The Complete Atopia Chronicles

14





Identity: Nancy Killiam



“I FEEL SO CLOUDY.”

It was an expression pssi–kids used and one I knew Aunt Patricia had a hard time understanding. It was a feeling we got when we couldn’t understand our own splinters and it felt like our conscious minds were spread outwards from a single point to become an indistinct smudge in time and space. I knew she didn’t quite understand, but I had no other way of explaining how I felt.

We were walking through the Lollipop Forest under a beautiful night sky, lit by a bright, chocolate chip moon with twinkling gumdrop stars.

“Why didn’t you tell me you wouldn’t be there?” I asked Aunt Patricia, finally letting myself ask the question. I didn’t like the idea of blame, but I had to know.

She sighed. “I was there dear, at least my primary subjective was, but I thought that you were the one throwing the switch. We all did.”

“But I checked with you not minutes before and your body was on the way to the Ballroom, what changed?”

Patricia looked up at the gumdrop stars. “Something with Uncle Vince came up.”

I angrily kicked at some lollipop sprouts.

“I’m so stupid.”

Everyone had had some last minute excuse, but in the end, it was my responsibility. It wasn’t like I couldn’t have seen it. Everyone’s physical metatags had properly indicated they were somewhere else, but I’d stopped paying attention to these a long time ago.

“You shouldn’t be beating yourself up so much,” Aunt Pattie said soothingly. “You’ve done a wonderful thing for the world.”

“Yeah—I’ve given them something to never stop laughing at,” I sulked.

The lollipop trees rattled softly as they jostled and bumped on their spindly stalks. Aunt Pattie had suggested coming here for a walk, just like we used to do when I was just a little splinter winky, but the place had lost its magic.

To try and cheer me up, she’d first tried taking me on a walk topside with Teddyskins, a reality skin that turned everyone around you into cute pink teddy bears. It’d been one of my favorites as a child, but I wasn’t a child anymore. Now all these worlds and spaces felt contrived and creepy.

“Don’t be silly,” she said softly, taking my hand pulling my head into her. She always gave herself an ample bosom, with a sturdy frame, in these childhood worlds.

My tears started again.

“You took the first step in bringing distributed consciousness to the world,” she tried to say encouragingly. “You’re still so young. Your whole life is ahead of you.”

I’d begun crying again in great heaving sobs. She let me cry a while, smothered in her chest.

“Have you talked to David?” she asked between my sobs.

“No, that’s over,” I choked out. “David was the reason I stayed at home physically for the launch. I felt so bad for always being away. We had a huge fight afterwards over it. It wasn’t his fault, but anyway, he and I were never really right.”

“I know, I know,” she responded soothingly. “What about Bob? Did you try him?”

I just shook my head as tears streamed down my face. “He dropped me a splinter, but he’s so stoned all the time. What’s the point?”

Aunt Pattie looked at me tenderly and dried my tears, and we continued to walk a while longer, stepping gently through the lollipops.

“I guess he just needs more time to heal as well.”