Remembering Sunday

I knew I'd been here before.

I didn't actually remember ever coming here per say, but when I left the home I was told was mine and started to walk, I seized to actually think for the first time in days. I got lost in myself, not even thinking about much, or anything in particular at all, I just said in my head everything I saw or passed, and I just walked.

I watched my shoes as they dragged along the cracked and jagged sidewalk. Acorns, and leaves, and pools of pollen on the side of the road were kicked and crushed under the mud caked plastic tips of my sneakers. And soon the pavement turned into gravel, then dirt, then grass, and suddenly I found myself weaving through a field of knee-high blades and weed stalks till eventually, I found this tree.

I didn't even think about it, as if I could, and I sat at its base in this curve that seemed to hold my small frame almost too perfectly.

For the first time in the past fifty-seven hours, I shut my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Trying my absolute hardest not to think about anything. Something, if I'd dared to say aloud at home, would cause absolute chaos and confusion.

But my head had been throbbing for hours on end, my subconscious tearing through the folds of my brain like a teenage girl in her drawers trying to find the top she'd misplaced, just trying to find anything at all, even the smallest sliver of a memory. And I just couldn't take it anymore.

You know that feeling you have when someone asks you a question. Just a simple, easy, mindless question... Like what the name of that movie was. Or what that actor's name was that was really funny. Or what the name was of that TV show used to watch. Or who is the author of that book you liked. Or who wrote that catchy song you heard on the radio.

That sensation you get when someone throws such a simple question into the air and suddenly, for just a second, you're filled with excitement because you know the answer! You'd watched that movie not too long ago, and you know exactly which actor they're thinking of. But when you open your mouth, the answer you had in your head so confidently a second ago is gone.

And now you're stuck there, wracking your brain for the name of the song you'd just saved to your library, and you can't remember. You'd heard the author's name spoken in class just two periods before, and now you're sitting in the cafeteria, mouth ajar, and absolutely nothing coming out despite having it in your throat a second ago!

Suddenly it's like you're in third grade again taking a spelling test and you're drawing a blank. The teacher calls out the word you wrote a hundred times and everyone around you begins to frantically try and scribble it down before she calls out the next one. And you just sit there. Motionless.

"Neighbor!" The teacher would repeat again and you look all around you as everyone else in the room knows the answer. And you're sitting at your desk trying to remember the rule of 'I' before 'E' you'd repeated to yourself the whole night before, preparing for that exact moment.

You know it. But you can't remember it.

Everyone around you knows it, but you have drawn a blank. Just as you did when the kid turned to you and asked you the name of that actor that was in that movie everyone likes because no one can seem to remember his name.

You can feel the name on the tip of your tongue, just begging to be said. But when you open your mouth no words come out. All you can do is screw your eyes shut and throw your head back with a grown as you miss the word on the spelling test and set yourself up to second guess yourself every time you have to write the word 'neighbor' for the remainder of your life.

That feeling, that tip if the tongue frustration is kind of what it's like. Only on a much, much bigger scale.

But if I had to describe what it's like to forget every detail about your entire life. That tip of the tongue feeling, that'd be it. And although I don't remember much, I believe it would be fair to say that it is the single most frustrating feeling on the entire planet.

I release my breath and open my eyes, looking out at the large field surrounding me for a second before reaching for my bag. The migraine was still there, ringing through what may as well be an empty skull. But at least now being alone, it had seemed to dilute ever so slightly. I'd silently questioned just enjoying the brief moment of relief, but my fingers rebelled regardless and pulled the small navy notebook from my backpack and placed it on my lap.

The reason I use the tip of the tongue phenomenon to describe what I'd been going through is because, just with those actor's names and song titles, eventually it comes back – at least that's what I've understood to be true about my condition. That all I don't remember at this moment will eventually come back to me in spontaneous bits in pieces. Just like everything else I have stored on the tip of my tongue. And the notebook I looked down on now, held everything I'd remembered about myself. Or at the very least was told and decided I did not want to forget.

With a sigh and a small breeze to assist me, I pried open the still stiff cover and scanned the scrawled handwriting on the very first page, the only thing around me lately that truly reradiated familiarity as my own.

Most of what I'd scribbled down was not much help in trying to piece together what had actually happened to me. But for the most part...

None of it made sense.

I mean, the facts the doctor's explained to me did, to some extent – and if only on a purely logical level. But that's it, and that's not a lot. I knew my name, my height, my weight, and why I didn't remember who I was beyond that. But everything else was a hazy blur of things that seem familiar or felt like I should remember, and for some ungodly reason just can't. I stared at the page for what felt like hours, as I often caught myself doing over the course of the past few days. And no matter how long or hard I stared at my handwriting on those off-white pages, or how mean a glare I threw the swirled letters, nothing ever seemed to jump out at me.

So as always, I slammed the notebook shut, swatted it off my lap and back on top of the bag that lay beside me with a sigh. "I hate this." I muttered aloud as I pulled my knees close to my chest and knotted my nimble fingers in my dried frizzy hair. And I did, hate this that is. There was nothing more frustrating than being shown around a town and a home by the one person you truly did recognize and have to watch the hurt and disappointment fill your parent's eyes as you failed time and time again to remember even one thing they'd done for or with you your entire life.

It was killing me inside. And out.

I had hardly slept a second since I'd been brought home, too afraid of what may lie inside my bedroom, I'd been sleeping – well trying to at least – on the couch. But that didn't stop my dad from sliding photo albums and picture frames into my lap every free second, he wasn't at work. And as much as I knew inside me I loved him, if I had to look at one more photograph or hear one more story of me at a family Christmas party I was going to explode.

At least then I wouldn't have to worry about remembering who I was because I'd be nothing but splattered remains on living room walls...

It was annoying, and frustrating, and quite literally painful trying to remember anything at all, even the smallest thing. But I just couldn't! With a heavy exhale I slid my hands from my hair to my face in time to hide the small tear that was trying to escape. I felt completely and utterly trapped in my own memory-less head. And still, I took another deep breath, willing myself to subconsciously piece anything at all from my life back together a thick breeze blew across the back of my hands and through my tangled locks causing bumps to rise over all my exposed skin.

Removing my hands, I felt the sunlight slip from my body as tall trees in the distance swayed to hide it away from me. I didn't know for certain how long I'd sat at the curiously familiar tree, but I knew by the sinking sun and darkening sky, it must have been long enough for some form of concern to raise about at home of my whereabouts.

I didn't want to go back, I didn't want to have to walk through that door again and look my father right in his large, hopeful eyes and have to find yet another way to tell him nothing new had come back to me. Because finding a tree that I didn't quite remember but somehow still did, while comforting, wasn't the news he was looking for. But still, I couldn't stay there all night.

So, clambering to my feet, I shoved the tauntingly empty notebook of 'memories' into my bag, tossed it back over my scrawny shoulder and dusted off my grass covered libs before making my way back through the field in the direction I'd come.

Soon the tall grass shrunk in height, and reduced to dirt, then gravel, then back to uneven pavement, and I once again found myself walking a path I seemed to know by heart and yet couldn't remember if I'd genuinely tried. Which of course I had.

I couldn't have been more than ten, fifteen minutes from home when I came to a crosswalk on a corner, and for some reason decided to look up at the street sign overhead. But as my eyes slid across the first few white block letters a stabbing pain shot through my skull and I writhed in pain.

I shut my eyes and saw flashes of the sign, just flashes at first, then I seemingly fell into the empty laughter that had started to ring from the back of my skull straight to the forefront.

"What on earth are you doing now?" I laughed, utterly exasperated as I watched my lanky friend swing around the Westridge Road street sign before he –attempted – to take off running on wobbly knees.

The tall boy dared to look back over his shoulder at my trailing form as he staggered on down the empty street. Light and curiosity flared visibly in his golden eyes, even in the near pitch darkness that surrounded him.

"Going on an adventure!" he said simply, as though it were supposed to be obvious, before letting out an almost cackling giggle and starting off running again. As fast as his intoxicated limbs could carry his slender frame.

"It's always an adventure with you Gaskarth, isn't it..." I muttered almost myself, picking up my own pace to a light jog to catch him.

The warm summer breeze whipped around the two of us as he stumbled and staggered down the street. Giggling softly to himself as he stammered to keep from stepping on his own toes, one arm out like a wing as though to balance himself, and the other still clutching an almost empty bottle of UV Blue.

The blue toxic liquid ran rampant through both our veins, though was clearly more evident in Alex than myself as I slowed my pace when we reached the home in which he resided. And I watched with awe and amusement as he completely disregarded the three small steps to his door and began to make his way to the side of his porch.

"Alexander!" I whispered with a chuckle as he reached up to take hold of the ivy wrapped railing, "What on God's green earth are you doing?"

He looked back at me, a toothy grin spreading across his face as he stuck a converse clad food up onto the siding of his home. With the hand still clutching the remnants of the vodka he so did not need, he hushed me.

"You have to be quiet Dee!" He hissed before seemingly readjusting his grip, "I'm trying NOT to get caught here!"

I let out an almost bellowing laugh as I watched him attempt to hoist himself up onto his own damn porch. I'm sure he would have scolded me for making such a sound, had he not instantly lifted his head into the windchime his mother had hanging.

The clinging and clanging of the chimes mixed loudly with my bellowing laughter as I stood on the sidewalk, clutching his rusted mailbox for dear life. I was hooting and hollering at the lanky boy as he sat now straddling his porch railing, rubbing his head with his free hand. A look of utter confusion adorning his face, which of course only made me laugh harder, and my stomach twist tighter.

Between the laughter, and 'adventure' and blatant alcohol content swarming through our bodies. I hardly noticed our friend emerge from the house just across the street as I watched Alex swing his second jean-clad leg over the railing and somehow manage to sway into a standing position. And I watched as he did his best to drunkenly compose himself and straighten up the white V-neck that stuck slick to his sticky back.

"How drunk is he?" A voice chuckled as I looked to the side to see a familiar brown headed boy smiling at Alex just as amused as I had been the second before.

"Well..." I giggled, alcohol flushing my cheeks pink. "He is trying to break into his own home..."

We both exchanged small fits of laughter as we watched Alex beginning to try and jimmy the window to his living room open, and surprisingly he managed to do so! Only just in time for the thick mahogany front door to crack and peel open.

"Kennedy?" A voice called, snapping me from my thoughts – well memory actually – just in time to notice I'd somehow mindlessly meandered down the street I'd be thinking of and was now staring back up at the very same porch I'd been remembering.

Only now, just a few yards from the sidewalk I'd remember standing on, instead of a disappointed, confused and shocked mother standing in the open doorway as my mind would have led to believe. There stood the boy from my flashback. Just as tall and slender, and confused looking as I recalled. He looked at me. Thick brows sewn together in the middle, he cocked his head. "What are you doing here?"

I'd say the sensation I felt next was that of the same tip of the tongue feeling, only if I did I'd be completely and totally lying to you. Because in all honesty there was nothing on the tip of my tongue - or any part of it for that matter! In those never-ending thirty seconds, it was like in addition to my entire life, I had momentarily forgotten every single word to ever exist in the English language.

I just stared blankly at this boy, who looked at me with almost the same level of confusion I'm assuming my face had contorted into. And after what felt like forever I managed to open my mouth and something tumbled out.

Something I could have worn sounded like, "I don't know, but why do I know you?"

Notes

Hey guys so I don't know if anyone remembers the story "no pads no helmets just memories" of Jasey and Alex, but that was me!
I recently decided to pick up writing again for the summer, and instead of trying to fix, rewrite and continue that story from almost 4 years ago now I decided to go in a completely different direction!
so tell me what you think, and if you've never heard of me before thanks for clicking on this!