Bound Until Death

I’m losing track of the moments that compose my life. I know they happened, I just can’t remember what or when. Where the memories should be is an empty space, echoing with the soft tone of nostalgia.

I stare at familiar faces on the street, wondering where I have seen them before. Just to find out I’ve known them my entire life.

When I’m standing in my room, the walls seem to fade. Like a flashback to a world I was in, but never a part of. All the memorabilia collected in my house means nothing to me. They’re just the remnants of someone else’s life, kept to symbolize their frail impact on this one earth, in millions of galaxies. Pointless possessions that will all eventually decompose, given time.

For some reason, I have this constant lingering feeling of sorrow. Like my brain is telling me to relive past events that aren’t depicted in my head anymore. I can’t quite explain this feeling, I don’t know why I should mourn something I can’t remember. Something that isn’t a part of me anymore.

They beg me to remember—the people who claim to be my family. They say they want their daughter back. The child they nurtured from an infant, the one they devoted their lives to for years.

The one they loved.

The one that loved them back.

But I can’t recall ever loving any of them. And trying is too painful. It’s like raking through my brain and shredding the parts of me I do like. All in search of something I don’t even know if I want to unearth. Something that might be better off staying dormant. 

So I pretend to try, pretend there’s a flicker of recognition, a faint detection of who I once was. I give them hope that the person they loved might come back, or at least the peace that I have retained some part of my previous life. All the while, deceiving them into thinking I actually care.

Then I pretend the memory is snuffed out.

And I watch their chins tremble, their arms shake, and their eyes fill with tears.

They’re all so gullible.

At my apparently 23rd appointment since this all started, the doctor tells me, my degenerative condition is permanent. I’m the only one who doesn’t cry. As long as it’s not fatal, I’m fine. I don’t even feel this strange memory loss concept they’re all shoving on me, anymore. And I’m not sure I even care, either.

On the way back to the strange house from my past, I stare out the car window. So much of life occurs outside of the walls I’ve been bound to. A doe prances along the highway, tempting it’s fate to have the freedom of what lies on the other side; a field as far as the eye can see. The deer’s ambitions seem to align with my own. I want to be free of the intoxicating humans as much as she does.

Within seconds my seatbelt is off, and the door is open.

Screams surround me as I attempt to follow the sensible animal. I want to run free in the meadow, and laugh under the warm sun. But anxious arms wrap around my body, dragging me back into the life I’ve always been trapped in. 

For months, they keep me hostage. Afraid of what I’ll try next. The only entertainment I find joy in, is watching the world go by through my bedroom window. Watching people busy with lives that appear important, but are meaningless. I don’t want to be here anymore, cornered in a prison while life continues on, just beyond my reach.

The doctor visits the box they call my house. I don’t think he has ever come here before. But then, I don’t really know. Worried expressions taint the faces of the people around me as words like decline, deterioration, and terminal float through the air.

I spend weeks isolated from everything, just sitting on a mattress, waiting.

For what, I don’t know. I forgot.

I spend hours walking to the kitchen, then to my room, and back to the kitchen. Never accomplishing the task of eating a single granola bar. Finally, I give up.

In the cold confines of my room, I lie down. The sound of metal machines on wheels rushing by, thunder through my head. The noises suffocate me, and I choke on the taste of regret.

I don’t want to be this way anymore, I wish I had tried harder to recollect my thoughts.

Eventually, my eyes close and I listen to the rhythmic slowing of my heart. I’m wrapped in a darkness that feels so warm and comforting. It clings to my life, greedy for my soul.

I let it swallow me whole, and smother me in it’s overpowering embrace. It tries to take my memories, but finds them already gone, and resolves to cradle me until oxygen no longer flows through my lungs.