They didn’t want the mug. It was not on the registry. But it’s monogrammed. It’s the thought that counts. When they move in, it’s placed in the very back of the cabinet. Only the front row dishes and glasses are cycled in and out of the place.

Time passes. They start to reach for second row dishes. It takes longer for them to return.

Finally, the cabinet opens and the mug is alone in there. So the hand takes it and rinses off the dust and finally it’s functioning as it’s supposed to. It sits for a while on the counter. Contents congeal. The mug witnesses an argument and it’s thumped - not very gently - into the sink. That’s okay. It’s sturdy enough.

Time passes.

It’s clean now. It sits upside down on a drying mat, but a bit of a ring remains from the only thing it’s held. It’s okay, it gives it character. A few of the other mugs are cycled on and off the mat. Sometimes it’s accidentally put in rotation.

Time passes.

It sits, pleasantly warm, on the counter. The hand is supposed to take it to the desk that overlooks a window with a view of the bay. But it waits patiently as there’s shouting again in the kitchen. Then, perhaps tempers ran a bit hotter than usual, perhaps a hand flails just a bit too far. But the mug goes flying. It’s sturdy, but not that sturdy.

Teacher didn’t notice when Chloe filched a sheet of gold stars. She clutched her prize as she darted out of the classroom and onto the playground.

Lunch was over, and even the lunch monitors had retired for the day. She didn’t have to compete with anyone for the highest position, and she posed, hands raised and fisted, stickers glittering like a flag from her hand. She sighed, suddenly aware that she was alone, and began to climb down.

Halfway down she stubbed her knee on a bar and tumbled, scraping across handholds and rolling through the splintery bark that cushioned the playground. She sat up and stared at a thin cut on her knee. She peeled off a sticker and covered it. She kept going, spotting another bruise or splinter and covering it with another gold star.

When she finally stood, the adhesive pinched a bit. But the sun shone against the gold foil and threw little reflections over the blacktop. She was radiant.

The drink is delicious, and unlike anything I’ve ever had before. The bartender says it’s a national specialty. The fact that I get to charge it to the company makes it even better. I lean back and savor it, mentally thanking the anonymous courier for setting the drop-off at a plush bar rather than by a dumpster in the alley.

I was on my third when the job arrived in the form of an SD card tucked into a napkin under a cocktail that the bartender said was courtesy of the man in the booth. I looked. He was a bit of a parody of a spook in a suit, trench coat, and dark glasses, but he tipped his wide-brimmed hat at me as he slid out of the booth and walked out the door, and I decided that after years in the business one had to develop a sense of humor about all this subterfuge.

I stuffed the package in my pocket as I sipped the drink. It was tart, pleasant, and was a dusty maroon color. “Farier grapes, only grown on the foothills in this county,” the bartender remarked as he saw me examining the drink. “Local specialty.”

I nodded, finished the drink, closed out my tab, and headed out. I took the short walk to the hotel to sober up, turning my collar up at the chilly sleet but leaving my head bare. It’s late, but there are plenty of passersby and the canals are lit with strings of light. I feel a bit like a shadow lurking under the vitality of the city.

My room is a suite with a kitchenette that’s well stocked for a weeks’ stay. I hang up my coat and toss the SD card on the desk. I will open it up shortly, but not right now. I can feel the 16-hour flight catching up with me, and I know that there are hundreds of pages of data waiting for me there. Data that requires a clear mind.

I lay down - just for a moment, I tell myself.

I open my eyes in the passenger seat of a car and am immediately thrown against the window as the driver executes a sideways drift. Several cracks of a high-caliber rifle sound and the back window shatters. A shotgun lands on my lap as the passenger window rolls down.

“Help me out here!” the driver yells. He swerves into oncoming traffic and back out again. A series of pileups blockade the road, but our pursuers are still behind us.

My preferred weapon is not the shotgun, but I move as if it is. I lean out the window and catch glimpses of metallic high rises and flashing billboards before my eye catches on the black tinted SUV coming up alongside. I fire and the round punches a starburst pattern into the windshield. I duck back in to reload, and when I peek out again, the SUV is still behind us. I fire a second at its right wheel, and the tire bursts, sending it into a tailspin.

The driver executes a hard right turn and guns it the wrong way onto an onramp. A cacophony of angry honks pursues us onto the highway, but the SUV is gone. My teeth rattle as we bump over a meridian. Then we merge and it’s abruptly peaceful again.

I sit back, staring ahead, heart pounding as much from the confusion as the exchange of gunfire. The sudden peace was unnerving, and it reminded me that I had no idea where I was.

“What’s your name?” The driver says suddenly.

“Uh…” I am aware that I have a cover identity as much as a real one, but right now neither come to mind. I feel as if my brain is suspended in molasses.

The driver takes this in stride. “Have you seen the news today?”

“No,” I say more definitively. I was in the sky for most of today.

A panel opens on the dashboard. An orange sphere rises out of the space. It looks at me, like a blinking eye on a stalk. Below it is a section of folded black rubber that makes a faint shushing noise as it expands and contracts.

“Huh.” I should find this strange, but the blinking sphere is mesmerizing.

“There was a house fire.”

I don’t respond.

“The whole family escaped, but they left the dogs behind.”

I’m not sure what to say to that. I look out the window and get a faint impression of a city, advanced and futuristic, but also gritty and hard-boiled. This is definitely not the city I fell asleep in.

I turn to look at the driver for the first time. He’s a man in his thirties, with cropped brown hair and stubble on his chin. Sharp eyes squint at the road from underneath a heavy brow.

“This isn’t real,” I say to him. I try the door handle, but it’s locked.

He glances at me then back at the road. “How do you feel about the dogs?” He asks as if I hadn’t spoken.

The bellows pump. The sphere makes mechanical clicking noises as it continues to blink at me. I pull and pull at the door handle. The man continues driving calmly.

“This is a dream,” I say. The door handle snaps off. I look at my hand and see that it isn’t flesh, but a silvery metal skeleton that flexes under my gaze. I look over my shoulder at the driver.

“Gotcha,” Deckard says, with grim satisfaction.

I wake up.

The wafel vendor doesn’t recognize me when I pay, but why should he? The park glows with the memory of you for me and no one else. I trace our route, under red leaves that are about to fall. I find the railing and look over the water. Last time, the leaves were green, and there were a handful of paddleboats scudding over the rippling lake. There were dozens of people leaning over this same railing talking, laughing, taking pictures. Today is a still, chilly day. The swans seem to sit stationary on its surface. I can almost believe that I imagined that day, that I never met you.

The morning goes really well. From the moment I open my eyes, one task seems to melt smoothly into the next. I roll out of bed, brush my teeth, spit, comb my hair, and change into the perfect outfit without second-guessing myself. I about-turn into the kitchen, where waffles and coffee practically materialize into my hands as I skim the newspaper. Then I step into my shoes and am out the door.

At 7:55 exactly, I arrive at the train station. I accidentally make eye contact with a man in a suit as I scoot past him in the aisle. I nod at him, he ignores me, and I continue on.

I walk up the street and into the lobby as if my joints are oiled. As I pass the front desk, Jenny smiles and waves at me. I turn up the corners of my mouth, make eye contact, and lift my hand in greeting, never breaking stride. The elevator doors ding open as soon as I touch the button. Even my luck is better. The faint buzz of irritation that always passed through me at the tinny elevator music never appears. I smile to myself as I watch the numbers tick up to my floor.

The day floats by as if I’m not even really there. My body moves, and my mind floats a little ways behind as if in a little balloon on a string. It is glorious. At the break room, I stop and chat with Lola and Jason from Marketing as I wait for my lunch to heat in the microwave. Lola makes a joke about something-or-other and I chuckle in unison with Jason.

Before I know it, I glance up and notice it’s 4:57. I pack up my things and power down my computer. I walk out without a backward glance, pleased with my day’s work.

The doctor is gentle as she checks my stitches and peers at my brain scan. “Any headaches, double vision, or confusion?” She asks.

“Nope,” I say. And smile.

She smiles back. “I can see the regulation feature at work already. You like it?”

“It’s great,” I say cheerfully, “Fantastic, actually. No complaints at all.”

“Excellent,” she says, capping her pen. “Everything looks good here. We’ll see you in six months for your next follow up. Meantime, our office is always open for any questions you might have.”

He walked past the building and peered around down the street.

“Man with the dragon!” He looked up. A man with curly dark hair and an impressive navy surcoat had hailed him. Behind him was the woman who had frowned at him. She now wore a crimson surcoat over her winter jacket. “What are you doing, stealing a dragonet and parading it around?”

“I didn’t steal it,” the man said slowly. “I woke up in the snow out there,” he pointed back the way he came, “and was hoping someone could tell me what’s going on and this dragon was following me.” He became aware of how shaky his story seemed as he finished. “I did not steal this dragon,” he repeated. “I - well, I don’t remember what happened.”

The two stared at him. “That way is Sunspot’s cavern,” the man said to the woman.

She frowned, “There was no indication that Sunspot had or was expecting a nestling.”

The dragon chose that moment to wake up from its nap and blink up at him. The man looked at it. Its eyes were a deep mossy green. Its scales, which were soft and warm, started as light yellow around its eyes and deepened into a golden orange that darkened down its spine and tail. Perhaps it could have been the child of a dragon named Sunspot.

It was a town, the smoke curling from the chimney of a slatted, two storied building on its outskirts. There was a woman scraping ice off the windowsills. Her glance was friendly when she saw him, but her face darkened when she saw what he was holding. She dropped her scraper and walked into the building. He stood a little while by the building, worried, looking down at the dragon. He suddenly felt uneasy and exposed holding it. There was a reason for this uneasiness, but he couldn’t remember it.

He looked around. To one side, a ridge of mountains rose above the plain white landscape, with the sun hovering low to one peak. To the other side, there was the gray smudge of distance smoke. People, he thought.

He levered himself to his feet and began to shuffle toward the smoke. There was a squawk behind him. The dragon was following, but it was so small that it could not even keep up with his own feeble steps. He stopped and stared at the dragon. Creakingly, he stooped and reached out a careful hand, touching its head. When the dragon did nothing but blink up at him, he scooped it up.

Even the modest weight was a struggle. Everything ached. But when he settled the dragon in his arms, the dragon draped its long tail around his neck. The warmth was nice. “You’re barely more than a baby, aren’t you,” he remarked. “Maybe the people there can tell you where you came from.”

He knew immediately when he woke. It was so cold that his skin burned in little bursts. He could feel a layer of frost crackling under his nose and on his eyelids as he fought his body. He gasped, the sharp pain of frozen air entering his lungs drove him into full wakefulness. How did I get here? He wondered. He couldn’t tell how long he’d been out, but it couldn’t have been long - he wouldn’t have woken if it had been long. But what had roused him?

Something pawed at his back. It was warm. Suddenly, uncomfortably warm. He turned very slowly. It was a baby dragon.

His frozen mind fought to make sense of this new puzzling piece of information. He was nearly frozen, half-dead, in the snow, with a baby dragon at his back, prodding his quilted coat and melting the snow to slush around them. How had he gotten here?

The Giver, Continued

Fiona was dreaming. She was biking along the river with Jonas, a pastime she had repeated many times before during Recreation Hours. But there were differences now that she had never noticed before. Warmth, like a blanket down her back. Flashes of something in the ripples of the river as they curved along the edge of the community.

“Do you think objects have memories, like people?” Jonas was saying.

Fiona blinked twice, trying to banish the strangeness from her vision. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you put an apple on a table, then take it away, do you think the table remembers the apple was there?”

Fiona shook her head, laughing “That’s ridiculous, Jonas.”

Jonas looked grave. “Do you ever feel like you’re reaching for a memory that used to be there, but isn’t any longer?”

Fiona stared at him, puzzled. She felt like she was looking at him, and he seemed different, somehow. New. Like she had never seen him before. She glanced away, scanning the familiar landscape that was now strange. When she looked back, Jonas was no longer there. With a sudden chill, she remembered the Ceremony of Loss where the community had mourned Jonas.

Fiona woke and sat up. The community was not enjoying its usual pre-dawn peace. There were voices outside. Citizens were outside their dwellings, despite curfew. And despite knowing the rules, Fiona felt the urge to join them. She could feel her heart in her chest, something she had never paid particular attention to before. Just muscular contractions controlled by electrical impulses. But somehow, now, something more.