Crazy (BoyxBoy)

Memories

The way I see it, memories are a lot like home movies where you're sitting in front of a giant cake, surrounded by kids you don't even like, and your dads in charge of the camera but he's terrible at it, so your mom directs him with a wave of her arm.

Not because all of your memories span from a prehistoric VCR down in the basement, but because you don't remember the things that happened before them or even after them. A memory is just a memory, a fragment of your lifetime.

I have a lot of them. Mostly, they're all good. My parents gave me what they could and loved me with everything they had. But I've got a lot of bad memories too. Those are like the home movies on Christmas morning when your mom films you crying over an easy bake oven for three hours straight.

But these memories are much more damaging than that.

My first bad memory is this; I was at the park with my mom one day. She was still pregnant with the baby we never got to meet and every time I'd ask her to watch me climb the monkey bars she'd smile encouragingly and do a double thumbs up to me, recording me on her phone.

I crossed those monkey bars about 50 times that day; I don't know why she didn't just tell me to try the swings. I guess that's how you know your mom's a keeper. When she already knows you can do something, but acts surprised and excited either way. Anyway, halfway through our visit, my dad showed up in his work uniform with a picnic basket to surprise my mom.

I guess you could say he loves her. He loves her a lot. He set down a blanket in the grass under a tree and set everything out; a pb & j sandwich with the crust cut off for me, a Greek salad for my mom, and a huge sub sandwich for himself.

This seems like a good memory, except it isn't. Because on the jungle gym is a man in a black robe, and his red demon eyes are looking right at me. I can still hear his skeletal nails scratching the metal railing. No one else seems to mind that there is an adult on the playset, so after my lunch, mom wipes off my hands and face with a wet nap, and I'm back to playing while my parents love it up.

But the man kept watching me. I couldn't ignore it, or tell him to hop off, exactly. All I could do was pretend I didn't see him. But then he talked to me. I know, it's insane, believe me. But he told me to climb to the top of the playset, over the slide and jump. He was pointing, his red eyes gleaming.

I felt compelled to do it, only because I was afraid of him. So I climbed up, looking to my parents the entire time. They were so enthralled in their conversation; they didn't even look up. When I was at the slide, though, I wanted to chicken out. I hate heights to this day.

The man called me a pussy, and shoved me off.

I remember screaming as I fell and then hearing a cracking sound and sharp pain in my collarbone and leg. I could have been paralyzed that day, but thank god the side of the slide just missed my spine. I spent three months in bed, and even longer in physical therapy.

What makes the memory even worse?

No one believed me that the man pushed me, or that he was even there. When the police and ambulance got there, they interviewed everyone who witnessed my 'fall'. Not a single person mentioned a man in a black robe.

So I just tell people I thought I was superman when I was 5 and jumped off of a playset because I thought I could fly.

It's better than sounding crazy.

I don't remember all that happened that day, or even the day after that. But what I do remember is the man in the black robe showing up every time something bad was going to happen. I don't know how he knows, or why. He's just there. Waiting in the wings. I can't seem to remember the moments before the bad things happen, or even shortly thereafter. All I know is that there's something wrong in my head, and my memories are all that I have to keep myself sane.

As long as I believe that those things I saw and heard were all constructed into a home movie to be played 20 years later, I can tell myself that what I see is real. That what I am is real. Otherwise my brain hurts, and the world looks like I'm tripping on acid, and my body feels weighed down by lead.

I have to believe that the crazy isn't there.

I'm not crazy.

***

Hope you liked this short little tidbit. This is sort of a prologue, just to get a feel for my main character, who is still a mystery.