Something Lost, Something Gained

A story with some true elements.

“Everything looks so familiar, and yet so distant.” As I look around the playground something nags at the back of my head, but the haze makes things difficult to see clearly. I am the only person. There are no children, just a wind that rocks the swings, making a creaking sound. The fallen leaves rustle and swirl, and masses of colors reminding only of autumn and things past. “What am I doing here? What is going on?”

Suddenly a bell rings, signaling the end. “The end of what?” I ask myself, trying to remember what it is I know I should be remembering. School… something clicks. I recognize the school. I had not been to the school in many years; it was but a distant memory, a happy one. I have so few of those anymore. But still I cannot remember everything, there are holes, blank spaces that I know I should remember… yet cannot.

A roll of thunder has me looking into the sky. Dark gray and black clouds are gathering. “They are coming to play with me.” As soon as I say it I know it is a strange thought, but it seems right. I watch as the curtain of rain edges closer and closer, silk to wrap me. Another memory comes back. “That is right, the rain season. Autumn always holds rain.” 

A lightning bolt flashes at the other end of the playground. Something tells me I should be worried, but I am not. I look as the rain clears the smoke. My hair is completely straight with the water running down it in rivulets, darker then my normal color. Such strangeness and yet it doesn’t really seem that way. Where there were only fields and fences there stands a graveyard. I vaguely remember being afraid of graveyards, but this one called to me. 

This graveyard had no fence but the trees surrounding three of its sides. It was friendly, yet sad, not the eerie of the graveyards that touched my memory. I wanted to walk through and remember all the people that now made it their home. I started to walk to the left but felt pulled to a small grave underneath a tree on the right side. Something flashed through my mind, but it was too fast to grasp. I knew this grave was important to me, that I should know it, but I could not remember any death. I saw the name on the tombstone and gasped.

“Has no one told you her breath left her?” The voice startled me, it was so like my own, yet strange, it echoed and there was the oddness of hearing your own voice on top of it. I looked up and the shadowy figure sitting on the tombstone, the dark yet translucent hair touched by rain, the green eyes ringed in deeper green, was me, and yet not. A sadness touched eyes and face that did not bother to hide emotion.

I looked back at the tombstone. “Kathryn M. Eckenroed,” I whispered the name of a dear friend, a sister. “ ‘The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.’ And now you are a part of that.” The quote came unbidden to my lips. I remembered it from somewhere.

“Helen Keller,” my likeness gave me the name I could not remember.

“Who are you?” I asked as I looked back up.

“I am your mind. I am what might have been.” She ran her hands along the tombstone. Her long dress was blown over the writing by the wind. That was a difference, you never saw my in a dress. “I am what you and she always hope might come to pass. A hope you thought had died with the rending of your family and hers.”

I shook my head fiercely.  “This is only a dream, if I smile and don’t believe, if I deny it, I shall wake.” I closed my eyes and willed myself away. When I opened them again I was still there, and so she, with that sad look on her face. I wanted to scream and wipe the look away. Didn’t she know that showing her emotions made her vulnerable? Made me vulnerable… she was I. I pinched myself, but still nothing happened, I was still in the graveyard facing the image of myself. 

She sighed; it seemed heavy, like it could crush what ever was underneath. “I’m afraid it is not a dream. I came to talk to you.” She gestured around. “To show you everything you forget.”

“Don’t try to fix me.” I said fiercely. “I’m not broken. I may be the lie living so you can hide here in memory, but I’m not broken!” I fell to my knees, letting the soft rain envelop me in its embrace. I felt the caring more then the translucent arms wrapping me. I looked up. She had gotten down off the tombstone and come over to me.

“Don’t cry. Oh, please don’t cry.” Her soft eyes seemed like deep pools of green. I found myself wondering if mine looked like that to people who knew me well and were able to get close to me. “I never said you were broken, or that I was trying to fix you.” A hand that seemed almost solid, and gaining just a little realness with each tear, wiped a tear from my cheek. “We wanted to show you what you forgot. Forgetting is never the answer, you must face your past.” She looked at the tombstone behind her. “Although, now you must do it without her.”

As I felt myself become more like her and her more like me, I knew suddenly that I was not dreaming. I would not wake and find this only yet another distant memory. The memories she called upon were still vague, but they were coming back. I remembered my family, the distance that they’ve put between them. I remembered her family and the struggles. I remembered being the only one from my family standing under the rain-touched sky as she was lowered into the embrace of Mother Earth.

“But…” the voice called me back from remembering, “that doesn’t mean you must do it completely alone.” She gestured and back where the playground had been was another field, and standing there I saw some of my loved ones. At the front of the group, my boyfriend opened his arms to me. I ran to him and felt his loving arms embrace me.

I looked back and no longer saw myself. Leaving my boyfriend’s arms I fell back down at the tombstone. The rain slowly stopped, but some dark clouds still remained. “Hello!” I yelled into the sky. “I’m still here! All that is left of yesterday!” But my voice echoed in the stillness. I dropped my head to cry the tears that had been waiting for so long to fall. I felt arms around my shoulders, I whispered, “I’m still here.”

“Hello” by Evanescence

Playground school bell rings again
Rain clouds come to play again
Has no one told you she’s not breathing?
Hello I’m your mind giving you
Someone to talk to
Hello

If I smile and don’t believe
Soon I know I’ll wake from this dream
Don’t try to fix me I’m not broken
Hello I’m the lie living for you so you can hide
Don’t cry

Suddenly I know I’m not sleeping
Hello I’m still here
All that’s left of yesterday