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Aidepolcycne by Kaitlyn Veronica
There are things I miss that I guess I haven’t seen before. Is that weird? I feel this strange ache somewhere below my ribs and it makes me feel tired or sometimes hungry. It’s definitely a hunger or queasiness. It’s definitely something.
In 1873, two Ligers were birthed as a gift for the King William IV. Ligers are a combination of a Lion and Tiger. I thought they looked so beautiful, it made me feel sick. Secretly gaping at this shitty quality image in an old encyclopedia I had owned at some point, it made me want to hurl in envy. I don’t know what happened to those encyclopedias. I remember I had them in a line on the floor in the room, in my room. When I lay in bed impatiently waiting for sleep, I could see them in front of me, the gold embossed letters looking eerie yet noble in the dregs of polluted light that managed to sneak in through my window.
A-I-D-E-P-O-L-C-Y-C-N-E. I would repeat in my head, sheer boredom motivating me to whisper this jumble of letters in thought, or maybe out loud one day to a person if I could meet one again. I always knew something would happen, something big. Everything happens in stages and the first was saying goodbye to people. I miss people, I don’t remember what they sound like so I like to imagine their voices in my head.
Before the encyclopedias were taken I ripped out a few pages in haste. I didn’t even see which ones but I knew they were too valuable a record of humanity to not be pried from my pathetic grasp eventually. So now I have these few pages hidden somewhere I can’t write in this because everything is screened eventually and I`ll be called into a room with no face but a metallic voice that sort of resembles the voices I think about. This robotic conscience will ask me for them and I will say no and maybe finally, I will be silenced for good.
So the first stage was people, then it was space. When I say space I don’t mean that big mass of stars and dust and particles and anti-matter that used to be important and apparently was quite a sight from the ground, of the earth. I don’t mean that, I mean space like compartments, like rooms, and buildings and streets and the sort of spaces that humans reside in.
That needed to be configured, and moulded and switched up to make space for more people, the ones being born and the ones ebbing away from life.
My first space had a window, and encyclopedias and random trinkets that I found, that others had found, that we all collected and treasured to then hide. I hated that space but now I look back and get that queasy feeling I was talking about, but this time it’s warranted because I really was in that space, I could see and feel it.
If I pressed my cheek to the wall it felt like clammy candle wax, if I knocked my knuckles against it a sound resonated in my little confinement. The sound gave me the feeling that beyond the walls were other hollow compartments, I guess that made me feel a little less alone.