Giacomo, 2080

He hadn't moved or spoken in weeks. Actually he hadn’t moved in decades, but Maria counted only the weeks since he’d been with her this time. It had taken her that long to hook up the electrodes and stimubots, always in pairs, one pair every third day, with an accompanying minuscule increase in power.

The awakening had to be precise: first the veins, arteries and other tissues were softened, made pliable; then the oxygen-exchange and poison-cleansing organs were rejuvenated; then the heart was aroused. The bones were enticed back into the marrow-making business, the tendons and ligaments stretched, flexed, elasticized, the muscles stimulated. At last everything was ready and the flow of blood began. It had coursed through his veins for twenty-one consecutive days, and this morning she’d hooked up the final pair of electrodes.

She leaned over him, caressed the thin vein slowly pulsing in his hand. He seemed so young, this man from another time. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Soon now... very soon." Manipulating a miniature console, she cautiously increased the power.

A white-hot poker sizzled across the space behind his eyes, followed by a series of screaming comets that whirled like a spiral galaxy, tighter and tighter until they collapsed into a blue-white star of consciousness. The galaxy pulsed France 1798, then ebbed, pulsed again  Germany 1867, ebbed again, pulsed Nevada, 1953, ebbed again. Then it collapsed in tightly on itself, moaning as only light can do when straining against the power of itself, then exploded into a supernova. Something twitched in his mind. Twitched again. Awoke.

At the console, the woman nudged the power higher.

A mental door creaked open on rusted hinges and images peeked out, hesitant, then slipped quiet feet through the opening and crept out, still wary and unsure. Memories flashed teachers and bullies and brothers and dogs, all with teeth bared and barking commands, then folded into fantasies, love and lovers, girls, women, ladies, swirled around and through dinners, dances, moonlit walks along the river, diversions into the brush, love on a jacket, a coat, a skirt, lips and fingers and teeth and nails and low, muffled, moaning satisfaction. Grinding, halting recollections seeped along stern walls, faces melting like wax to the baseboard, faces of men whose women he'd loved, whose daughters and sisters and cousins and nieces he'd taken, and faces of large-eyed boys, summoned by the sounds of a carnal heaven, peering through darkened doorways to find their mothers, sisters, aunts in ecstasy, pressed to a mattress or seated astride or hunched over facing a rhythmic headboard, but hovering in all cases, levitated on the winds and scents and electrical sensations of love, love, love!  

The man on the table, no longer quite a corpse, began to twitch in rhythm with all that was flashing to life in his mind, the swirling mixture of faces and eyes, the hair and smiles and ears and jawlines, the translucent skin of the throats and collar bones and shoulders all above one body, the one rhythmic, arching, hungry, receiving, loving body.

He reveled in the memories and the memories reveled in each other, both relishing and fearful of their release from oblivion. Something primal in his body, in his mind, in each memory of his mind, tingled. Can memories have memories? Yes! Can memories have thoughts and desires and longings? Yes! Can memories experience fear? Oh yes... yes. These convulsed, trembled, shuddered, aware that they shouldn’t exist at all—the play had ended—but aware, for they had been forced to the stage one more time.

As if reading the memories herself, at the console the woman increased the power.

Minds pulsed and fluctuated, for they each had their own, and they synched. As if siphoned by a vacuum of need, they pulled and were drawn, coerced to life, gaining speed, frantic, racing in pairs through the dark, fearful, excited, wanting to hide but striving to live, convulsing, trembling, shuddering, baring their teeth in joy, laughing out loud! Each memory slipped into its own party, its own memories rocking its own body to life, the force that outlasts all others pulsing, throbbing, pumping life through what had been lifeless, love through what had been indifferent. As is always the case in the greatest events, the mental surged the physical to life. Molecules pulsed, cells rejoiced. A finger twitched. A thumb. A hand.

The images paired, always paired, coupled as if one couldn't exist without the other, and always in the realm of his true loves: sports and sporting, games and females, Shoulds, perhaps, and Should Nots; the touchdown he'd scored in the last Pop Warner game of his 15th year; the young brunette cheerleader who'd offered herself as a reward that evening; his jacket on that spot of thick grass beneath the oak near the river; the full moon above, her fullness below; trembling her panties down fiercely over finely toned thighs, calves, feet, unable to finesse anything, his motor control all but gone. Ahh, her soft green eyes as she reached for him, the slowing of breath, the ease of trembling, anticipation as he moved over her, sensing her thighs parting beneath him and then the coupling, each in that moment catching the other's breath, sustaining the other's life, as the most amazing rhythm possible transporting them together, a pair become one, to a new and wonderful heaven.

At the console, the woman nudged the power slide an increment higher, two increments. Three.

High school and then college flashed through in paired freeze frames: football, cheerleaders, Shoulds and Should Nots; football, female fans, Shoulds and Should Nots; golf, basketball, baseball, he always the hero, a beautiful, eager girl, Shoulds and Should Nots, always the sweet, self-sacrificing reward. The high school mélange revolved, spun, whirled... slowed... cleared... and the next significant memory slid to center stage: the last game of golf he’d played in college, the fine young blonde eyeing him, her small, square shoulders. A Should? he'd thought. A Should Not? he'd wondered. No, he'd decided. An evoker of frowns. A reason to wonder. She had faded in and out in the gallery, yet he sensed her gaze on him the whole time.

After the 18th hole, she'd appeared in the clubhouse, bought him a drink, whispered Yes, you remember in his ear to a question he hadn't asked aloud. His heart had flipped and guided him to a phone, which he'd used to explain that he had to spend some time with the fans—giving something back, he called it—and they enjoyed their second drink in her hotel room. Her lips were supple, moist, her thighs like firm silk, the short, frantic rhythm of their bodies belying a hunger for more than flesh, for recovered lifetimes, a hunger they fed whenever they could for the next several years, for Yes, he did remember and Yes, he had known her before, perhaps a hundred years earlier, perhaps a thousand, and Yes, with such situations there is no Should or Should Not but only Is.

A cognizant thought, his first in this advent, occurred, but it was not for What Is: Another memory, another time, another precious love, he thought. Only thing I was ever any good at.

At the console, Maria shoved the power slide to Full and stood.

The pairs flashed through his mind more quickly: games, girls, Shoulds and Should Nots; games, women, Shoulds and Should Nots; smiles and laughter and Shoulds and Should Nots and joy and elation and his heart always longing for Her. His spirit advertised his prowess, his tender agility.

Maria removed her blouse. He will remember.

The women, the faces, the hair, the shoulders blurred, recognized him, reached for his love.

Maria dropped her skirt to the floor. Trembled. He must remember!

The Shoulds searched him out, ran to him, reaching. The Should Nots shouldered them aside, longing, wanting.

Maria slipped across him, positioned herself, settled over his lovely, throbbing heat. I am here, my love. We simply Are. It simply Is.

The faces and eyes whirled and blurred, the hair and smiles shimmered and glistened, the jawlines and ears and translucent skin pulsed and reeled into phosphorus, joyful hues, then swam into one. My one! The one! His eyes flashed open. "Maria! Maria!"

Her face and her eyes, her hair and her smile, her jawline and ears and her translucent skin transported her touch to his skin, her pulse to his pulse, her heart to his heart, her life to his life, her joy to his joy, and Maria, in the ecstasy of life regained, her head tossed back, screamed his name: "Casanova!"

* * * * * * *