The Fires
Stan wakes up one morning and feels wrong. He walks down the stairs to where he can hear shuffling and scraping, someone making noise. He enters the kitchen to see an older man in front of him, alternating his grips between a fork and pen, alternately eating and taking notes. He watches the man silently for a moment, confusion filtering through his brain.
He doesn’t recognize any of this.
Stan must make some noise or motion to alert the man to his presence, though, because the other looks up and the frustration jumps from his features into a soft smile, greeting Stan with a, “Good morning, Stanley.”
The man stands and begins gathering his papers, making some noise about ‘getting a little caught up’ and ‘couldn’t sleep’ and ‘made breakfast for us’ but Stan couldn’t focus on any of that.
As soon as the man had made eye contact, he’d felt something run through him. It felt like fire, and it started (strangely) at his shoulders, of all places, but it rushed through him, down his arms, to his fists. It urged his legs to stride forward, so he did. The fire was strong and dominating and fierce, and Stan couldn’t understand where it was coming from. But he felt if he didn’t act he would burn up.
The other man cut his own words off as Stan walked up to stand just in front of him. Concern marred his features instead and began to ask, “Stan, are you feeling alri—“but could not finish as Stan punched him soundly in the jaw.
Stan had felt the fire grow in his right hand, burning him, setting his blood aflame and he felt the wrongness inside him increase until he did what he felt was right. He punched the words as they came out of the other man’s mouth.
The man took a half step back in shock, a six-fingered hand coming up to rub the quickly bruising cheek, but he made no sound. The man looked sad but guarded, confused and suspicious. Uncertain but hoping.
As quickly as the fire had torn through him, it vanished into smoke. In its place was a roiling mass of confusion, fear, and uncertainty. He didn’t know what to do. His body was shaking and he wasn’t cold but he couldn’t stop. His eyes dropped from the man’s to the floor and uttered the first words of his morning, “Help.”
The man took a slow step forward. No hesitation, just with a steadiness meant to be comforting. “Stan, do you know where you are?” he asked, bending to get Stan to look in his eyes.
He looked around and then back into the man’s eyes, and the other nodded, needing an answer.
“Stan, let’s get you sitting down, okay?” Stan tried nodding and moving, but as soon as he took a step, his knees collapsed on him. The other man lunged forward and caught him, saving his old joints from the cruel, hard wooden floors.
“I got you, Stan. It’s okay.”
Stan was still shaking as the other gently raised them to a standing position, throwing Stan’s right arm over his shoulders as his left gripped Stan’s waist in a strong, sure grip. Stan took a few shuddering breaths, and together the pair walked to the other room.
“Stan, do you know who I am?” the other asked softly.
Stan felt the six fingers at his side. He could feel a couple of pens poking into his shoulder blade from how the man was holding him up, wrapped against his side. The dark gray hair and the glasses and the concerned looks and the gentle voice. The boots clomping with every step on the old wood. The jacket swishing between them and getting a little caught on his leg.
It felt like it should be familiar. It felt like Stan was looking at someone down a long hallway, and the silhouette was recognizable, but unnamable. The six-fingered man guided him to a couch in the other room and they settled down together, side by side. Stan’s shaking body finally having a chance to rest.
Whatever lightning strike of fire had overtaken him earlier, it left him wearier for the trouble. He looked at the other man and saw concern still the chief emotion. His patience was amazing, Stan thought, as the other man had made no move against him through everything all morning, not even when he was attacked.
But as familiar as the man was, as kind as the actions were, Stan couldn’t say he knew him.
“I’m sorry,” Stan said, feeling the need to apologize, though he wasn’t sure why. The other man’s eyebrows pulled together at that, mouth slightly open as he turned his face down to the floor for a moment to swallow, and looking back up at Stan. The man nodded and squeezed the hand Stan hadn’t realized was still slung around the other man’s shoulders.
“That’s alright, Stanley. We’ll figure this out. We always do.”
And for a moment the shoulder of the arm that was slung around the other man felt on fire again. But this fire was warm like a campfire, not the frenzied feeling of a forest fire earlier. The feeling traveled down his arm yet again and into his hands. But instead of punching he squeezed back the six fingers gripping his five.
Stan woke up that morning feeling wrong in ways he couldn’t describe. He didn’t recognize much of anything, and he didn’t know the man beside him. But he felt as if it was going to be alright, somehow. That he wasn’t alone in this. That everything would be okay.
The warm feeling traveled back through him and landed in his heart. And for the first time that morning, Stan smiled. The other man smiled back and Stan knew he’d be okay, no matter what he remembers. If he remembers.
“Thank you,” he says, softly. And the fire in his heart glowed as the other man began talking, helping him back into the head he’d lost. Sparking the embers of his memory and helping them glow again.