Read Online Transits by Jaime Forsythe - Free Book Online

found at a yard sale he wanted to fix, the first lines of a drawing of the bus stop. There must have been more he was working on. Andy did remember worrying that he'd never finish. Had he even wanted to finish? Logically, nothing was going anywhere, so if he just kept putting one foot in front of the other, he would look up one day and see he had done everything he wanted to do. Now, there was no evidence that he'd been doing anything at all during the hours he spent by himself. He had no witnesses for those times.
    A sound comes back to him: Lila's voice magnified in the shower, through the walls, the words unintelligible, creating an otherworldly, underwater echo. This isn't what he's looking to recall, but it's a start.
    He clears a blank canvas in his head and tries mentally to sketch the people he likes to remember, no one more important than the other, but he can't. A few black lines appear and then dissolve, like an Etch-A-Sketch.
    He manages to rise in time to make his four o'clock shift the next day. His t-shirt clings to his skin by the time he reaches the hospital. Nurses in blue suck cigarettes by the curb. On the ninth floor, the receptionist is saying into her phone, “You're speaking to a beaten angel. Give me another day on that.” She waggles two fingers in Andy's direction.
    As he wheels his first cart onto the elevator, Andy's nerves smooth somewhat. At least the work rhythms have not left his body. He's safe here; nothing could burn this place down. It is an invincible kingdom of generators and solid walls, awake twenty-four hours a day, undisturbed by a blizzard or a hurricane. Bells, whistles, alarms sound at the first sign of danger. Each emergency is documented with its own meticulous record.
    Andy exits the elevator and pushes his cart down a green corridor, alert for speeding gurneys, shuffling patients and lost visitors. Steering takes practice. It's a wordless traffic system of yielding, balance of cargo, knowing when to accelerate and when to merge. If he wants his day to pass at all, Andy must immerse himself in thesesmall never-ending details. He speaks to the occasional nurse, rarely a doctor.
    Each of Andy's past workplaces has had a strong smell: chocolate factory, diner kitchen, plant store. The smell here is of rubbing alcohol, sour breath and urine, coffee and the hand disinfectant from pumps attached to the walls.
    He has almost reached his destination when he notices a woman in a wheelchair gliding towards him. She clearly knows where she is going. Patients navigate the halls confidently, while visitors and day appointments stumble and stop to read signs. Andy shifts his cart flush against the wall so the woman will be able to pass him easily. He nods at her. She is his age, maybe younger. A cotton ball is affixed with a band-aid to the inside of her right elbow. A birthmark covers most of her left cheek, rose-shaped. Her speed doesn't falter but she gives him a slow, familiar smile.
    After she has passed, Andy feels sick. Does he know her? He feels sick because he can't remember. Were they introduced at a party? Is she a friend's sister, suddenly ill? Andy looks behind him, but she is gone. Was it something more? Did she spend the night in his bed once, in the winter, and trace her name in the window condensation? Did she get up for a glass of water, wrapped in a sheet? All he can see is the mattress covered in inky soot, bloated with moisture.
    Andy grips the cool bar of the cart. The birthmark, how could he not remember that? It was the colour of red grapes. It would have a finer texture than the rest of her skin.
    Trying to retrieve information from his memory bank is like trying to catch a fly with his fist.
    His shift ends at midnight, and Andy chooses to run back to his mother's. He does not run regularly, only sometimes when his muscles feel clenched and in need of release. Tonight it is really his mind that feels clenched, around the present. He runs over the white lines