Never Forget

What follows is lifted from my contributions to a collaborative story told with @Meejong, @chrissadhill, and @ledlevee. The story was inspired by the movie poster photograph above, "Dimentica Tutto."

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There’s a window open to the night sky. I’m surprised to see it naked, no drapes. The glass is crystal clear, and stars twinkle in the distance. The moon is bright enough to cast a shadow, and I see her moving in the room.

I think she’s smiling, at least it sounds like she is when she says my name. I don’t want to listen, but I turn towards her anyway, my ears perked and primed.

I know she doesn’t use this room in the daytime, but I'm still surprised at the lack of caution with bare window treatments.

There’s no hiding from the sunshine here.

She embraces me, and I’m lost on the winds of a Gulf beach. I retreat into memories of Mexico, of long black hair and sincere smiles. I know the stinging of sand across my bare skin is a stand-in for the pinch of pain from this monster’s meal.

Will today be the day she lets me drift into the dark forever? Am I going to be cursed to walk the world next to her, never to know the warmth of an ocean sunrise again?

Part of me hopes for oblivion while wishing for the curse of her gift. All of me longs for the days when I knew the embrace of true love. Of Truthful love. This place offers no love or truth.

Still, she whispers my name and I can't help but respond to her touch. My biology is outside my control, and she knows this.

How long have I been here, too afraid to leave and too terrified to stay?

My instincts to live any life I can rage against my despair, and I surrender completely.

My hopes don’t matter; I am a dinner guest at a table set for one, and I'm not eating.

I am completely hers.

Unbelievably, I am content.

I open my eyes and the moon stares at us in our dark embrace.

She ends our dance and I'm pulled from my reverie. Handing me a clean strip of linen, she steps back and smiles while I apply familiar pressure.

I pretend not to notice my redness on her lips just as I pretend to not notice the feral length of her teeth.

We both pretend that this doesn't end with me in a box, one way or another.

"What do you want?" She whispers with a voice heavy with satisfaction.

"To be free," I whisper with a croak of a dry sob.

"I can free you from shadows of her." My eyes snap from the night sky to the dark well of her eyes. I know she has spoken without moving her lips; my mind is her open book, and she makes notes in the margins as she reads.

"You offer only shadows of your own," I manage to put strength in my voice despite the weakness in my knees.

She offers choices. To be a dead thing, imitating life. To be a dead thing, moved on to the next world.

Why can’t my choice be to be left alone?

But I know I’ll never walk free. An absence of a fence isn’t freedom. To see the horizon and know that I can’t approach it without a chain of regret pulling me back is almost enough to make me break. My will to live wanes, but refuses to snap.

Is it weaker to wither, or to rot?

Which is which?

“My love for her was never a choice. It just was. You can make me love you, but I’ll not

choose it.”

“I simply offer you the option to choose life or death,” she whispers in my mind.

“You don’t offer life. You offer shadows of living.”

“Walk with me in the shadows, or stand alone in the fire. I’ll not force you.”

I know my will isn’t strong enough for oblivion, so I reluctantly embrace damnation.

"I'll walk with you," I weep.

Faster than I can think, she's on top of me, riding me to the floor. She feeds again, furiously. I don't even have time to drift on memory's bliss before tunnel vision turns the room stark black; I'm dying. I'm dying, and the decision isn't wholly mine, and I smile.

But she stops, and I hear my heartbeat's thready pulse slow. I'm both warm and cold, wet with hot blood cooling in the air. She slashes her wrist with a razored finger, and my lips know the spice of an ancient Egyptian's tomb.

She isn't the graverobber. She is the grave.

I'm the one plundered, and I feast.

The ritual complete, she leaves me, and my body is wracked with the pain of a million dying cells. I think it’s over, and the pain begins again with a million cells being reborn. My skin is on fire and the sound of silence is a white noise hiding a thousand creaks and groans of wood and nails.

I smell sweat of the men who used the iron of hammers that drove the nails and I smell my rusted, spilled blood covering every board.

I notice no heartbeats, because heartbeats belong to food.

I hear her watching me in the moonshadow.

I scream until I am raw, but I’m not breathless.

I do not breathe.

I can’t forget what it’s like to live, because this pain is a reminder.

I gasp out of habit, collapsed, curled, waiting for the agony to subside.

Still, she watches.

I sense the sunrise nearing the window, and I startle when she takes me by the hand.

I consider gripping her with every fiber of my newfound strength when she reaches for me, holding her like the lover she pretends to be, while we burn.

I decide to wait.

I’ve almost forgotten how to live, but I remember how we can die.

When the time is right, I’ll remind her of what it means to do both.