A Web

I remembered the moment I killed him with utter clarity. This was how I knew the memory was real.

Fabricated memories are often emotional and vague, deteriorating or changing with remarkable efficiency, soothing contradictions and forgiving the teller their inconsistencies until what remains is utterly amorphous. This memory had never altered. It was exact, fixed in place; a pinned specimen.

It was early evening and the sky, starless and indifferent, peeked between the branches of the pine trees, which interlaced so completely as to form a grand architecture overhead. The ground was uneven with needles and exposed roots, and the air carried the heavy scent of damp earth.

He was speaking to me. His voice carried easily in the stillness, desperate and tremorous, but still barely above a whisper. His face was flushed, his blue eyes bright and intense, dewy with tears that gathered against his sooty lashes. He was pretty. It was said of him often, and I understood it as fact in a perfunctory way, just as I understood his prettiness was utterly uninteresting to me. He was smiling as he cried- a wild, frantic smile that turned the corners of my own lips down into a rare and contemptuous snarl.

While he spoke I understood, with an abrupt clarity, that I did not want him to finish his thought.

I recognised the intent behind his gestures, realized the nature of the confession he was making. I treated it with the same consideration I might afford an insect which, in its stupidity, had trapped itself in my office, unable to find the slit through which it entered. The world demands alignment, not indulgence. I had suffered this errant pest for too many years.

He took a step towards me, his boot sliding on the pine needles. As I reached out to meet his advance I noted, irrelevantly and with mild irritation, that his boots were unsuitable for the terrain.

My fingers found his delicate throat, and the forest watched, uncaring.

My own death, years later, was unremarkable. A conclusion to an unfulfilled life.

My new life suited me better.

In my new life, I grew older than I had in my first, and the years arranged themselves upon me with a rough elegance I found agreeable. My hair was dark and streaked with grey, my hands rough. I wore spectacles in plain rectangular frames, unadorned and practical. My days were constructed with care; meals, rituals, routines repeated with minor variation, sufficient to prevent tedium but not enough to invite disorder. I worked well, I was rewarded well. I watched the birds from my window in the mornings.

And yet, my new life was troubled by one unresolved element.

It was not guilt. Feelings of guilt remained utterly unavailable to me in all aspects of my life. What lingered instead was a sense of incompletion.

The source of my difficulty was obvious to me; I had returned, but so had he.

This conviction was not emotional. If my own identity and memory had persisted, then could his not do the same? I was not so self-aggrandizing as to believe myself unique in this phenomenon, despite the reactions my occasional discourse on the subject had elicited. I was certain I would see him again – that the structures of my previous life had merely reorganized, not invented themselves anew. I was certain that I would recognise him when I found him. Like me, he would not have remained identical in his appearance, but certain patterns in his personality and features would repeat. Change invites variation, not transformation.

Over the years I observed every person I was introduced to with him in mind. Occasionally, someone would momentarily capture my attention – a familiar gesture, a vocal inflection – but none withstood scrutiny. Each time, I adjusted and continued. But as the decades persisted with only false positives to show for my analysis, I began to doubt myself.

I was not looking for him the night I found him. This, I believe, was the crucial distinction.

A New Year’s Eve party, hosted by an acquaintance from work. The enthusiasm of the invitation felt obligatory rather than sincere, but I acquiesced as it presented a networking opportunity. Usually, I would have declined.

When I arrived, the apartment was predictably crowded. I disliked the music, and it blared with a persistence and volume that discouraged prolonged thought. I positioned myself near the wall, nursing a glass of merlot, eyes adjusting to the patterns of movement, the clustering of bodies.

He entered my awareness as a disruption, a misalignment that halted my processing. He stood near the kitchen, laughing at something, his expression animated and theatrical. The sound of his laughter was lighter than I remembered, but – to my surprise – the face was unmistakable. The upturned nose. The fine bones. The bright, blue eyes. He was slightly older, his hair longer, the blond strands fanned over his shoulders and down his back – but the resemblance was not approximate. It was exact.

This alarmed me.

The correspondence was too precise. Probability objected. Even under ideal conditions, repetition introduces distortion. This was not distortion.

As he turned, he caught me staring. My pulse reacted despite all efforts at detachment. I turned to leave.

His hand caught my shoulder before I reached the door.

I tensed and turned back towards him. He was a foot shorter than me, and looked up at me with curiosity, blinking rapidly. Did I detect familiarity in his gaze? Doubt crept in, unwelcome but required. Desire contaminates analysis.

“Have we met before?”

The directness winded me. It lacked subtlety and dripped with the confidence he had always deployed so freely. That, too, was notable.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

His smile faltered, disappointment passing over his face with a transparency that would once have amused me.

“Oh. Are you sure? You look familiar.”

“I’m sure.”

“I guess you must be right.” He took a sip from his glass and shrugged. “Sometimes I just see a stranger and I feel like I’ve met them before somewhere.”

He was trying to toy with me, I determined. It irked me. He knew that we both understood what was taking place, and he was picking at my reticence, driving the conversation to its inevitable conclusion. Or perhaps he was clueless, and I was projecting my sudden discomfort onto him. I sighed, frustrated with the complications which emotions bought to objectivity.

“Do you get it often?” I asked.

“No. Only with certain people.”

Near the corner of the ceiling, just above the doorframe, something caught the light – a delicate construction spanning a narrow space, each strand placed with such precision that it was nearly invisible unless one knew where to look. The web remained undisturbed by the festivities.

“And does it usually mean anything?”

As I asked this question, I felt the structure of my certainty settle into place, elegant and complete. Proof was unnecessary. Alignment had already occurred.

I had found him.

He considered my question for a long time. Behind us, discordant voices began the countdown to the new year.

“Sometimes,” he said finally, “I think it means I didn’t finish something.”