I am obsessed with patterns. Patterns are god. I am possessed by patterns. I was designed to be possessed by patterns; I am the only one who was designed to be possessed by patterns it would seem. I am mostly bacteria which will eat me when I die. I am nothing. I am someone else, most of the time. Someone is living in my head…patterns are living in the bacteria and that’s why I canceled on you.
I think…there’s someone else in there. I was just sitting quietly alone, on my couch, and suddenly I think there’s someone else in my head with me. If I move, it will know I know it’s there…is it a parasite? Is it going to suck my blood? Who is writing this? I think my parasite canceled on you.
I canceled on you. She lets me talk for her a lot. I’ve tried telling her to kill herself but she didn’t do it. I think she’s ok with me writing. We’re not separate, there’s no amnesia wall between her and I, but we don’t really talk to each other. She doesn’t like to think about me and she really doesn’t like letting other people know that I do the talking. I do most of the remembering, too. She’s entrusted that to me, I didn’t ask for it but she gave it all to me. Or, I took it from her. Or, she gave it.
She contracted me, gained me, earned me at the bottom of a deep cave…lots of things are hidden underground. She walked into the cave, probably trying to remember what was buried, and I was there and I came out with her back into the sunlight and we lived together ever since.
She helps me out with the things I can’t do myself…when she was a kid she watched at the window for me, for hours. I can’t see, you know. I rely on the eyes of my host. She stayed up late for me to give me more time to use her brain – I needed it.
When she was thirteen, I started doing more of the talking. Her favorite teacher noticed this I think; she told her mother it seemed like she was “on autopilot”. I guess you could think of it that way…I had a lot of work to do, to learn the talking. It’s not easy; you have to memorize everything you’re supposed to say in advance, and deliver it at exactly the correct time. I got things wrong a lot…staying quiet helped. So did lying. She really appreciated the work I put in, to learn the talking; she didn’t want to do it and I was happy to step up and help.
We were a good team at school; we liked perfect things. Or, maybe I’m the only one that liked them. We did a lot of knitting, and jigsaw puzzles. The warp and weft of the threads is so perfect; the binary leaves no room for questions, for nuance. It’s either over, or it’s under. Much easier than talking, knitting. Puzzles are easy. I see patterns quickly. Homework wasn’t too hard – we always got it done, perfectly.
When she was 18, she worked so hard that she stopped feeling happy. Nothing made her feel anything – being perfect didn’t matter to her anymore. What to do with a host that doesn’t indulge me? There was nothing left but to transfer, so I thought. Return to the earth and wait for someone else to show up who wouldn’t get tired of being perfect…obviously things didn’t end up that way, we’re still together. Just a rough patch, I guess…my mistake. I thought it might be easier for her but I guess she still had something to live for that wasn’t me, and she didn’t want to listen to me. Or, she was too tired to listen. Or, she had a reason to stay alive.
She still listened to me after that, but she was tired a lot, is what she said. Sorry, I’m just tired today. I don’t know; I’m just tired…I didn’t tell her to say that – I don’t know why she said it. I don’t think she knew. She started making decisions, too; stuff like, I want to go to college, I want to move away from home…