It was nice not feeling pressured to talk; it left me time to think and try to sort out my own muddled thoughts. It also saved me from racking my brains to continue a useless conversation I had no interest in. In fact the best and my favorite part about the whole drive was when Max turned down his driveway. The forest that surrounded his house welcomed me home.
“Well, did you enjoy your outing?” Max questioned me as he turned the car off and climbed out.
I followed suit and exited the car, “No.”
“Really, why’s that. You’re always begging me to let you into the forest around my house.”
“That forest didn’t want us there.”
“What do you even mean by that?”
“Just what it sounds like. It tried to tell us to turn around, and you didn’t listen.”
He shook his head and took his notebook out of his back pocket and scribbled something down onto the pages.
“What are you writing?” I asked.
“Information.”
“About?”
“You.”
“Like what?”
“Well this time it’s a possible theory to your origins, but other times, it’s simple things like your likes and dislikes. Sometimes it’s specific little behaviors that you exhibit.”
“Can I read?”
“No, most of this is stuff you should already know about yourself and the rest is just possibilities that I come up with, test, and usually prove wrong.” He answered me as he started to unlock his door.
“Can I go into the woods?”
“Nope, not alone at least. Maybe in a couple of days after you’ve had some time to refuel from today’s stress, I’ll take you out to a stream behind the house.”
“Are you talking about the one the deer like to splash in?”
“Well I don’t know. How do you know deer are splashing in it?” He turned to give me a very confused and concerned look.
“I can hear them. I think it’s two young fawns, and they kind of just run in and out of it.”
“Are you sure you can really hear that or are you just imagining it?” He opened the door to the house and stepped in.
“No, I can hear them.” I walked in after him.
“How far away do they sound to you?” He asked as he plopped down onto the sofa.
“I don’t know.” I sat down next to him.
“Well, the stream I’m talking about is pretty far, and there is no way you should be able to hear that from the back yard. There may be some water closer to the house that I don’t know of.” He took out his notebook and scribbled something else down.
“What’d you write this time?”
“Something about your superhuman hearing. Maybe you’re an alien; let me look at your ears to see if they have big hearing holes.” He teased me as he took a grab at my ear.
“Haha, very funny.” I pushed his hand away, “for real, what did you write?”
“I wrote that you might be alien.” He gave me a sleazy grin.
“Let me see.” I demanded as I crossed my arms.
He flipped his notebook to a page and handed it to me. The notebook read, “Alien?” just as he said it would. I threw the notebook back at him. “You’re so childish.”
“What!? How so?”
“Who believes in Aliens at our age.”
“Hey, you don’t know what area 51 is hiding from us.”
“I’m not an alien!”
He smiled at me, “are you sure about that? It would explain why nobody knows who you are, and why your DNA doesn’t match anything we have. Besides you can’t even remember your past. How do you know you’re not an alien?”
“Ouch, hitting me where it hurts. I’m still not an alien though..”
“Oh yeah,” He mocked me, “you just don’t want to give your secret away Mr. Alien!” He jumped up off the couch and threw a couch pillow at me, “reveal yourself foul beast! I command it!”
“Oh my god, you’re a child.” I threw the pillow back at him.
“And you’re an alien.” He threw the pillow back at me with a little more force than he did the first time.
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at how stupid our conversation had turned. I threw the pillow back at him and quickly grabbed the other pillow off the couch and thrust it at him too. Before he could collect himself, I jumped off the couch and tried to run for cover, but it didn’t take him long to catch up to me.
“So this is what we’re doing today?” he joked as he lifted me up. He threw me over his shoulder and made a war cry as he ran back into the living room. He threw me back down onto the couch and announced, “I have you now, Mr. Alien.”
I got back up off the couch, “Shut up, you child.” I used all of my strength to push him over onto the couch, which caused me to lose my balance and landed on top of Max.
He busted out into laughter, “I don’t think I’m the only child in the room.”
I laughed with him. Oddly enough, it felt really nice goofing off Max. It wasn’t something we did often, but we always ended up laughing after a trivial battle with pillows or towels. I think these moments of childish burst were Max’s way of trying to force me to relax. I don’t know his true reasons for acting this way, but it never failed to soothe me.
I climbed off of Max and sat down on the edge of the couch. He straightened himself and wiped away his laughter tears. He still had a huge smile on his face as he reached out and roughed up my hair with his hand.
He got up, “I think we should think about what we want to eat tonight.”
“Do you really believe in aliens?” I asked Max to find out if he truly believed in such things.
“I mean they could be real. There is no real proof that something outside of our planet doesn’t exist, and if people can believe in a God, I can believe in aliens.”
“You know they are doing that raid on area 51 in September? We could go and see for ourselves. I mean they can’t kill us all.”
“Funny, I hope you’re not serious. They can mow us all down with all their weapons. Besides they may have some alien weapons we don’t know anything about.” He responded to me as he opened the pantry to inspect what was available for cooking, “I have some potatoes, I’m thinking I might cook a stir fry my mom used to make.”
“Sounds good. What else is in it?”
“Food. We’ll need to go out and grab some other ingredients.” He said as he closed the pantry.
“Oh, never mind then. What can you cook that we have right now?”
“We can eat french fries.”
“Is that all?”
“No, but that’s all I’ll make. I had my heart set on that stir fry.” He put his hand on his forehead and gave a dramatic sigh.
“Drama queen, just go to the store on your own if you’re so bent on making a stir fry.”
“No can do. I will not leave you here alone until we know what happened to you. For all we know, someone could be after you and is waiting for the perfect moment to finish you off.”
I snorted out a small laugh and made a sarcastic remark, “very optimistic aren’t ya? If you’re so scared of someone trying to get me, why did you leave me in the car to go to that field?”
“Because I knew you’d fallo me, and I never got far enough from you that I couldn't turn around and save you. Now come on, let’s go. It won’t kill you to take another silent ride to the city.” he said as he grabbed his car keys off the side table next to the couch.
“But we just got home.” I complained.
“No we didn’t. We had a whole pillow war, and it is now time to travel to the great sustenance suppliers so that we can refuel for our next war.”
“Fine, but I want ice cream.” I sighed as I got up off the couch and followed Max out of the door.
“Deal! Now, get your butt into my smelly car.”
“Hey, I never said your car was smelly.” I complained.
“Yeah, but you meant it.”
“No I did not!” I argued with him. Sometimes there was no winning with him.
“Sure,” he mocked me as he got into the car.
I climbed into the passenger seat and prepared myself for a speechless adventure. Taking a ride wasn’t too bad, it gave me time to give my vocals a rest after conversing with Max. It wasn’t often that I talked that much, and honestly, it was getting a bit exhausting.
It takes a lot of energy to talk normally, but talking to Max could sometimes be even more taxing than a normal conversation. He liked to joke and tease a lot, and it was hard to get him to stop or give up.
Yet again that day, I had to look at the ugly buildings that littered the city; they were so bland and unoriginal. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all; at least that’s how I felt about them.
Even the supermarket didn't look that much different from the other buildings. It was the same ugly beige color, but it was just a bit longer than most other buildings. Max pulled into a parking spot, and I sighed as I undid my seatbelt.
I got out of the car, and put on my best fake smile, so I didn’t look like I was being kidnapped by Max. The supermarket was always a scary place filled with lots of scary people and scary noises. It made me extremely nervous.
I didn’t know any of the people in here, yet they walked around talking on their phones sharing all their business like they didn’t care who knew what was going on in their lives. Others traveled in obnoxious groups and conversed so loudly you could hear them from across the store.
Nobody wanted to know that Sally got pregnant from her cheating boyfriend and was probably going to have to drop out of college now so she can raise the child. I also, for sure, didn’t care that Molly thought that Sally should abort the baby because she didn’t need a child and needed to stay in school.
I sighed as Max walked past all of the grocery aisles. As he passed up all of the foods, I realized that this trip was turning into a longer adventure than I had planned for. “I thought we were here for food.” I complained.
Max looked over his shoulder at me, “we are, but I want to grab a few things before I get the ingredients I need for the stirfry.”
He walked back into the small automotive section of the store and began weaving in and out of the aisles looking for something. He then stopped in front of a whole bunch of cut out trees and weird looking sticks.
He picked one up, scratched something on it, smelled it, and handed it to me, “here help me pick one.”
“Do I sniff this?” I asked confused.
“Yes, they’re supposed to make your car smell better, so pick one.”
“Why are you getting these?”
“You think my car smells.”
I laughed a little, “I never said that.”
“Just stop denying it and find a scent you like.”
I smelled the one he handed me and began to smell some of the other ones. I ended up picking out a tree called rainforest. He grabbed a few and threw them in the basket before walking off.
I followed behind him as he headed back to the grocery area. He went to the produce section and grabbed a variety of peppers before heading to the fridge area and grabbing a pack of spicy sausage. He then brought me to the freezers and let me pick out what ice cream I wanted to have. To my relief, after this, he headed towards the check out and was going to end my torture.
As we approached the register, we were greeted by a perky, young lady, “Hello, how are y’all today?”
“Just fine, thank you.” Max answered.
Easy for him to say. He didn’t feel out of place when he left the house. He was like some kind of social God that was never phased by any situation.
Sometimes I wished I could be more like him. It made me wonder what I was like before I lost my memory. Was I always like this? Was I ever a people person? Did I enjoy leaving the house at all? Did I even have friends? If I had friends, surely someone would have answered the television announcements by now. Where did I even come from? How could nobody know who I was?
“Hey, are you okay?” Max asked me as he grabbed his bags.
I looked at him and replied, “Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s get out of here, please.”
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