Thoughts of the Past, Dreams of the Future

How fleeting the memory of life - how fleeting indeed

No matter how hard I try to commit the events of the past few months to memory, I cannot find the events within me - I cannot find them in the dark and damp corners of my mind. I’ve been struggling recently with memory -  it seems forever just out of my reach, inaccessible to me from within my mind. Perhaps then, it would do to retrace my footsteps, the footprints my soul has left upon the earth this past year.

I wed in the early morrows of January - of this I am certain. I have been told much of white dresses and pink roses and of churches and of much merriment and of frivolous dancing. Here is the first discrepancy I find in my memory - for I remember not such events. No matter how hard I search my memory, I still come across the same images that match not the description I have heard - I see images of black velvet dresses, of red asphodels, of dark, moonlight forests, of cries of dismay and of a slow, funeral march. I remember a sickly husband, an even sicklier wife, and a promise of life everlasting in each other’s company, sealed with a kiss like death. All this was out in the January cold, the snow still firmly present on the ground.

My husband - what was his name? I do not remember. Regardless, I do not believe we were a happy marriage - if we were, would he die quite so soon? I remember burying him in early April - mere months having passed from our wedding. I stood over his urn - he had stressed many times that he was to be cremated, so as to minimise the possibility of his returning as a phantom. I stood alone over his tomb. No-one else showed at the funeral - this did not surprise me in any way, he did not have much in the way of friends. We were alike in that sense - both alone in a cruel world that did not love us, in a world that never accepted us the way we were. I remember distinctly - yes, now I recall it - It was one of those days you could feel the air growing warmer as it passed, upon a light spring breeze. His grave was unnamed - or was it? I do not perceive that in my memories. I stood over the grave, waiting for something, what? I cannot recall. I looked forward into the forest - the same forest we wed in those few months ago - I was looking for something. What was I looking for? Whom was I missing? I felt a gentle breeze upon my face - and between the trees I saw what I must’ve been looking for. I waved at him, tentatively. He waved back. I smiled, drying the rogue tears from my cheeks with my sleeve, content. He was free - he had returned to his world. I turned on my heel and left.

It was later that month that I discovered I was with child - his child. Son or daughter - I was not sure. It did not matter to me - I loved that child above all that I had known. I gave birth to a healthy babe mid-September. Something about that was peculiar - though I cannot recall what it was at this time. They were all for me - all my life, my love. I devoted myself to that child, with a devotion feverful and unending, but something took them from me - I do not recall what. Oh, my dear child! Where are you now? Why did you leave me? Would you forgive me for what happened? I did not mean to forget you, no - I meant not any of this.

September is the last I truly remember of this year. I cannot recall how I spent October, save that it was cold, and I was miserable. I was alone - I must have been miserable. Oh, who am I without my memories? Who am I without anyone to tell me who to be? Memory is fickle - flighty, like a feather on a breeze, like a seed of a dandelion, like a leaf that falls and dies in the autumn. Where was I going with this? I had a point in mind - I just cannot recall what that point was.

No, I remember something. I believe I do. November - the greyest and most dismal of months. I was alone - not only in emotion, but in all physicality as well. I was alone in the forest - that beautiful forest, that forsaken forest, in which I was wed those many months ago. It was not, actually, that long ago. Merely ten months - and yet it felt to me as though many, many years had passed. I felt old, tired. I was in much pain - not all the physical kind. I was alone - in a small cabin in the forest. I do not know whom the cabin belonged to before that time - I did not care. I spoke not - there was none to speak to. I ate little, I slept much. I had fallen into an acheronian mood, so to speak. I cared not for the world - that cruel world, that had never loved - nay, never even cared - for me. I excluded myself from it, vowing to never return to it.

Here - my memory is cut short, brutally and finally. I remember not of December - save that today is its last day. I remember not how I found myself here, lying peacefully in the bed of someone who’s name I do not remember. Bah, I remember not even my own name. My mind is blanker than it has ever been - my memories, already depleted, are fleeting beyond my grasp as I say this. Oh, how easy it would be to simply fall into that comfortable dark that beckons to me so! But no, I will not succumb to it just yet. I feel my chest - I am bleeding. What happened to me, for the blood to flow out so strongly? I try desperately to remember - I cannot. I give in. Good, then. At least I shall be reunited with my husband and child - since I could not have them close in life, I shall have them close in death. Cursed be the strings of fate - that cut my life short. Cursed be the strings of fate - that gave me no happiness in my lifetime. I succumbed to that gentle night. At very least I may say I did not go gently into it - I feel upon my fingers the sparks of fight. I fell into the dark, confident I was not going easily to  it. I died, slowly, alone, in the same moment as the clock hit midnight.