Life Sentence Read Free

with a
mixture of rage and revulsion and relief as my whole tiny body
springs back and away, landing at my dad’s feet.
    This is one of those things that I think I remember,
but I’m not sure. I think if I asked my dad, I could find out
whether this memory was real, but I don’t want to. I don’t ask. I
never have. I think I remember a moment of perfect, carefree joy,
and I think I remember a moment of sudden and extreme terror. I
want to hold on to both—to the possibility of both, not the
certainty. To be certain of the horror that afternoon would be too
much for me to bear, I know it would be; it would expand and grow
till it blocked out everything good and beautiful I’ve ever had. To
be certain and convinced that such a horrible scene never happened
would be a lie and would further shut me off from those like my
parents and Will who know they’ve seen such things, many times
over, and much worse. To be certain of the joy would be to fall
back into the ingratitude I mentioned before, to take for granted
or pretend I deserved such bliss—then, now, or ever. To know for
certain it had never happened would again be too much for me to
bear. So I hold the both of them in this perfectly balanced,
perfectly uncertain memory, one that I’ve never shared with anyone
until now.
    As I say, it’s funny the things you remember, and
funnier still the things you think you remember. And funniest of
all? To be—not just to have , mind you, but to actually be— such a willing, willful collection of memories, sometimes
choosing and sometimes refusing to choose from among all the things
you think you remember. But that is what I am, and I suspect it’s
what you are too, if you’d admit it. My name is Zoey—survivor and
heir of a dead world. And these are my memories of one tiny part of
my life.

Chapter 2
    This is my journal. My name is Wade Truman, though I
didn’t know that for a long time. There are a lot of things I don’t
know so well, even now. I do know how to type, for some reason, but
I don’t seem to know as many words as I think I should. I try to
learn new ones, but it’s hard for me to study. I lose concentration
or something happens to distract me. All my memories start a few
years ago, yet I’m sure I existed before that, because when my
memories start, I already knew lots of things, just not perfectly,
and all the different ideas and memories—if that’s what they
are—don’t necessarily connect. So it seems like I’ve remembered all
sorts of complicated things and words, but forgotten some very
basic and necessary things, like how to walk right. And how to
talk.
    I remember the first time I tried to talk. It is, in
fact, almost my first memory, right from when I first awoke, lying
on my back on the pavement. The concrete felt hard and warm on my
back. But inside I felt cold. I had no idea where I was. I heard
sirens and gunfire in the distance, and closer to me, this low
moaning punctuated with growls and wails. I sat up. I could see
blood all over me and all around me, and there were people around
me, and they were all bloody too. They held their red, dripping
hands up to their mouths and they slurped and chewed as they eyed
me and growled.
    I looked down and saw that I was torn open in the
middle, and a lot of my insides were gone. It didn’t hurt, though,
not exactly, which surprised me, though I wasn’t sure what pain
felt like. I was just surprised I didn’t feel much of anything,
even though something was obviously wrong with my body and pieces
of it were missing. All I felt was a little cold and stiff. And
that was when I first tried to talk.
    At first my mouth just moved noiselessly, and I
thought maybe the part of me that could make speech was missing
too. I felt my throat and that seemed intact, but no air was coming
out to make the sounds, so I concentrated on breathing in and
exhaling. I tried to say something like, “I’ve been hurt,” but
nothing came out right. It didn’t sound