Jon Herrera
2013
Emma was sitting on a bench next to a bus stop. It was morning on a busy street and the road in front of her was full of traffic. There was a bus shelter next to the bench and there were a few people inside. They were looking at her. A woman was sitting next to her but she stood up and walked away. Emma glanced toward the people in the shelter and they all looked away at once and pretended that she wasn’t there. She looked down at her lap and saw that she was holding a plain flute made of wood. She swung her feet back and forth as memories began to creep back to her. There was something about a forest. She hummed and waited patiently for all the memories to return. A black cat came and jumped up on the bench beside her. “Hello, Mr Cat,” she said as she watched him lick his paw. The cat paused in mid-lick and looked straight at her and then at the people behind her in the bus shelter. “They see a girl appear out of nowhere and that’s how they react,” he said. “They try to disappear her right back again.” Emma blinked. She looked around and behind the cat and under the bench. He watched her the entire time. She wanted to giggle. “I can talk to animals!” she said and raised her hands in the air in delight. The cat blinked at her. “I can’t understand anything that you’re saying,” he said. “You’re just talking nonsense like the rest of them.” The cat leaped down from the bench and ran off across a lawn and around the building behind it. Emma lowered her arms and frowned. After a moment, she raised them into the air again. “I can listen to animals!” she said. A bus pulled up at that moment and the people who had been waiting for it climbed in. A number of them cast quick glances at Emma as they departed. When the bus drove away, Emma saw that there was a hospital across the street. There was a sprawling parking lot in front of it. “He’ll take me where I need to go,” she said as her memory returned. “A hospital? Am I hurt?” She checked herself over and thought that she was
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