Tabula Rasa

He had been a fish once, and they had spent a pleasant afternoon swimming near the hull of a yacht moored at the Porto de Camerota in Italy. She was a fish too, at the time. Some of her happiest days. Now they were riding on a bus through the back streets of Kathmandu. As humans, of course. Two fish sitting on a bus in Kathmandu had bigger problems to worry about than a familiar face. She had stared too long and he shot a quizzical glance, though not unkindly. He did not remember her, she could tell. They met again, 864 years later on Proxima Centauri B. This time they were both a type of conscious cephalopod that had been bioengineered to help in the Martian water wars. He remembered this time, or at least pretended to remember - she could never quite tell. Those three years were blissful but bitterly brief. She rued that they met as creatures with such short lifespans. She thinks about him a lot, even now as she huddles with her mate against the bitter antarctic winds. She wonders what he is doing know and whether she will ever see him again.