The Merge

by Grace Walker

It’s how she is: defiant, as if her resistance alone can render something untrue.

It doesn’t get any easier, the realisation that I’ve forgotten something. As soon as I notice, it’s impossible to leave the forgotten thing alone. The missing details nag at my mind.

I continue with the story, but a part of me is distracted, wondering what I’ve missed, wondering whether things would be different if I knew what had happened on those unread pages.

The truth is, as much as Amelia wants to help, sitting in silence with an empty mind doesn’t benefit me. My time is much better spent working my brain.

I didn’t have the energy to explain how the wealthy are able to maintain their individuality, keep their homes and their families, while the poor are being stripped of everything, forced into a shared existence.

Is fusing my mind with hers better than losing it altogether?”

The news came as most life-changing news does: quietly, on an ordinary day.

I see what the others in this group have seen all along: the fierce, fragile hope that makes this choice feel less like desperation and more like love.

We’re the misfits of society. If they find a way to successfully merge us, to get rid of our problems, then they’ll do it to anyone with an ailment. Soon, only the healthy, rich ones will be left. Just like they want.”

Believing,” he says, “is half the battle.”

In my experience, the people who spend their time preaching about loving and being kind to others are often the cruellest individuals. The good people, the people who would never think to do otherwise, don’t feel kindness is something that needs to be taught.

This isn’t death, just the disposal of a body, not of a person. But the grief, it turns out, remains the same.

A small bird has somehow found its way inside one of the structures and is flying happily from beam to beam, oblivious to its confinement.