You could say it hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen my family but I really wouldn’t have a clue. To me there have been no days or nights, all I have is Lily. No words have ever been said or movements made in our box. It maybe chooses not to communicate or maybe I just can’t hear it. There’s a chance it’s been years but it could have also been seconds, again I really wouldn’t know.
We are in a place that didn’t exist to me before and I’m not sure how it’s effecting my body but what I know is that I’m hungry. It feels as though my stomach is eating itself, so hungry it’s numbing. But I can’t quite bring myself to feel it all the time.
Lily isn’t real. There is no physical way that it could possibly exist. I wish there were words to describe what exactly it is but it’s nothing I’ve ever even seen. All I really know is it won’t let me go. I guess to be human is to not know everything, constantly learning, but THIS. No way, not a chance, I will NEVER understand. Maybe that’s it’s point or maybe I’m just too human still and that’s why it’s changing me.
You think of hands and you know exactly what they look like without having to look. I however keep needing to check my own body. Since being with the Lily, I’ve been forgetting basic HUMAN things. It allowed me to feel the hunger some time ago and I nearly swallowed my tongue, thinking that’s what it was for. I’ve already lost the use of my legs, though I’m not sure when that started. It’s all very quite not right.
In this moment I am speaking out loud just to hear myself. It is incredibly lonely here and I wish it would just talk to me! I keep yelling at it that I’m scared and don’t know what’s going on but when I get too stressed it just takes it away. I remember I was feeling it but it just makes me stop. I’m scared that Lily is stealing me piece by piece.
What makes me who I am? I don’t remember my parents but I think I’m supposed to have them right? That’s how humans get made? I often wonder if my mom was nice, or if my dad was smart. Mostly I just wonder what they look like. Maybe it’s my fault I don’t remember.
I’m close to giving up. I don’t remember when last I spoke but I need to hear something. I’ve completely forgotten how to use my body, I have to make myself blink and breathe. It’s all too much. I just want to go home but I’m not even sure I know what that word means anymore. I’ve just been clinging to it since I got here and I don’t even know how or where or when I am. Somehow though, I still remember why. Lily always reminds me that it’s just my time, without actually saying it of course. I think she’s eating my time, I just hope it tastes good.
SOMEWHERE ELSE
An older woman sits by her decaying mother crying. “I love you mom, I don’t even know if you’re still in there or if you can even hear me, but I will never forget you. I’m so sorry you had to forget me.”
Lily was a loving and charismatic woman before she started losing herself to her illness, but with age these things do happen.