Journey: The Memory-Taker

As I wandered down the gravelly road, I spied a strange obelisk jutting into the sky from the otherwise featureless, flat, grassy plains I walked through. Its dark silhouette made it look almost as if someone had jabbed a giant stake into the soft ground by the side of the road. As I approached it, I could see that it was not simply a stake, it was a kind of raised chair, raised high on a solid wooden block right next to the road. The arms and back were of a piece with the base, and now I could see why it had appeared as a solid mass to me at first. A mass was resting in the chair, made of various shades of brown melding into one another so it was difficult to make out edges, and it was covered entirely in what seemed to be a webbed net of some kind, with no apparent beginning or end. I kept walking towards the chair, as it seemed to grow taller as I got closer. Finally, stopping in front of it and looking up, it stood at least ten feet tall, with the indistinct netted object only partly visible from my lower viewpoint.

The object moved. I jumped back, but it did not pounce or attack me. It simply stretched slowly, and as a face turned up and gazed down at me through the netting I realized the bundle had been a person, hunched over and curled up, in indeterminate brown coverings. His, or maybe her, hands came up to grasp the net on either side of its face as it just looked at me, blinking perhaps once or twice. I tried to steady myself as I addressed it.

"Hello...? I'm sorry, I didn't see you there, um..." The figure just sat there, still and quiet. I waited, unsure what to do next. Finally, it lowered its head so its face was again hidden and extended its fingers feebly through the netting towards me. Uncertain of what to do, I approached the chair, reaching up on my toes until my fingers barely brushed those of the figure in the chair.

I cannot explain to you what I saw next, save to try to describe it as perhaps a library of colors that seemed to come out of nowhere in front of me. Each color was a feeling, or perhaps the feeling was the color, and they all were pictures, moving with sound and context. Needless to say I was both staggered and confused. Then, in an instant, I saw a moment, a quick flash of time, as if I was there. Someone I didn't recognize, yet who was very familiar, was holding me, his (or was it her?) hands rubbing my hair fondly. And I was so happy, so very happy...

The vision faded and I was standing where I had been, fingers not quite touching the bone-thin fingers still poking through the web. Nothing around me had changed, yet that feeling of happiness still stayed with me, strong as it had been, and I couldn't help but smile though I couldn't think of a reason for this sudden feeling of joy. I turned my attention back to the figure, whose face was hidden again from me.

"Wha- What just happened? Did you see that? Did you see anything? What's going on?" I couldn't stop the questions, though I scarcely cared for the answer. I was quite pleased with the situation overall, quite pleased with everything come to think of it. I raised my hands to my head and held it, laughing quietly. The feeling of euphoria was fading a bit now, down into mere happiness, but I still felt like everything around me was just that much brighter and cleaner than it had been before...

"You really don't know? You don't recognize what I am?" A quiet, tired voice spoke to me from the figure still curled in on itself high above me. It took me a moment to realize it had spoken at all. I moved a step back.

"Should I?" I queried. The voice laughed, though it could barely be called a laugh, it was so sad and cynical. What must have been its head raised slightly, just enough for me to see slits of eyes looking at me through the thick net that covered it.

"I'm a Memory-Taker. If you didn't come out here to use me... I see. It's done anyway." The head hid and the figure seemed to withdraw into itself again.

"No, please!" I pleaded, still happy but now dreadfully curious. "Tell me who you are. What you do... I don't understand. Why are you all the way out here? What happened to me?" It took the figure several minutes to respond at all, and when it did, there was more tiredness than cynicism in its voice.

"I'm a Memory-Taker. I take memories and... you take one of mine in return." It unfolded slightly, placing the palms of his (or her) hands on the base of the crude wooden chair and lifting his (or her) head again to look at me, eyes glittering within the shade of nondescript unkempt hair.

"I am out here because I am shameful. I take your worst memories, those you would give anything to forget, and in exchange you take one of my memories to replace it. No one would want to admit to coming to me, but they all do, eventually..." The voice became terribly terribly sad.

"Twenty years. I spent twenty years with everything I could ask for. Everyone loved me. I had everything. And I was happy, almost always happy, and fulfilled, there was nothing I wanted, no-one I hated. At least that's what they tell me.

Then they brought me here. All my life, it had been for this, it seems. I must serve now to repay the years of happiness I had. So I serve. I stay here, and let the rest of you forget. You come and you take and you take." The voice hushed to where I could barely make out what it said next.

"I have so little left..."

I was struck. I did not or could not bear to understand what I was hearing. That happiness that I had had still glowed in my heart like a warm ember, staving off the despair I could sense now from the figure, but it could not dispel it completely.

"How long have you been here?" I whispered. The figure slowly shook her head.

"I don't know. I don't remember." I took several steps back.

"I- I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't-" I tripped over my words as I tried to find the right things to say. The figure raised it's head fully, strands of hair falling away from the face as it faced me fully. Now I could see the gaunt cheekbones, the lined eyes and mouth, the dark black rings around the eyes that were hidden before. Those piercing eyes, I could not tell their age anymore, stared at me hollowly.

"I took your memory, remember? She was your best friend wasn't she? Can you remember what happened to her now?" With a start, I realized who the figure (I still could not make out gender) was talking about. And, with another shock of surprise, I realized I could not, in fact, remember the details of her death. I knew she was dead, my friend from long ago, but I could not remember how, nor how it had made me feel. There was just... a warmth when I thought about it. I hugged my arms around myself. The figure spoke in a whisper once more.

"If you had known... would you have chosen differently?" I couldn't bring myself to look it in the face. I wanted to say yes, that I would never wish the worst of my memories on another person, but... I honestly didn't know if that was true. Before I realized what I was doing I had taken several steps away from the raised chair, and was beginning to walk hastily down the road again. I stared forward, not daring to look back till I had gone a good distance. Finally glancing behind me, I could make out the obelisk shape against the setting sun. I couldn't see any accusing eyes watching me now. A pang of regret, of shame, flickered through me, but I let the flame of the happiness I had stolen from the Memory-Taker push it away. Pushing the incident to the back of my mind, I strode on with only the setting sun, the featureless road, and the gently waving grass around me for company.

Making of Moments

Her mind was clear, for what seemed the first time in ages. Reason and logic seemed obvious now, no mental blocks or emotional cloudiness impeded her view now. No tidal wave engulfed her and overwhelmed her; in fact, she felt she was a mountain, unimpeachable, unable anymore to be moved by such petty emotions as had swept her up and done with her as they willed before. Clarity, she thought. Clarity was what she sensed she might finally have attained, though she did not know how. Somehow, the "how" did not seem to matter so much as the fact of what was right at this instant, this luminous, radiant instant. Now she felt she could see down the ages past and the possibilities of the future, and none seemed insurmountable.

She closed her eyes against the harsh daylight and breathed once in, and once out. Even the breath in her lungs felt new and clean somehow. Yet, even as she marveled at her newfound serenity, she wondered faintly if it would pass, as had all previous seemingly permanent states of mind. If it did, she decided, then it did, and at least it would have existed for this present moment. Transience was a constant in her universe. Permanent transience. Nothing lasted forever. Even a seemingly obvious reality such as this seemed to her to hold untold meaning in this moment.

She attempted to hold that thought, that moment, distill it as if it were a shining liquid into a bottle of memory to store till the next time she felt, as she knew inevitably she would, overwhelmed by the volcano of emotion that was now dormant within her. Yes, she could sense even now the roiling buried seas of agony, ecstasy, anger, tragedy, excitement, hopelessness, and joy that lay writhing under the crust of temporary peace in her soul. All was temporary, and she thought now that perhaps she was glad it was so. Eternal peace would mean nothing if one never knew the alternative. And even now, though she attempted not to let it be so, a seed of hope was indefatigably budding in her heart that perhaps the next time would not come. That perhaps her heart would no longer break or hurt or be crushed. And yet even as she knew this would never be so, she could not quite kill the tiny sapling, but perhaps, she thought, this was for the best. Let hope spring. Maybe it is it's lot to die, to be burned alive in the fire, but for a time it would keep the soul reaching for the light. Reaching for life. And perhaps, she thought to herself as she opened her eyes to the too-bright sun once more, perhaps reaching for life, even just for now, was enough.

Missing of Moments

"Don't you understand?? I hate you! I always have!" She laughed wildly. Pointing in front of her, she stared with too-bright eyes against too-pale skin.

"You never did get it, did you? You never guessed? So stupid. You always were stupid. I could never stand that about you." More crazed laughs. This time, as had been the case so often before, she collapsed in a heap on the blankets she'd been kneeling on. Her face buried in the comforter made her laughs sound more muffled, almost like cries. Her shoulders shook as she shoved her face harder down into the comforter until suddenly she jerked her head up and locked her eyes in front of her.

"Who's laughing now? I always knew you were laughing at me, always knew you pitied me, well what do you think now?! You don't dare face me, do you! Don't dare look at me! Get away!" She screamed the words out, spitting and shrieking like a feral animal. No reaction greeted her words, but she seemed neither to notice nor care.

"This is it, this is the truth isn't it? No more lies or hiding or politeness getting in my way. I'll show you how I am, who I am, what I am! You liar, you horrible liar! I know who you are!!" Her words flew furiously, with the crazed fluency only the insane, very drunk, or very angry are capable of. Again though, only silence greeted her outburst, pressing in on her from every side. For a moment her angry mask cracked, and two tears fell from either red-rimmed eye, but she quickly and angrily covered her face with her clenched fists, throwing her head back down towards the blankets. A muffled scream pushed at the forbidding quiet of the dark room and dwindled again into jerking sounds wrenching their way through tortured vocal cords. When she raised her face once more, her eyes seemed even more bloodshot than they had before.

"Don't do this to me! Answer me! For god's sake, answer me!!" Now the tears did come, and with them the hysterical sounding sobs and wrenching screams of laughter. No-one answered her plea, for there was no-one there to answer it at all. Her tears bounced off the blank wall in front of her, reflecting the darkness of the room around her. In the silence of emptiness her sobs were absorbed, no trace of them reaching beyond her dark room as the silence and darkness that were her only companions enveloped her once more in their consuming comfort.

Meeting of Moments

She began to slow her half-running pace as she hurried through the darkening evening across the well-manicured lawn. Her breath came in sobbing gasps as the green trimmed lawn and sidewalks crossed under her feet, and she brought her wet hands again up to her face to press against her stinging, red eyes. Rubbing at her betraying eyes angrily, she shoved away the tears that just wouldn't stop. Her pace slowed even further as the brick buildings behind her retreated into the not-quite-night and her breath began to slow and return to a hiccuping normal pace. Blinking hard several times, she noticed as she came to a stop that the lights from the buildings behind her were further than she'd expected. She hesitated, as if pondering where to go from here. Not back. That was the only thing she could think. Turning once again away from the signs of civilization behind her, she continued walking forward at a more measured pace than before, only occasionally needing to clear the moisture from her eyes now.

As she walked, her knees shook visibly, but she had her teeth set as if determined not to fall. Whatever energy had pushed her this far had clearly left her now, but she kept moving into the now-dark night towards the treeline she could see in the distance. The grass became wilder and weeds clipped at her stockings as she walked. She gazed forward intently as she went, though it was clear she could see nothing more than a short ways ahead of her. There was nothing to see.

Wait. There. She rubbed her eyes one more time and squinted. A glimmer of light seemed to be coming from the ground a little ways ahead of her and to the right. She moved towards the elusive light. So intent on the sliver of light, she almost bumped headfirst into the wall that suddenly appeared in front of her. Her quivering knees did give at this surprise, and she dropped to the ground. A second look showed that the wall she had bumped into was in fact made of cloth. The side of a tent or some such she guessed. It seemed the sliver of light she'd been following was coming from a flap of some kind. An entrance perhaps?

Distracted from the cacophony of her thoughts, she now noticed music of some kind accompanied by occasional voices coming from the tent. Curious now, she pushed up to hands and knees and crawled towards the flap. Lifting it slightly and poking her head through, the music became suddenly loud and she blinked against the sudden light. Shielding her eyes against the glare she looked around.

The light came from artificial torches in sconces around the tent, which was larger than she'd expected. Crude benches were arrayed in rows across the tent, as if to seat an audience for the wooden stage set up on one end of the tent. The stage was the source of the music; a small folk band was playing happy tunes on strings, accordion, drums and woodwinds. Perhaps a score of people were arrayed in clusters on the benches closest to the stage, laughing and talking. As her eyes surveyed the crowd, her heart suddenly stopped. There, almost right in front of her, was a face she recognized well.

As she stared, the object of her fascination noticed her. His eyes widened and a smile broke out on his face as he recognized her. She suddenly was aware of what a silly picture she must present: head poking through the tent flap at knee height. He didn't seem to notice that as he got up and went to her, pulling her up and onto the bench nearest them.

"Hey you! What are you doing out here?" he questioned, smile growing, as he sat down next to her. She had no words suddenly. Her traitorous eyes suddenly filled, and she found herself crying uncontrollably as she threw her head down onto his lap. Though she couldn't see it, his eyes grew wide with surprise and uncertainty for a moment, before he softened and laid his hand on her head, caressing her hair comfortingly.

"Heeeey... What's wrong? Are you okay?" he asked softly. She just lay there in answer, her tears still falling quietly. He continued stroking her hair, looking down at her, seeming content to wait. Moments passed by, the band continued playing their songs, and no one else in the tent seemed to have noticed her arrival nor her present condition. Presently, she slid her arms around his waist and held tight for a minute. Then she let go and sat herself up, sliding her hands over her eyes and keeping her head down.

"I'm- I'm okay. I just- I don't know what happened there, sorry. " He laughed at this.

"Oh, c'mon, nothing to be sorry about." He tousled her hair affectionately, "It's what I do."

She gave a short laugh and grinned, seeming surprised at herself. Nodding, she sniffed and turned towards him, wrapping her arms in a chokehold around his neck. There was an uncomfortable moment where he didn't seem to know what to do with his arms before he cautiously hugged her back. Concern and uncertainty were written across his face. She turned up and finally looked him in the eye.

"I'm okay, really. Thanks." she said, giving him a real smile. The worry vanished from his face and was replaced by a relieved grin. Suddenly, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her up into his lap. This act elicited a cry of surprise and a laugh from her and she pulled away from him, still keeping her arms circling his neck.

"Music's good huh?" he commented at her newly heightened position. She laughed again, just now noticing the folk band up front seemed to be playing some Irish reel or jig that most of the other audience members were clapping to.

"Hey, it is good actually. What are you doing out here anyways? I haven't seen you in... well, it's been awhile." she noted, looking more serious. His face broke into another impish grin.

"This is where I live. I sit here and wait for random girls to fall on me. It's not much but it's a living." She burst into laughter again at this, and punched him softly.

"Man, you always did make me laugh! You're an idiot, you know that?" She smiled at him, able to look him almost in the eye. He chuckled back at her and she noticed as his eyes changed slightly. Suddenly, he surprised her by reached back behind her head and pulled her to him, kissing her softly. She stiffened in surprise, but then tightened her hold on him and kissed back.

He held the kiss for what seemed like hours before letting her go. She re-opened her eyes, not realizing she had closed them, and looked at him. He looked dazed, but he broke into a tentative smile as she watched. His eyes seemed to be searching for a response from her, so she gave him a huge smile and hugged him tightly. He laughed jubilantly, and pulled her close for another quick, definitive kiss before letting her go completely.

"Really good music, huh?" he commented, grinning madly. She laughed hard, unable to stop smiling and laughing. He laughed again for a moment, and then stood up, grabbing her hands and pulling her up with him. She spun for a moment before he caught her and held her upright.

"C'mon. Let's get you back." He turned towards the flap of the tent, leaving one arm around her shoulders, and gently pulled her towards the entrance. As she was guided back out into the night, all she could hear was the sounds of rollicking music and laughter fading wonderfully into the distance behind her, leaving no room for the now barely-remembered rioting emotions that had brought her here. His warm arms around her, she couldn't help continuing to smile as she stepped back out into the now-welcoming night.