Part I: The Lake That Isn’t
The car drove across the lake for hours—though time had become so porous, so gauzy, it could have been minutes. The dark shapes beneath us grew larger, more deliberate. Some looked up, and when they did, the world above them seemed to falter, pixelate, like a bad signal.
M— kept her hands on the wheel but whispered again, to no one in particular, “These lakes aren’t mapped anymore. Not even the old maps dare.”
I asked her something then—what, I can’t remember. The question dissolved mid-syllable. Maybe it was about Quinten-Banana. Or the hike. Or the way the bandaged animals had begun to appear in the sky, floating like lost balloons—owls, foxes, raccoons—ascending slowly, tethered to nothing.
No one answered.
The other passengers had grown less smudged now. More distinct. One of them had tears tattooed down their neck like they’d cried upwards. Another wore a crown made of door keys. Their eyes glowed like little black mirrors. Not cruel, just full.
I fell asleep, or maybe I closed my eyes and became someone else for a while.
Part II: The Garden of Half-Sounds
I awoke in a room shaped like a keyhole.
M— was gone. The others too. Only a long table remained, set for a dinner no one seemed eager to start. The plates held no food—just instructions, written in careful script:
“Eat what you remember.”
I reached for one, and the air grew heavier. My hands passed through scenes instead of objects: a birthday party I had forgotten, a snowfall that hadn’t happened, the look on Apple’s face the last time she wanted me to stay. Each plate was a door.
I chose the smallest one.
Suddenly, I was in a garden.
The sky above was stitched together with faint voices—phrases from voicemails I never listened to, songs I hummed during breakups, whispered names I forgot to say aloud. Everything in the garden vibrated with memory. Trees bore cassette tapes for fruit. A fountain spilled old receipts.
And there—beneath an archway made of abandoned birdcages—stood Quinten-Banana.
Or at least, the shape they wore when I last saw them. A wool coat. Black boots. A smear of plum lipstick on their collar, but no mouth to match it.
“You made it,” they said, with a voice made of two tones, like a duet between someone leaving and someone left.
“I never left,” I answered, though I wasn’t sure which part of me spoke.
They smiled and handed me something wrapped in cloth.
Sushi. In a cup.
But it pulsed in my hands—alive, almost. Each grain of rice beat like a tiny heart.
“Eat it,” they said. “It’s the only thing here that still believes in you.”
Part III: Apple’s Apartment Sinks
I blinked, and I was back in Apple’s hotel.
But the floor was water. The ceiling was fog. Everything floated. Clocks. Shoes. A mug with lipstick I didn’t wear. The curtains no longer sagged; they wept, threads unraveling mid-air.
Apple stood by the window, her outline wavering like she was held together by regret.
She didn’t turn when she spoke:
“You’re still looking in places people disappear from.”
“I found Quinten-Banana,” I said.
“Did you?” she asked, but the question wasn’t accusatory. Just tired.
A goldfish swam past me, trailing bits of memory: A hallway. A kiss. The smell of old book pages.
I couldn’t tell which of them were mine.
“I could stay,” I said.
She turned then, and her face was an echo—recognizable only when you weren’t looking straight at it.
“That’s what everyone says. Until the hike begins.”
Part IV: The Big Hike
No one knew where it started.
But everyone was already on it.
The hike wasn’t through mountains or forests, but through versions of yourself you forgot to bury. The trail wound through malls that smelled like last summer, through lovers’ apartments that had been painted over, through classrooms with desks arranged in regrets.
The trail markers were shoes hung from power lines.
The checkpoints were payphones ringing once.
Every so often, I saw a familiar face—but their names had shifted slightly. Ember. Anthea. Lux. People I used to be, or might’ve been if I’d answered different doors.
I passed a version of Apple holding hands with M—.
I passed a child holding sushi in a cup like communion.
I passed myself, sitting at a train station that didn’t exist, reading a book that hadn’t been written.
And at the summit, where the air thinned into transparency, I found a bench made of every "I’m sorry" I’d never said.
Quinten-Banana was already there.
They offered me water.
I took it.
It tasted like a song that never charted.
Part V: The Return That Isn’t
When I returned—if I returned—it wasn’t to a place but to a possibility.
I was standing in front of the alley again. The neon sign buzzed dimly.
SUSHI IN A CUP, it said, like a prayer with no god.
I checked my phone. No new messages. No missed calls. But my hands smelled faintly of seaweed and memory.
The animals watched from shadows. Bandaged. Patient.
One bird dropped something at my feet: a ticket stub. The kind you get at carnivals that don’t advertise.
Admit One.
Big Hike, Eternal Loop Trail.
Valid only in-.
I turned it over. On the back, in a familiar, looping scrawl:
See you at the next summit. Bring better shoes. —M
END.
Very interesting and very well written !
Thought provoking, imaginative and sentimental!
Mayme