Remember

Who am I?

I can’t remember. No, really. I remember how it’s like to breathe and to be happy, I remember how to drive and how to brake, I remember how to write and draw, or how it feels like to laugh. But not myself. Not even my name or where I lived, what I’m here for or why I’m wearing these clothes and not others.

Confusion envelops me and drenches my soul. My soul, spirit, body and mind are not as one. They are individually wrapped up in their own world, in their own mix and swirls of different emotions, but yet all are confused. My feet do not do what my mind tells it to do, my sorrow doesn’t diminish, it multiplies. But I control my tears, and I stop myself from crying. I know that the more I cry, the worse it gets, and the harder it will be for me to stop.

Finally, I muster up enough courage to even look up and around me. Dark trees. Every branch seemingly reaching out to claw at me; each reed seems to stand straight and tall, as if mocking me; every movement in this dark world of mine seem to jeer at me.

I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t do anything.

With what seems like a superhuman effort, I reach my hands and delve into the pocket at the back of my jeans. A wallet. Perhaps it’ll tell me who I am, or jolt my memory and tell me why I’m here, or what I’m here for.

Money and an ID is all I find, but neither tells me what I want to remember. I now know that I’m Janet, 18, 5'8" and 140 pounds, but I can’t remember any of it. I don’t need to know, I only want to remember.

Now I see blood on my hands. I let out a silent gasp. Just a silent gasp can make me double up in agony. I look and examine myself with all my energy and strength, or rather, whatever is left of it. No injuries at all. Not even so much of a scratch. So what is it that hurts me when I move, and why? Whose blood on my hands are those? I don’t know.

Why am I here? What am I here for? Why am I wearing these tattered clothes? Who am I? What’s my name? Who are my friends? Where’s this place?

I don’t know. I don’t know! Don’t ask me…please…don’t ask me.

Nothing but more confusion. A blurred image runs before my face…I can’t make her face out. But I know that I know her. I remember her. But who is she? I can’t remember.

It’s the first thing that I remember, but yet I can’t remember.

Frustration isn’t a good thing when you’re in a dark forest alone, all by yourself, and with what seems like a memory loss and yet, not quite. "The best way to rid of all earthly frustrations, would be to meditate." Where had that come from? Again, I can’t remember.

I feel this…indescribable feeling coming over me. It is as if I had touched something holy, something sacred…something that I shouldn’t have touched…something too heavenly to behold. I feel as if I had sinned – greatly.

But all of a sudden I feel renewed energy, I feel it coming in waves and waves of it, overflowing me and overpowering my lethargy. With what seems like the act of picking up a feather in comparison to how much energy I had to use to look up and around, I stand up and start walking. Walking to wherever my legs take me, I don’t know where, but I just walk…and walk…and walk…

…until I find her.

She is lying in the most awkward position that couldn’t have been what a living person would lie in. She’s dead. I don’t have to go near her to find out or to know that, it is as if something within me had already clicked in place, it is as if I had already knew…it is as if I know who had killed her and when.

It is as if I know who had killed her and when.

Something is amiss. Why do I know and assume that she had been killed? That she hadn’t died of causes that were natural? Why? Why was I lying unconscious not more than a kilometre away from a corpse? Corpse. The word seems so cold.

I feel the compulsion to walk forward, to examine her, to touch her. And I do. It is not because I want to, but because I feel the need to. It is unexplainable, and perhaps I will never be able to explain it in my entire lifetime. I want to run the hell out of this devillish place, this place which seems to house evil and despair and everything else which is negative. But I can’t. I feel compelled to stay…obliged to stay, as if I owe this place something. As if I owe her something.

And as I walk forward, I see blood. A few smudges of blood on her face. A few patches of dried blood on her shirt. I can even smell it. The rusty and metallic smell of blood is unmistakable. And I think of the blood on my hands.

Oh God, I whisper, what have I done? What did I do?

Did I kill her? I don’t know. Did I know her? Who was she?

And I examine her face. Her eyes are – were – big and wide, transfixed in horror and shock. It is as if somebody had taken her by surprise. Her nose is tall and straight, and her full red lips are slightly parted. Something in me strikes. I knew her, I know that I knew her. But yet I don’t remember her name, or who she really was. But I know she was someone dear to me…someone I had loved and cared for. And I gently stroke her long dark hair and close her eyes.

Now, the real tears fall. Tears not cried or wept for me. Not for myself, but for her. For what I had possibly done to her, for her innocence and life taken away, for her – the someone I know I cared for, the someone whom I still care for, although I can’t remember who she was to me or why. Some things are just that way, with no reason or why, but when I look at her, pangs of sorrow strike me, and my heart aches. Something in me seems to yell and cry at the same time, and it echoes again and again within me. It keeps repeating…and repeating…and repeating…till it slowly fades away into nothingness.

I leave her. I don’t want to, but I still do. Nothing I do is out of my own free will. Rather, it is like some unseen force behind me, pushing me and willing me to do what I do. I don’t want to, but I have to. It’s like something I listen to and obey, something I can’t defy…

I run all the way out of the deep, dark woods, leaving her behind. Somehow or other, I easily find a car – perhaps, my car – which fits the car keys in the pocket of my jeans. Sub-conscious, perhaps. Perhaps there is still something within me that clicks, something that tells me what to do, something that remembers. I climb into the car and look at myself in the driver’s mirror for the first time.

I look exactly the same way that girl lying in the forest did.

Who was she? My twin? My sister?

And as my fingers trace the outline of my face, a solitary tear rolls down my face, rolling over the dried white streaks of dried tears, rolling off my face.

Now I remember. But I don’t want to know what I have remembered. I just want to be remembered.

And I would be remembered by the whole county the next morning when the fresh newspapers are printed. I would be remembered by the kind soul who would find me, a few hours later, in my car, dead. I would be remembered by the person who finds my twin sister, too.

We would be remembered.

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