Eye Of The Cosmos.

boothill.

the beach.

'Boothill.'

The cyborg stirs as you whisper his name into the quietude.

the frail sun concealed with patches of grey clouds hovering. seagulls glide in a delicate pattern against the backdrop of the sky. The water dark in fathoms, it ripples pulverulently against accumulated dark, craggy rocks, lining a hillock. Your white cottage rests atop it, permitting you to overlook the exquisite scenery.

The cottage is of two storeys, with a lucid ocean vision. The front porch adequately wide for your leisure table-chair setting and cream plumeria pots.

The place is silent—omitting the seagulls' raucous calls— almost too solitary at times. Boothill questions how you manage to live alone in such dull surroundings. Albeit that if you craved company, the town is a hill walk away.

'do memories still exist when they're forgotten?'

You blink at him, and he does so, too.

'gee, sugar! I ain't a no philosopher, y'know.. been gettin' the blues?'

You merely chuckle, at his words. 'no... I have a feeling... that I am losing memories. I don't know what exactly, however, I can feel I am gradually forgetting some things. I can't quite explain it. Yet, it's akin to.. memories leaking out of my mind, palpable in the atmosphere, and out of reach..'

'I assume it's related to this gun somehow,' you pull out a gun from your parka, diligently tracing its polished surface before you toss it to him.

Boothill stares at the gun in astonishment, he raises the gun before his eyes, tilts his head slightly and shuts an eye as if aiming. 'woah, peach. That's some gun ya got there!'

'found it abandoned here on the shore. Though I prefer to dispose of it.'

Boothill raises a brow, 'ya sure?'

You nod.

'Sometimes, I have this vision,' you state. 'There is this gun and bullet within. It deep inside the soft part of my head, where memories lie. It does not hurt— it is merely there. And I am witnessing it as if it occurred to someone else. I want someone to pull it out, but nobody notices it's there. And then everything begins to vanish. I begin to vanish, too. Only, the gun and the bullet linger— to the very conclusion. Akin to the bone of some prehistoric animal on the beach. That is the kind of vision I have.'

The next time Boothill visits the seashore is a year after and on the exact day. Everything was left as it was. He glances at the white cottage, its windowpanes boarded, and smoulder emits from its chimney. Nevertheless, he's conscious that you've long yielded life by the seashore. Drawing out the gun you've endowed him, he recalls your previous conversation— you're somewhere out there in the world, strolling, with that bullet adhered in your mind, your memories mislaying an intangible, bubble-ish, blue trail.

And so, he does the same— raises the gun before his eyes, tilts his head slightly and shuts an eye. His fingers pull at the trigger, at the abyss ahead, at the fragments your memories mislaid at this spot.

You're not there.

And you'll never be.