I open my eyes, blinking in the sunlight. It's midmorning.

"Do you remember anything?" There's a woman standing over me, holding my hand. She looks worried. I shake my head.

She sighs. "I guess it would have been too much to ask. Come on, I'll show you around."

We're under a low roof, open to the air. The grass beneath it is more trampled, and I wonder how many feet have been here.

The woman shakes her head when I ask. "It's just us. Always has been."

She leads me out by the lake, where a small boat is waiting on the shore. A body is stretched out in the boat. The fingers are long and knobbled, like mine.

The woman begins gathering tinder into the boat, and I help. It's midday when she finally lights the pyre and we push the boat together out onto the water.

We hold each other as we watch it float away.


She shows me how to find food in the woods, which plants can be eaten and which cannot. We eat together under the roof at the table where I woke up, and she smiles. I think about this for a minute, then smile back.


As evening approaches, she gathers wood and starts to make something. I don't recognize what it is yet. I decide to make something too; I find clay in the same color as her skin, and I gather it on the table, and I slowly shape it into her likeness.

We finish just after dusk. She's made a small boat. I show her the statue, lying on the table, and she smiles but there are tears in her eyes.


She sleeps in the boat. I sleep on the shore, next to her.


Dawn comes, and I wake. She does not.

I stand over her body, staring, for a long time. I don't know how long. Eventually I force myself to turn away, but a minute later I find myself standing over the statue in the same way.

The statue breathes.

I hold its hand, desperately, hoping against hope. It opens its eyes, blinking.

"Do you remember anything?"

It shakes its head. I want to scream, cry, anything; but I just sigh.

"I guess it would have been too much to ask," I say, trying to sound calm. "Come on, I'll show you around."