Falling Sideways Through Memory

He was floating.

Or falling.

He couldn't tell the difference anymore. He didn't know if there was a difference.

The ether cradled him, soft as silk, endless as the sky, warm and cold all at once. It had no colour, only depth — beige hazy nothing stretching outward forever, swallowing the edges of his body until even that word, body, began to mean nothing.

Sometimes he thought he could hear his own voice echoing through the haze, but it came back warped, like the sound of someone calling his name underwater.

Joey.

That name. It felt familiar. It used to belong to someone. Him? Maybe.

He tried to hold onto it, but it slipped through his fingers like mist.

Shapes moved in the haze — gentle ripples of memory, faint and luminous. He reached toward them and they blossomed into fragments of his life, reflections trembling in the ether like bubbles that might burst at any second.

There was a woman. Donna. They loved each other. But she was something more than a lover. She stood in the morning light of that warm breakfast restaurant, denim shorts, tiny top, hair in pigtails. She was showing off for him. To him? He could feel his walls crumbling down when he looked at her, admitting that she was what he wanted.

"You're cute when you try to hold back," she had whispered. "But we both know how this ends."

Did he? How did it end?

The memory drifted away, dissolving into light.

Another woman. Eliza. Who was she? There was something so familiar about her. The scent of chalk dust. The sound of a busy classroom.

"When we're alone, you can call me Eliza. You're becoming a man, Joey, so you might as well start thinking of me as a woman."

Yes, those were her words. He could see her now, red hair, tiny plaid skirt, blouse that was barely on. Her eyes were sharp even in surrender. She'd called him 'sir' and asked for discipline.

If it pleases you, Joey.

Had it been real? Again, the memory slipped away.

Again a face drifted close. Was this the same one he'd seen before? No, it was younger, more aggressive. Juniper.

A party. Music too loud, lights spinning. She'd been drunk, angry, beautiful in the way people are when they stop pretending. Her breath had smelled like ****, but her lips tasted like cherry. Tears had streaked her face when he first saw her. Joy had painted her face in the bedroom.

Then she, too, melted into the ether.

There were more. Madison, milkshakes and confessions, a first kiss, a first love.

Aynsley, in the shower, steam everywhere. Her body close, slick, touching, rubbing. The warmth, the closeness, with a woman who had seemed so unapproachable.

Bianca, had seemed a stranger at first. His first time. Hot, fast, ****. His second. Even hotter, teasing, adventurous. His third. Fourth. Fifth...

Serena. Indira. Together. With him. With each other. One knew her beauty, one just learning it. Both deeply and profoundly in love.

Even Elorae, the woman who needed him, who believed in him. Attractive beyond reason, willing to become anything for him.

He remembered them all — their voices, their warmth, their eyes — but they were fading. The ether was pulling them apart like sand scattered by the tide.

He tried to shout, to call their names, but no sound came out.

He could feel himself slipping. The boundaries between thought and nothingness were blurring. The colours of his memories — red, blue, gold — were draining away into beige. Even his name began to sound foreign. Joey. Who was Joey?

He could give up. He could let go. It would be easier. The nothingness was soft, endless, almost kind.

And then—

Something.

A pulse. A sound. A feeling that wasn't part of the ether. It cut through everything — sharp, real, impossible.

It felt like warmth pressed against his chest. Like someone's heartbeat against his own.

It felt real.

He turned toward it — or thought he did — as if the whole universe had just tilted that way. Somewhere in the beige infinity, a spark of colour bloomed.

Red.

The colour of lips.

The colour of Elorae.