The Bargainer

“What do you want from me? Do you want my savings, my house, my job—”

“What makes you think I’m interested in your money?”

“I don't know. All I know is that I can—” 

“I want you.”

“What?”

“More precisely, I want what makes you, you.”

“I don’t—I don’t know what you mean. I offered you my belongings. Isn’t that what makes me, me? Isn't that what's valuable?”

A pause.  My heart thumps against my chest like fireworks. I plunge my hands into my hair, pulling at my scalp like weeds. 

Their face meets mine for the first time, a profile completely unrecognizable yet strangely familiar. Their features shift like memories, the way we remember things differently each time, the way each stranger becomes stranger each time we try to visualize their appearance. I blink to see blue eyes, then brown. The bridge of their nose seems to sharpen and collapse each time I look away. Their face is like clay, molded into different expressions by something I do not understand. 

“Who do you think you are?” they ask, voice husky, each word spoken like a light gust of wind.

“Who am I?” I whisper in response, my eyes shifting back and forth, trying to make sense of who— no what, is in front of me. “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” They repeat, voice deeper, stepping closer to me. “You summoned me. Who do you think I am?”

I try to step back, but I fall as they approach. They close the distance.

Two eyes stare into my own. Their irises dilate until all I see is black. 

“You made a bargain with me,” they say, smiling. “You promised me a deal.”

They snap their fingers, and my mouth weaves itself shut. My tongue writhes like an eel out of water, twisting and bending in a frenzy each time I try to speak. My lips feel like they’ll rip as I gasp for air. 

My vision blurs and my head sinks to the floor. I can’t tell how much time has passed. I can’t tell how much time they’ll give me.

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” they snap. “It’s only fair you know the rules.”

I force my eyes shut, wrapping my arms around my shoulders.

“I’m going to let you explore a few of your memories,” they explain slowly, cupping their cold fingers against the sides of my face. “That’s what you wanted, remember?” Their fingers rub against my skin, the coldness numbing my cheeks. 

I find myself nodding. I remember a dream. A dream that I offered something. A dream where I wanted something more than anything else.

“I’ll give you a few days. Explore whatever you want from your past. If you can answer my questions at the end, I’ll leave you be. If not,” their fingers tighten against my face, “you’ll fulfill your end of the bargain.”

As they lift their hands away from my face, their whole body sinks into the floor. After a minute they are gone, and the world around me fades too. 

***

I wake up in my attic sprawled on the floor, covered in dust. “Hell of a dream,” I sigh, patting myself off as I stand up.

 If there’s one thing I forgot, it’s how cluttered my attic is. Piles of boxes without labels are placed randomly about. A bookshelf of items I’ve collected over the years have developed a coat of dirt. 

I wonder how much time has passed. I push open the curtains to see if the sun is up.

“What the—”

I step back again and trip on a small pile of books. The cold wooden  floor does little to cushion my fall, but all I can register is what I saw, or rather, what I didn’t.

I couldn’t see my neighborhood. I couldn’t see the tall pine trees that shadow over the road. Not a single star or cloud ornamented the sky.

I rush to the hatch door. Sweat beads on my forehead, my arms tensing as I pull as hard as I can.

“Please,” I whimper. “Please.”

After a few minutes, I’m able to pry it open. My stomach drops. 

I don’t see my hallway. I don’t see the plastic potted flowers I leave outside my room. I don’t see the pictures I’ve hung up  throughout the years.

I see nothing. How can someone describe what isn’t there? 

More importantly, where am I?

***

I pace around the attic, my mind storming with theories concerning my predicament. I remember something, a conversation.  Something from a dream. Each time I try to recall that conversation, however, I seem to remember something different.

Nothing adds up. 

I collapse on a pile of boxes, my hands firmly gripping my knees as I try to take deep breaths. “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper to myself. “I’m going to be okay.”

“Having a little bit of trouble?”

I whirl my head around, trying to find the voice. I recognize it. From that conversation. From that dream. 

“Where are you?” I whisper. “Where have you brought me?”

Their shadowy image emerges from a bookshelf, their body forming as if it was being sketched into existence. Their face is the same, so much as it isn’t. Something I can’t forget, but something I can’t exactly remember. 

“Where are you?” They say quizzically, amused by my confusion.  “This is your memory.”

“You’re lying,” I say, my voice cracking. “I don’t understand.”

They shrug and turn around, ignoring my question. With each step, their body diffuses into a vapor, leaving me alone once again in this attic.

***

I have trouble believing the boxes scattered around this attic are real.  Some boxes move around without me. They change in shape, size, color.  Boxes appear and disappear the more time I spend exploring. I find things I never knew I had. 

Each time I open a box, the contents trigger a memory. A Ziploc bag of toy soldiers reminds me of my brother.  I see my brother asking me to purchase this toy.  He cries when I refuse at first, the way that children act out their feelings, the way they fling their bodies carelessly to express their dismay and their joys. Eventually, I relented. Every object in each box triggers something new or adds something different. 

Like the boxes, the objects themselves change when my focus falters. Something about them seems different each time, the way a game of telephone distorts a message from person to person.  For example, these toy soldiers are small and green. Yet when I turn my head away and look back, the soldiers are slightly larger. Some of the soldiers are a different shade of green. Some of the soldiers don’t look like soldiers anymore.

They— that bargainer—said this place was my memory. But each time I explore this place, it seems all the more different. Perhaps that’s how memories are. How should we remember things if each time we do we distort them?

***

“Having fun?”

They visit me a few times. The bargainer. 

I can’t say I’m used to their appearance. Their face flickers like an old projection of a movie, each expression another frame in a long roll of film. I’d like to say I’m angry, that I’m scared, that they’re a monster. Yet they’re the only company I have. Is it wrong for me to resign myself so soon?

Through piles of boxes, through endless searching, I don’t know what I want anymore. The bargainer merely watches besides me, their cold aura tingling my skin.

“How did I meet you?” I ask, breaking the silence, as the bargainer and I gaze at the contents of another box. 

They turn their face towards me. It  flickers through different smiles portraying the same disappointment.  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” they say after a few moments. Grinning, they add, "I suppose you'd have to remember.”

I nod and say nothing else. 

***

“David?”

“David? Are you awake?”

I squint to see my brother tugging my arm, their brows furrowed deeper than the Marianas Trench, their eyes a light amber, their cheeks puffy like marshmallows.  I feel like I say something—I don't know what—and my brother responds to me as if I had.

“I’m scared, David. I can’t go back.”

I get up and follow them out of the room. 

“You’ll always protect me, right?”

I want to say yes. I don’t know if I did.

***

There’s a box filled with my brother’s clothes. I think he was probably ten or eleven given the size. All the shirts are navy blue. I can’t remember why he was so fixated on that color. I suppose everyone at some point has a favorite color.

But like everything else in this attic, the clothes change slightly each time I look again. Now, the clothes are larger. The colors are darker. Was I wrong before? Did I remember his favorite shade of blue wrong? Did he even have a favorite shade of blue? Did he even like blue?

I hug the box thinking of my brother. I hug the box hoping that my memories are true.

***

“David?”

“David? Are you awake?”

I open my eyes again, seeing my brother pinch the skin on my forearm.  He looks a little older than before, but something else is different too. Maybe I mistook his eyes to be a darker shade of brown? Maybe I mistook his nose to be a little flatter?

I think I mumble something. My brother violently shakes their head in response.

“Mom’s sick. She doesn’t sound alright, David.”

I shut my eyes. My brother gets angrier. 

“Why don’t you care?”

I shrug. Everyone gets sick. That’s what I want to say. I can't say if I did.

“If I got sick, you wouldn’t care.”

They run out of the room and slam the door.

***

“Time is ticking.” 

The bargainer appears again, a cold mist accompanying their presence. 

“I couldn’t find the box,” I sigh.

“Pardon?” They ask.

“I don’t know who you are or how I met you.”

The bargainer laughs. “No one wants to remember that.”

***

“David?”

“David?”

I open my eyes to a woman dressed in something light blue with an ID pinned to her shirt pocket. I lift my head from my shoulder, my neck tense like a rubber band stretched to the point it’ll snap. I'm sitting in a hallway with my back against a wall. The lights above me are bright and blinding.

The woman says something slowly to me. Her words are a slurry of sentences, and I have trouble parsing any information out. Her face is a blur, my eyes feel wet, my ears are ringing, my body feels stiff.  

“Your brother...we couldn’t...I’m sorry….is there someone you’d like to call....”

***

“Time’s up.”

The bargainer’s voice seals all of the boxes around the attic, and they vanish into smoke.

Taking a deep breath, I step forward.

“What are you going to ask me?” 

The bargainer’s eyes widen for a brief second. They turn away to laugh that same breathy laugh. Then they stare into my eyes once more,  their pupils turning pitch black.

“What do you remember?” they ask slowly. “Who do you think you are?”