Forever, You.

An Assignment Piece from Craft of Writing

Forever, You.

I awoke with a dull thud to my stomach, my better half had flailed across the bed to hit me,
“Get it. I'm sleepin'” I hadn't noticed until now the phone rang shrill and loud from outside the bedroom door.
“I was sleeping too.”
“Go!” A spare cushion smacked me across the face, I knew when I was losing so I shuffled onto the landing and fumbled the phone off it's hook to my ear.
“Hello?” A shiver ran down my back in the intense darkness as there was a long pause, filled only with muffled breath.
“Hello? Who is this?” I was about to put the phone down, as another long chilling pause followed
“You don't recall? You never did.”
“Recall? Recall what? Who is this?”
“You don't know? For shame, you should know.”
“Well I don't, so you're gonna have to tell me.”
Another long pause filled the air, I debated hanging up, but something froze me to the spot in this darkness.
“You abandoned me and forgot it all? I knew you were cold, but that is low even for you. Did you never wonder?” The voice finally continued, it quavered slightly as if suppressing emotion.
“Wonder what? Who is this?”
“Wonder if I'd recover.”
“How am I supposed to remember if you don't tell me anything?”
“Do you still have Hetty?”
“Leave my dog out of...wait how do you know about my dog?”
“I always liked Hetty, much nicer than Genie.”
“What have my pets got to do with it?”
“Hurry up or shut the door; I'm sleeping!” My partner's voice echoed loudly through the darkness.
“Oh so they are there too? Is that why you left me?” The voice on the phone had heard this too, but how did they know who I was with? The door creaked shut, plunging the hall into total blackness; I jumped slightly at this sudden shift.
“I don't know who you are!” I barked down the phone recollecting myself.
“After all the time we spent together?”
“When?”
“You should remember me, I remember you.” I paused for a while here. Was this someone from my childhood? But who? I thought I still vaguely spoke to everyone, or at least had them on Facebook and knew what they were up to.
“I take it we used to be friends?”
“Gold star for the genius. We're making progress, perhaps there's hope for you yet.”
“Are you trying to torment me? What have I done to you?”
“That,” the voice paused for what seemed like an eternity, “is something. Something you should not forget; perhaps you need time to remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Oh, yes time should help. Perhaps I'll call back tomorrow.”
“I'm phoning the police.”
“Are you? You never would have before; before you forgot.”
“You're a freak, leave me alone.”
“Childish insults? Perhaps you have not grown at all; could I of changed? Driven you away?”
“Don't call again, or I will phone the police.”
“You really want to involve them? I know your secrets; I could get you in trouble.”
“What secrets? I don't have any!”
“Don't you? Are you sure?”
I stopped here, breathing heavily, considering what they might know. I didn't have any secrets; did I? Perhaps I should delete Facebook, that should stop this.
“Gone already? Well you didn't hang up. See you soon.” In my hesitation the caller assumed I had left, a note in their voice sounded almost sorrowful at the thought. The phone buzzed down my ear, they were gone.

After that I had slunk back into the warmth of my bed, drifting uneasily between sleep and waking until the first streaks of morning issued through the curtains. I sat in the ramshackle mess of a kitchen for a couple of hours that morning, the phone in my palm which beaded with a cool sweat; but something compelled me to not ring the police. What if there was some secret I'd forgotten? Could they really get me in trouble? It was a weak rationale, but it pleased me and I left it at that. I stuck to the rigours of the day, it always struck me how regimented our days were; blocks of hours set aside to specific tasks adhered to as if law. That night I slept alone, my better half had gone to visit an old friend for a few days; when pitch black fell the phone rang again; it made me jolt with shock at first, but that quickly drained as I took a slow breath and answered.
“Hello?”
“You didn't phone the police then? A wise choice I'd say.” Something rang a bell of familiarity deep in the recesses of my mind when I heard the voice tonight, it was somehow clearer, crisper, like a figure drifting slowly out of the morning mist.
“Are you going to tell me what you want tonight?”
“That depends...” A frustration boiled in me and I cut them off mid sentence.
“On what?” A long lingering silence hung heavy in the air, until the voice finally continued.
“Do you remember yet?”
“I think,” I paused to consider my words carefully, “I think, perhaps, I know your voice, from somewhere.”
“Well that is a start I suppose, more progress on the memory front and we might reach a conclusion.” I thought about that word, 'conclusion', it seemed like an odd word to use.
“Conclusion? Is this something that needs to conclude?” I tried to trip them into answering me.
“More alert tonight are we? You might say so, yes, we do have some, what you might call unfinished business to which we must attend”
“You keep saying we? Wouldn't I remember something I left unfinished?” I hadn't expected it to work, but somehow it had; so I continued.
“I don't know. One would suppose you might, but then again you forgot me long ago, you're cold and cruel. I always recall how cold your lips were; now I see they are like your heart.” Something about cold lips echoed in the depths of my brain, an image unfurled from my mind, as if projected like a movie in the blackness. The edges were blurred, but I distinctly saw that scratched and pitted table at the back of the café, and lips touching, gently, like a first kiss. They were so warm, was this a forgotten and scorned love? Or was I adrift in something else?
“Murmuring to yourself about coffee and warm lips?”
“What? No, I...”
“You always did say my lips were warm, as I yours cold; but then I never trusted your word. Too much time spent in your own head drifting. Perhaps that is why you forgot me? You simply lost me amongst the daydreams?” The voice had cut me off, but it changed; the monotone had broken.
“So we were together? I assume, why else did we kiss?”
“Oh I think you might get another gold star for that, or perhaps I should be more withholding. After all we are making progress and I wouldn't want to reward such child-like steps; no a bit more I think before you get a star.” This caller seemed to be happy, strengthened somehow by my remembering; did I really forget someone who cared so much for me?
“What is it with you and gold stars?” Heavy breathing echoed down the phone as I awaited a response.
“You forgot the stars too? Oh dear, this may all be much beyond you. When we used to lay upon the grass I often did think you'd one day lose everything. Not in a foul way, but just perchance on a wander in your head.”
“So you had some affection for me? You must still do to be tracking me down like this?” I did not really want to ask this, but what other tact could I take? Indulging their whim did seemed to yield answers, did it not?
“Well I suppose I did; you were nice enough when you were there. These days I do wish you'd get lost in your own head, perhaps one of those dreadful mental ailments would be a fitting punishment?” There was a slight pause. “But aren't you a cunning one, drawing me round to answer your demands? I think not; for now at least.” The phone once more buzzed dead in my ear and I hung up.

I called in sick that day, sat on the bed, riffled through old yearbooks and photos; the low tech approach seemed to be needed. Just who was it on the other end? As dusk began to set in I dialled the keypad of the phone, caller ID, why hadn't I done this before? I scrawled the number on a scrap of paper and stuffed it into a pocket; I couldn't look at that awful scrawl. The phone lay beside me on the bed, I eagerly awaited its soft and melodic buzz; which came right on cue.
“Hello.” I spoke quickly as I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Quite brash? Do you not inquire any more?”
“Who else would ring, night after night, at this exact hour?” Another lingering pause until the voice replied.
“Quite right I suppose; but then how was I to know you're nightly affairs?”
“You seem to know more of me than I do.”
“You learn a lot when you wait in the darkness.”
“Why wait in the darkness? Why not in the light?” I'd had the curtains draw all day, sat in the twee, dim light that flecked through them; but this was still light was it not? Darkness was something totally different.
“What? Do you not enjoy the twilight and black?”
“That sounds familiar.” I bit my lip thinking what bell those words had rung; it was distant and hazy.
“It should. If you remembered anything worth knowing.” Suddenly the padlock slipped, and once again like a projection it drifted before me. Twilight and Black, the obscure little trinket shop at the edge of town; not this town, my home town. It had been a popular haunt for the outcasts of our school, the shop keeper often let young lovers use the rooms upstairs. Why do I say the outcasts of our school? It was a popular haunt for me, well at least until I got inducted by the popular kids.
“Twilight and Black...”
“Oh goody, we have made a leap!”
“How could I have forgotten?” My head twinged, migraine-like as memories flooded back from its recesses into crystal clear view.
“They got to you, cold and callous, they froze your heart” The voice was right, I scanned my brain far and deep, I truly seemed to have blotted or hazed all memories of school from before I was inducted; and that is the right word for it; it was a test, a trial, a punishment. Why was being popular so important? You were never truly happy, scared of being outcast.
“It's all a haze, a blur. Why didn't any pictures remind me?” I spoke more to myself now, the phone slipped slightly from my ear.
“Perhaps, in your feeble state, your mind decided to distort the facts? Brains are amazing like that, they fade and suppress trauma; so you can keep on smiling.”
“I remember the induction...I remember...”
“Oh is this another breakthrough, I am impressed!...Ignoring me now? Hello? You truly are lost.” The voice quavered, as if on the verge of tears; then the phone buzzed dead once more.

I never heard this, I had left long before. Engulfing myself in an old and ratty mauve jumper that had wrapped up my older yearbooks, the ones in which I wore it; before they got me. My car rattled along the road, the blackness enveloping me; giving me comfort, the vague odour of stale tea and burnt toast, that rose from the jumper, screamed of home in my head. I drove on through most of the night; until I got there. I visited the field, woven with protruding rocks, and left a single kiss on their resting place; what evil had made me do it? I sat in the café at the beaten and scratched table and supped a stale cup of tea; how had I forgot love so pure? As dawn broke I slipped into the store front and requested refuge upstairs. I drew the thick curtains shut, blotting out the rising sun, and revelled in the blackness; until the night had come once more. I pulled the scrunched up paper from my pocket, and lifted the dusty phone from its cradle. The numbers chimed under my fingers, it rang.
“Hello?” I breathed in that wonderful voice, pausing to savour it.
“Who is that? Why are you calling so late?” The voice persisted.
“It's me.”
“You know my number? How? When?”
“It doesn't matter. I remember now.” A long silence followed, I decided to speak again to break it.
“I remember the crash, I remember moving, I remember all the hours with you...” I paused searching for the words. “I remember I was meant to meet you, that night. I remember, now, that I always loved you.” A soft sob rolled down the phone to my ear.
“But what good is that now? You left. Forever.”
“Not forever, just...until I found myself again. Meet me...I'm there.” I put the phone down and turned into the darkness to wait, to begin, to live.