Page 5 of Synodic

I wouldn’t have even called last night fun. It was more of a distraction, not just from nightmares but from waking life as well, from the hole the size of another life sitting inside me.

“Harlan, nothing’s changed. I meant it when I said I didn’t—”

“Let me ask you a question,” he said, cutting me off. “Is there someone else?”

“No, but—”

“Then that’s good enough for me. I’ll make you mine eventually,” he said before kissing me on the lips. “Which reminds me,” he added, stretching a long, shirtless torso over me to reach for his satchel by the bedside. The accentuated indents of his ribs and lateral muscles rippled as he rummaged through his bag one-handed. “I meant to give it to you last night, but you didn’t seem to be in the mood for talking.”

He hovered above me on one elbow and passed me a sturdy white box about the size of my hand. I reached for it tentatively, knowing his gifts were barbed tokens that pricked with insult no matter how well-intentioned. They were usually things he wanted for me and not things I actually wanted for myself.

I drew back, realizing it was the newest, most expensive phone in production; and it wasn’t even supposed to be released until next month.

I didn’t need to ask how he got it. He was one of those Silicon Valley types, highly invested in major software, internet, and technology companies. There must be tons of these just lying around his office.

“You know I can’t accept this.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want it.”

“You need to replace that old phone, Copeland. It’s practically a relic. It still has buttons on it for Christ's sake. I’ve got this one all set up, even downloaded a few apps for you. It’s weird that you have zero social presence, plus I’d like to see what you do when I’m not around.”

Harlan had been harping on me to update this or trade-in that, always accompanying his remarks with offhanded jabs. Each time I politely declined, but now he was practically shoving pre-programmed devices in my hand, and I didn’t appreciate it.

“I happen to like the buttons on my app-less phone, thank you very much,” I said, crawling out from under him.

It wasn’t that I hated technology, it was that technology hated me. The newer the device, the more likely it would crash and glitch in my very hands. Screens would freeze, and batteries would drain in an instant.

Either I had the worst luck in the world, or I was technologically inept. Only the most basic phones and computers lasted; they seemed to be made of stronger stuff. And I honestly didn’t mind. I found the more that became available at my fingertips, the more my apathy grew.

I scrambled to put on the nearest clothes, sparing a glance at Harlan’s tall, lean body ornately wrapped in my white sheets. I briefly wondered how his hair was still so perfectly coiffed three inches above his head, but I shook off the distraction. I needed to get out of here. “I have work to do. You can let yourself out.”

“I’ll get you to change your mind,” he said with all the confidence in the world, leaning back on my headboard.

“With the phone?”

“With us.”

“I have to go. I’ll see you later,” I said, not shutting the door fast enough.

I fled down the stairs, my pulse thudding and my breath quickening at the nerve of Harlan’s brazen attitude. Although, as I rifled through my heightened emotions, I realized they weren’t because of the blonde Adonis in my bed but because of the dark figure in my dream. His presence knocked me off my center and slammed me against cold iron bars. I’d learned to live in the cage that surrounded me, could almost convince myself it wasn’t there if I didn’t fight it too much, but moments like these were a frigid reminder of my prison, and the broken illusion of freedom hurt more than anything else.

I knew it was impractical to blame the misted man for the gaping wound of my half-life, but I held him personally responsible all the same.

Thankfully he wasn’t real, none of it was, and I would never see him again.

* * *

It wasn’t even a full twelve hours before I found myself back in the dimly lit forest I had insisted I would never see again. My dark cloud still oscillated thick in the air, and I shivered as I remembered how it once ensnared me.

Knowing what might find me if I stayed in one place for too long, I took my first unencumbered step through the cascading foliage and fog.

As I wandered, a wild canniness prickled along my senses in tiny bursts of cooling mint, and the branches seemed to brush by me with welcoming arms. Even the breeze sang to me in a vaguely familiar melody that eased the flow of my breathing.

I had no idea where I was, where I was headed, or what I was hoping to find when a shadow flashed in my periphery, stealing a breath from my lungs.

It washim,wavering in the distance like a cloak of shadows.

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