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Siren

brutally homeless and fluffy
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I had been walking that day, down by the marina and back to my house over and over, almost like I was pacing but across a couple miles. I had started fairly early in the morning, right after breakfast with my wife and right before I would usually head off to work. In case you’re interested it was one of those days where it was kind of dark but you were fairly certain that it wouldn’t rain.

Walking was how I processed everything, but the weird part was that that day I didn’t really have anything to process; things had been just about normal; I slept well (excepting the couple of times that I had to get up and use my bathroom) and there hadn’t been anything all that earth-shattering the day before. Still, I knew that there was something that I should or would be thinking about, so I walked. I walked until my shoes were worn down to uncomfortable nubs, until the sweat on my shirt and lips and mouth had become welcome companions on my stroll (if it could be called that).

Anyway, as I said, I didn’t really have anything to think about, and trying to think about what you should be thinking of is hard, especially when you’ve been walking back and forth for a couple of hours. So eventually I started to just watch what was happening around me, almost like a videographer on rails.

Back in those days there wasn’t really much interesting going on during the middle of the day; it’s not like today where you have gang-bangers and whores on every corner--no, back then it used to be that about the most scandal you would find is someone littering in the park. And even that wasn’t as big of a deal, really; you’d just have to pick whatever they had dropped up off the ground and throw it away. End of scene. Not like today, where nobody has some sense of common decency.

There was a little girl, maybe about nine or ten, getting a popsicle from the ice-cream truck. I wondered at the fact that his jingle wasn’t playing but I didn’t think all that much of it and kept walking, trying to take everything in that could maybe, possibly help me remember what it was that I had to think about.

I had just about given up while I watched the waves crashing against the shore when I had an idea. That idea lead to a string of ideas, which lead to me remembering what it was that I had to think about. I was walking to the marina so I turned back around to head home, my mind racing and my palms feeling a bit colder, despite the fact that there wasn’t any wind blowing.

When I got to my front porch I threw it open and walked through the threshold, yelling to my wife as I took my coat off and tried to control my shaking hands. When she didn’t answer I wandered through the house, screaming her name.

“Karen? Karen!” It was all that I could yell, and each time she didn’t answer I got a little more nervous and a little more angry. I eventually found her in the bedroom, sitting on our mattress with a tissue in one hand and the phone in another.

“What happened? Why are you crying?” I questioned, almost forgetting why it was that I had wanted to find her, the other questions that I wanted to ask.

“He’s... he’s dead!” she half-sobbed, half-screamed at me.

“Who is? Who’s dead?”

“The President! Kennedy, he’s dead, he was shot today...”

I probably should have said something to her. I know that I should have said something to her, but I didn’t. I turned around and walked back through the hallway and down the stairs, and I was out the door before I had even considered saying a single thing. I shivered in the cold (I had forgotten to grab my jacket) and I walked back towards the marina, pacing between it and my house.

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First creative writing assignment: write about a memory you couldn't possibly remember in the first person, character shouldn't be you.

Hoping people will catch on to some little clues to the mini-events within the story (there aren't too many in this one) but if you don't just ask.
 
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