On The Possibilities
     Of A Selective Memory
(based on an idea by Prototype Chan)

       He forgets the name of it, but simply that it exists in amongst all the foul language and distain. He forgets the feel of it, soft, and liquid against his skin, warming his senses. And the form of it sits just beyond his grasp, mocking him from the shadows. The taste of it, the taste of it he puts aside and drowns out with all the things that will fit in his mouth. No, he has forgotten all of it, and only the possibility remains. He woke up; this is what he did everyday, forever.

       He woke up and noticed, that the ceiling was especially cream, as far as ceilings were concerned. He went back to sleep, and dreamt of, nothing really; which gave him a headache afterward. He woke up, and this was no different from the day before, except the day before he had killed himself. But even in this, things were still very much the same. The day before, he had also woken up, remembering nothing. This is what happens everyday, forever. It’s just something he does, for good reason I’m sure.

       She came to his door, and brought him a loaf of raisin toast and a flask of warm coffee. He ate gratefully, looking up at her with curious eyes.
       “I suppose I know you?” He said disinterestedly, swallowing a large chunk of bread.
       “Yes.” She replied. After some other pleasantries were exchanged, she pleaded, “Please stop this!”
       He looked up at her, expressionlessly, “Why?”
       “Because, you can’t live like this.”

       He thought about this for sometime, he couldn’t remember if he had thought about this the day before; only, it was evident that he had come to the same conclusion. And so he said, “But I have always lived like this.”

       He returned to his meal, finishing off the last of it, and thanked the intruder for her offering. Standing now, or trying, he became to dizzy and fell from his half way stance. Looking down at his arms, he saw gashes, artificial orifices to let flow the mortal coil. Then he realized his arms were wet; sticky with the same substance that covered most of his body. He tried to clean himself, wiping his blood onto the velvet sheets he had emerged from.

       “There were white once.” The girl said, with a tear catching just inside the corner of her mouth. “I tried cleaning them, but it never does any good. So now I just leave them for you.” She trailed off, wanting to say more; to exclaim to him that these were his favourite sheets, and that his meal was a recipe he had taught her. But she knew that trying to invoke his memories was a waste, for she had tried countless times before.

       He had gotten dressed, in the time the girl had spent pitying herself. He almost seemed like he wanted to start this day. He noticed a mirror, the same mirror that he noticed every morning, and studied his face in it. Beneath the mirror, atop a dresser, there were photographs, and a box filled with small trinkets. Peeking through the pictures, he noticed a familiarity; then looking back to compare the girl, he now knew these pictures were of the two of them. They looked as if they had been happy at one time, but on closer inspection she looked much more depressed now, and this depression had given her an unfair amount of aging. The box was a wooden one, with one of it’s hinges coming off from far too much use. He thought she must have tried to show him this before; theater tickets, love notes, some letters, a key chain, more photographs, and a ring. He paused, taking hold of the ring, and then looking through the pictures accompanying it. It appeared as if she had been wearing it when these were taken. Then thinking to look at his own hands, he noticed a larger golden band around his finger. One he was still wearing. Turning around, he could see that the woman was crying now, no longer trying to hide it.

       “You took it off?” He asked, his voice going shrill before the sentence was over.
       “What would you have me do?” She replied, between tears. “You killed yourself.”

       He placed the ring back in it’s box, and made his way out the door. The world outside that room a mystery to him, and still the idea that this was his home seemed to push him forward. He reached the kitchen, dirty, obviously from a lack of use. Standing there he wondered if he knew how to cook; eventually giving into the conclusion that he couldn’t, thinking that someone couldn’t forget a thing like that. On the counter he saw a half finished cigarette. Seeing that it wasn’t finished, he assumed it was his and lit it on the gas stove.

       “You don’t smoke.” The woman’s voice said, “You came across some of mine one day, and have been puffing on that one for weeks.”
       “Well, I think I will finish it today.” He mumbled, snapping the switch to the stove back to it’s original position. “But thanks anyway.”

       Moving into the dinning room, wisp of white smoke began to move in the air around him. He paused, taking a single long nicotine drag, sucking all that drug deep into the recesses of his lungs. The woman stood close behind him, closing her eyes a bit to take in some of that second hand high.

       As if interrupting the silence that had become so comfortable he said, “You don’t deserve this.” Pausing for a moment, and then drudging up the courage to complete his incorrect statement. “At least, I’m sure you don’t deserve this.”
       Quickly and sharply the woman shot back her reply. “You don’t know what I deserve. You don’t know anything.”

       He looked at her, with the oddest expression of surprise, then looking down at the floor, he become aware of tiny little spots on his brown leather shoes. Leaving the kind stranger to her mixed feelings of hatred and love, he walked through the house, and out the front door.

       He arrived outside, as he thought that he might, stopping to look around and take in this alien environment. Behind him, the woman still irritated with his comment said, “You’ll come back, you always come back.”
       “Why do you think I will come back this time?” He asked.
       “Because you are in love with me, as I am with you.”

       He walked, not really knowing where to go, or caring where he was going, for he was lost in thought. Lost, thinking about what his companion had just said. How could he be in love with her, he didn’t even know her. He tried to push it into the back of his mind, moving past it, moving onto to this day and what he could make of it. Moving through crowded sidewalks and busy streets, moving to a location, a place undisclosed even to him; yet he thought if he could just get there, that some of this might make sense. He spent hours walking, down streets, through alleys, not knowing what he was looking for; and that’s when it arrived.

       He found himself in a park, not alone, but completely surrounded by strangers. He wondered, if he knew any of them, or if they knew him. Wondered if they remembered him, or the idea of him, this man who remembered nothing. He saw children playing on swings, and wondered if he had children, or if he and that woman had tried having them. He wondered about his childhood, his parents, friends that he may have had. He wondered if he really existed at all. He returned to staring at the spots on his leather shoes, trying to quiet the noises inside of his head. Trying so hard in fact, he almost missed a new voice, calling out to him.

       “Excuse me?” A pause, finally met by the word, “Hello?” The man turned around, to see a lovely young girl standing close to him.
       “Do I know you?” He asked.
       To which she replied, “No, but I have seen you in this park everyday for so long, and I wanted to know...” Stopping she realised just how awkward she must sound.
       “Yes?” He begged, “Please, continue.”
       “Well, it’s just that I wanted to know why you come to this park everyday.”
       He looked in her eyes, seeing them sparkle as she waited for his answer. And finally, after countless seconds of silence he answered, “I do not know.”
       She looked puzzled and asked, “What do you mean?”
       Not really feeling up to explaining how he had come here, he simply said, “I guess I am just looking for pieces of myself, that I might have left along the way.”

       Nodding her head, the young girl pretended to understand what he meant, but was in truth more confused now than before she had asked. Not wanting to lose his new found attention, he asked his would be inquisitor if she would like to continue talking. She agreed, and the two of them moved off to a bench beneath an old, misshapen tree. The conversations were peculiar and jagged, for either of them were slightly more than nervous, being met with the idea of a new friend. Finally a silence grew between them, one neither seemed to mind. They sat, listening to the sounds of the park, not needing to speak to talk to each other, but just to listen to hear what the other was feeling.

       “You don’t belong here, do you?” She asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
       “No, but when will this emptiness end?” He asked.
       He looked at her, as she sat staring off just to the left of him, and as if stating something so very obvious the young girl said, “But this emptiness is forever.”
       Wanting longingly to conclude this uncomfortable topic, she said, “So, I guess I will see you tomorrow then?”
       “Yes, I imagine you will.” He replied.

       And with that, the young lady was off. Nodding slightly to acknowledge her exit, the man then got up and started the walk back the direction which he had come. At this time of day, the street is lit in a faint, dirty orange glow, from a mixture of street lights and sunset. At this time of day, there is no one around; no one that you would want to meet anyway. Walking alone, in the direction that he thought would take him back to where he had awoken, he wondered why all of this. Why his life was like this, and what it was like before.

       Finally reaching his intended destination, he noticed the car from this morning was gone and that the door was left wide open. He sat down, feeling uneasy, and knowing what the night had to bring. He looked about, for tools that would archive the happenings of this day. He found a pencil, and a pad that looked as if it had almost seen it’s own end. Feeling the pages left within it’s coils, he felt the indentations of previous writings, and wondered if they were his. On the floor was an increasing pile of those little shreds of paper that gather when you rip a large piece from it’s temporary bindings, and he wondered, who had been tearing out the paper. Using a rough, thick, rouged pencil; the kind that draws sketchy lead lines on paper, he was making a note, of the day’s events, and an explanation for actions he knew he could not resist. Not for himself really, as if he would even remembering writing it, but for this stranger who claimed to love him. Pressing hard, and leaving deep groves on the paper, like he had felt on the pad before, he wrote all that which he knew he had probably written before. Still unsure of his feelings for the woman, he tried to explain how it was impossible for him to love someone whom he didn’t even know. He wondered if by reading this, that she might get some peace, or if he had even said this to her before.

       Upon finishing his note, he lied down, in the place where he had awoken earlier that day; in the only place he knew as home. And now, as if for the first time, he understood the desire to let blood flow. Lying there, he saw the beauty to let deep crimson liquid trickle down his pale forearm; to be undone and exposed. It was there, while sunken into deep rich velvet and hard protruding springs that he decided to let this end. To expel the nightmare of nothingness that he only knew as his life. And so it was there that our story begins, just in time for the morning. A pause as he lie there, watching the sun beam through the window and land on the opposite wall. He heard a car arrive in the drive way, sitting there idle, the driver not wanting to get out. It was there, while closing his eyes, and slipping back into his sleep, that he whispered, “Oh God, what have I done?”