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Ray seems to believe that my memory has fully returned, his evidence being the simple recollection of an Inuit story. Though I told him the truth about my situation, I allowed him to take it as he would, without correction. I remember very little. Much more than I had at the start of this waking nightmare, but still not even the majority of my years here in Chicago. I remember... flashes. Victoria's fingers in my mouth and the feeling of sinking my fingers into her soft, perfect curls. Ray shooting me to save me, pain blossoming in my back. Seeing my father's cold, dead face, knowing that I would never be half the Mountie that he had been. Kissing Inspector Thatcher on a racing train, her mouth sweet and desperate and not nearly enough. Aiming a gun at Diefenbaker, my vision blurrier than any other time in my life. Only flashes. But I do have a great ability to... not lie, but withhold information. I can recall doing it before, and can remember how to do it without alerting anyone to my actual condition. Ray is, for the most part, kind and intelligent. Yet, despite that, sometimes my mind tries to twist around how he can be so very cynical and so terribly, frightfully naive at the same time. And he takes so much for granted while being surrounded by so much misery and terror. He would never even suspect that I might not tell him about gaps in my memory. I almost wish that he would. Ray would tell me not to be so melancholy -- though I do doubt that he would choose that word. He would tell me to 'get over it' and move on. He would be right -- it does not befit an officer of the law, a grown man, to allow himself to be bound by emotions and fears that could possibly affect his work. But I constantly worry that this city is blunting my sharp edges and this latest incidence is rather like the final straw on the camel's back. Some days, I fear that I'll choke to death on the bitterly metallic taste of fear and blood that fills every street of this city. Blood scents cleaner in the snow, where there's no smog to twist the scent sour and thick -- I remember that. Fear is sharper, a knife instead of a noose. I must admit that I would much rather walk the razor edge between life and death than to allow myself to be trapped under the layers of foggy pollution and waste that coat every taste and smell here. I would rather stand in a treacherous icefield where every step could lead to a slow death than wait numbly on the harsh concrete before this Consulate where the only danger that comes to me is what I invite. The first is a danger of the body, known and catalogued as acceptable, the second is a danger of the soul, and there are no ways to avoid soul-sickness. Better my body die than my spirit. After all, death is only another path -- I've seen my father since my loss, though that may just mean that I'm less sane than I think I am. But despite my feelings, the world would have too much to lose at my absence. There is no one here that I can trust to carry on in my stead, as my father had me. Perhaps I place too much importance on myself, yet I remember some of the lives that I saved where others turned back. So I court death, yet I do not choose it. In any case, the mating dance is much more arousing than any surrender could hope to be. Though, when the time comes, Ray may very well be my final instrument -- he's already taken me closer to death than any but Victoria. What we love is what kills us, what consumes us, body and soul. But today is not to be that day and I cannot hope to clear my mind in this cage of metal and noise. I may not remember all of my past, but I do know that my heart is not here in this city. I know that something beyond my memory is missing. I can feel a need burrowing deep under my skin. I need silence and peace. The calm center that I've only found in my home. As Ray believes me to be fully recovered, he can have no possible reason to protest if I claim to need a solitary trip home to... commune with the wilderness. Perhaps there, I will find a reason to be.
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