The Chronicles of Brendan Earle, Apprentice Mage.

The Morning that Shouldn't Have Been

Full Memory Accession: Sample 1002

Accession justification:

This accessor must find elements of personal experience and interest in the story-line or become alienated. Some details of accommodation must be altered to allow this – memory sets will be changed in line.

Aspects to be enriched by this accession:

Essential background, character differentiation, martial arts experience, bathing details.

Taste exploding in the mouth as the teeth find the umeboshi in an onigri. Sliding into a hot tub in the sento to lie as still as possible as every skin cell screams at the heat. Wasabi singeing the hairs from nostrils and pulling tears to eyes. The feel of tatami through tabi’d feet. Teeth squeaking on hijiki. The other-worldly sound of the koto in that class in Kyoto. Warm, brown umami of miso shiro for breakfast. The crush of the Osaka chikatetsu. Ukemi against the dojo mat.

The view from Kiomizu Dera. Kinkakuji on a winter morning. Hanami on the Tetsugaku no Michi while walking to Nanzenji. Maiko-spotting in Pontocho. Hanabi on a hot summer’s night. Steam rising from a twilight rotenburo. Haru and me in bed on a Sunday morning, lazily kissing and fondling then...  Memory redacted  - age inappropriate  content restrictions.

Musicians’ night in the Cumberland Arms. Andy on fiddle, Mark on Bodhran, Kitty on guitar, me on mandolin, and lovely Alice singing Karine Polwart and Emily Smith songs.

Showing mam how to vacuum to AFI, the greatest vacuuming music ever. Giving the dust bunnies myxomatosis, attacking the carpet till it surrendered. Cooking my first ever meal for friends at uni.

Lindisfarne Christmas concert in the City Hall. How many thousands of us bouncing and singing to ‘The Clear White Light’. Dedicated to the memory of the sainted Alan Hull. Yes Alan, we do believe. 

All remembered with a crystal clear, hyper-heightened, fever-dream precision.

Phoebe

You know that thing where something happens and you sort of stand there, looking at your own mind trying to work out how you feel about it? I had that the next morning. I woke up in Malaika’s bed, in Malaika’s room. I ran through to the bathroom and checked, and I was still in Malaika’s body. It was either wonderful, ‘cos I really wanted more time here, or a disaster, ‘cos we should be out. Like one of those pictures you look at one way and it’s a vase, but you look at another way and it’s a pair of faces, the whole thing kept changing in my head.

Gramma came in with morning chia for me. When she’d gone I sat on the bed, drinking it and wondering what to do next. Since I couldn’t think of anything, I went to wash and get dressed. I’d have to see Brendan and talk to him.

Adam

I wake up at first light every morning like one of Pavlov’s dogs, except not drooling. I woke up that morning in a dormitory of boys who’d all given up consciousness for Lent; no one was even snoring.

This was not our agreement and I was not pleased. I was in two minds about how I should handle it. One approach might be to get out of here, hire someone who was very good at suing for damages, and then go for Sylvester for so much if he only had to sell his kidneys to pay, everyone would call me charitable. The other was to get out of here and go for Sylvester’s kidneys with a knife and remove ‘em freelance.  I'm a Brit, remember. We do understatement.

I should have come to in that comfortable pastel coloured room on that comfortable leather couch with Sylvester -that smarmy git- and all his techs around. I should then have started the agreed interviews.