Forget Yourself Read Online Free

mysterious, set in place by a people to whom we had once belonged but no longer remembered. All we had was this: four fire taps and one water. They had always been here.
    What did the world look like at the beginning? It was no secret—
    “Here you go,” a nameless neighbour offered me the tap and kettle, accidentally sloshing some of his lukewarm water onto my knee as he left, noticing but remaining wordless.
    I returned as Tanned and Burberry pulled apart from an embrace. Tanned turned to me and unleashed his news: Ketamine had a job. I offered them the two cups of hot water, whilst Burberry plopped the bags in, scanning my face for a reaction.
    “You’d have found out if you’d been meeting people. You should get over to the courtyard more.” Tanned flashed his teeth at me, which gleamed white against dark skin, the one tooth a dirty brown-grey.
    “Right.”
    “Don’t you want to meet anyone?” He took a sip from the broken mug he clutched. “Anyone at all?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Tanned looked concerned. “You should get back on your feet, soon as possible.”
    I hadn’t heard that before, but it sounded familiar. Tanned squinted his eyes in thought, trying to pull something from his mind. Burberry turned her intense gaze toward him.
    “Do you remember—”
    “Wait—”
    “Do you remember something?” she ventured.
    “I don’t know. It’ll come to me if it comes to me,” Tanned replied, turning attention back toward me. “The point is you can’t remain alone.”
    “Pilsner does.” I wondered how he could be so relaxed about the possibility of a memory.
    “Well, you know about him—”
    “Oh, stop it.” I snapped, failing to hide my amusement. “You can’t talk about him like that.”
    Tanned released a sharp, hard laugh. Burberry scrunched her face in discomfort, so Tanned pressed his lips to hers. She parted them, allowing entry to his tongue.
    I couldn’t resist asking.
    “What’s her job?”
    “Huh?” Tanned mumbled into Burberry’s mouth.
    “Ketamine’s job?”
    “Oh.” He stopped. “She makes recipes now. She’ll write down what we can cook.”
    “That’s a job?”
    “Apparently so.”
    “Right,” I murmured, unsure. A quick breeze stung my bare arms and more cloud threatened the sky, churning it into the threat of rain.
    “Her crime is the same. She didn’t want it moved.”
    “Why?” I asked, but Tanned didn’t need to answer, so he didn’t. The smell of pumpkin sliced through the air. Someone was cooking. Mine had started to mush. Perhaps I should find someone: food was better with a partner, after all. Another pause and more clouds gathered, hovering above us, intent on useless showers. Water always pooled at the foot of my bed, drips which would tickle my feet and make me giggle.
    “Look, she’s gonna be hurt and looking for something to do. Maybe she remembered something, but it’ll be the shock,” Tanned offered.
    Burberry stirred.
    “It’s getting late, we should be going. Goodbye Blondee,” she called, elongating the syllables of my name. Blo-o-onde-e-e. Sing-song. Si-i-ing
so-o-ong. She shifted her thin frame up from the deckchair, slinging it over her arm. Tanned followed. Burberry kept her gaze on me as she left, so I smiled at her, willing friendliness. They’d taken their tea with them. I watched them vanish before returning to my hut.
    The fabric was still soaking in the bucket. I pulled it out and went to pin it to the window frame. As the slanted window was also wall and roof I had to use eight pins to hold it up. I left one third of the window uncovered. The curtain would provide shade. Light shone orange, gold, and purple over my hut and I rested the changing colours on my skin, basking in the glory of light from wet fabric. I noticed there were two colourless circles cast, one on the resin box I used as a kitchen and the other on my pillow.
    There was little else to do. I had no job, and all those anyone could remember were already