Amnesia Moon Read Free

Chaos, nodding at the couple. “Listen, what have you got to eat?”
    â€œWell,” said Sister Earskin, “I’ve got some bottled soup—”
    â€œCans,” said Chaos. “What’s in cans?” He wasn’t fond of the old woman’s soup: thin, boiled broth with grisly chunks of whatever animal happened to keel over that morning.
    â€œNo,” said Sister Earskin vaguely. “No cans . . .”
    Gifford Self raised his eyebrows. “That’s what we was talkin’ about when you came in, Chaos. Kellogg ain’t sent nothin’ in cans for a week.” He tried to hold Chaos’s gaze, but Chaos broke away.
    â€œDid a car drive through here this morning?” asked Sister Earskin. Her voice was full of implication.
    â€œEdge,” said Chaos.
    â€œWhat—”
    â€œAnyone who goes to sleep knows the news,” said Chaos. “It had to do with dolphins and whales today. Nothing about food in cans.”
    Silence.
    â€œWe were hoping you could go down to Little America, Chaos, and maybe have a word with Kellogg . . .” Sister Earskin broke off hopelessly. Gifford Self sat stroking his beard.
    â€œYou know what happened the last time I went down to Little America?” said Chaos. “Kellogg put me in jail. He said my chart was out of alignment with Mars. Or in alignment. Something like that.” He felt his face flushing red. Maybe he could do without food after all. His veins burned for more drink, though. He cursed himself for leaving the Multiplex.
    Gif and Glory sat watching him, waiting.
    â€œWhy don’t you eat your kid?” he said. “She looks like some kind of animal.”
    He stalked out before they could reply, back out into the brutal sunshine. The Self girl was gone from the steps. Then he saw her kneeling at his car, sucking at his gas tank through a plastic tube. He backed into the shade of the porch and watched unseen as, squatting there on her furry haunches, she pulled her mouth away, spat disgustedly, and turned the open end of the tube down into a plastic container.
    Finally he jogged out across the lot. She turned, frozen wide-eyed, the gas still trickling into the jar.
    He stepped up beside her. “Keep it going, kid. Don’t spill the stuff.”
    She nodded in fearful silence. Chaos saw her hands trembling. He reached down and pinched the tube in the middle.
    â€œYou talk?” he said. He raised the tube above the level of the tank.
    She glared up at him. “I talk fine.”
    â€œYou remember before?” he said. The meaning was clear.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYour parents tell you about it?”
    â€œSome.”
    â€œWell, little girls didn’t used to do this kind of shit,” he said, and then immediately regretted it. Preachy, nostalgic. “Forget it.” He threw the tube. It spiraled, flinging drops of gasoline, and landed on the deck of the empty pool.
    He got in the car. The girl stood up and brushed dust from her gray jeans. She cocked her head and stared at Chaos, and he wondered what she saw. A bat. A cave dweller.
    â€œWell,” he said.
    â€œWhere you goin’?” she said shyly.
    He thought of his last advice to her parents, wondered if they were capable of it. “Get in,” he said on impulse. He reached over and pushed open the passenger door. The girl jumped, and he thought she was running away, but then she appeared on the other side of the car and climbed in beside him.
    They didn’t speak again until they were on the open highway outside town. He wasn’t sure where he was going. The sun was low now, and they drove into it.
    â€œYou have a dream?” he said.
    â€œYeah,” she said brightly. “Kellogg was a whale—he swallowed me and I was in his stomach. There was also a lot of fish-men—”
    â€œOkay,” he interrupted. “Where’d you learn about whales?”
    â€œFrom a