Add writing/forgotten-memories

writing/forgotten-memories

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+# Forgotten Memories
+
+by Ze'ev Schurmann
+
+> This story is not yet finished. I have an ending in mind, but I haven't figured out how I want to paint the ending using words.
+
+He sat down at the table in the coffee shop at the airport. His hair hung over his eyes, his beard knotted from lack of care. 
+
+“Here, they don't sell alcohol this early in the day so I got you a jasmine tea.” she said as she sat next to him. 
+
+“Thank you...” he said quietly, as he took the cardboard cup in is hands. The tea was still piping hot, but felt so comforting in his hands. He never did feel pain, well not physical pain anyway.
+
+“I am sorry...” she said looking down at his hands clasping the cup of tea as steam rose off it. 
+
+He blew on his tea; “It is what it is. I tried. But the harder I tried the harder it got. It's time to just move on. Start afresh.” 
+
+“But do you have to leave?” 
+
+“Yes. If I stay, then we will keep going round in this never ending loop until it kills one of us, or both. This is real life, not some theatrical drama where the forbidden lovers die in the end as some symbolic whitewashed representation of eternal love. This is real life. Real lives. Real people. The curtain won't fall on us, and then rise to an applause while we take a bow. No, real people get hurt. Real feelings, real emotions.”
+
+“But you promised me you would always love me. You promised me you would always be there for me.” she reached out to hold his hand, but he lifted the cup and took a sip. Her hand just grabbed at air. 
+
+“Kitten, you don't get it. My loving you, my being there for you, it's hurting people. They see me as the villain, and that's fine, they always do. My whole god damn life, they always do.” 
+
+“I wish they could see the Wolf I see. I wish they could understand you how I do.” 
+
+“They won't. They never will. You were the first person to see the real me. You were the first person to ever look into my eyes and see past the severed wings on my back. You looked deep into my soul, and when you did, my soul looked back and fell in love with your soul, like we were created for each other before time had begun. We just took 13.8 billion years to find each other.”
+
+Tears welled up in her eyes. 
+
+He sipped his tea and said “You see, I could just tell you that they were all right. I could just tell you that all along I was playing you, using you, for my own gain. And now that you have nothing left, I no longer have a need for you.” 
+
+“But it's not true. You would never do that. Not to me, not to anyone.” 
+
+“That's why I am not telling you that, but it would make it easier for you. You would be able to have your old life back, your old friends, your family. Maybe that bitch may even give you your job back. Alice?” 
+
+“Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?” 
+
+He scoffed... “Yeah, that bitch. So self righteous. Like she is gods gift to the fucking universe. But at the end of the day, when she dies...”
+
+“Are you suggesting...” 
+
+“No! Never. I would love to have words with her, but I would never bring harm to her. Not unless you told me to. As vicious as I can be to my enemies, I am not that person. I used to be, but that is not me any more. I have learned to have compassion, even for those that have transgressed me. No, I would rather see her meet the fate that the universe has in store for her. I would rather see her witness my success, my growth. I would rather they all did. So they can choke on their words and opinions of me. They all think I have some ulterior motive. That I am up to some wicked scam. Let them. But it will be too late when they see that I am not the villain they say I am.”
+
+“I don't think you are a villain.” 
+
+“I know. You are the only person who truly believes in me. You are the only person who truly loved me for who I am, warts and all. But as long as they all sit on your back and give you shit because I am in your life; as long as you have to keep juggling between them and me; you will never be happy.” 
+
+“But I am happy...” 
+
+“Are you, really? It doesn't take a genius to realise that you are not happy. Not how you were when we met. You used to crave having me around. Now I have to beg for your company. You push me away.”
+
+He blew the steam of his tea and sipped on it again as she wiped a tear from her eye. 
+
+“It's not how you think...” she said. 
+
+He turned and looked at her; “How do you go from wanting someone around you 24/7 to avoiding contact as much as possible? Either you don’t love me, or there are external factors at play.”
+
+She curled her hands up and stared at them, tears welling in her eyes.
+
+“When we first started seeing each other, you wanted me around in a way that nobody ever had in my entire life. As overwhelming as it was, it felt good. But then after the playground girls had their go, you started to push me away, completely. It began to destroy me. And then somehow, we managed to get work things out. And then when we opened up to everyone, that's when it all started to fall apart. We can never be together. Not unless you turn your back on everyone, and I will never allow that.”
+
+“So what are you going to do?” she murmured.
+
+“I don't know. I am going to go and start from scratch. I have made arrangements for everything to carry on here with out me...”
+
+“But what about me?”
+
+“I want you to meet someone. I want you to fall in love with someone that they will accept.”
+
+“I don't want to love anyone else...”
+
+“Kitten. You have so much love in you. You are not as cynical and nihilist as I am. Find a person that is good and kind, but someone who fits in the box that everyone else wants them to fit in. I am not that person.” He sipped his tea twice.
+
+Tears started to flow down her cheeks. “I don't want to exist with out you, you are my...”
+
+“...nothing. I am your nothing. And eventually I will be a forgotten memory.”
+
+“Please don't do this. You can stay, things will be different, I will fight for you, I will be in your corner.” She grabbed his arm and held on it firmly.
+
+“When my ticket is called, I will take the memory of you with me. You see, a friend once recalled the story his dad you tell him. In the age of the Pharaohs, a lot of value was put on material wealth. The Pharaoh would die and all his possessions, his wives, his slaves, his pets, his gold and jewels, all of it, would be buried with him.”
+
+He took another sip from his cup as she stared at him with tears rolling her cheek. “When he died, they believed all of that went with him to the afterlife. But they were wrong. You see, even though he was buried with all that he had, it stayed here, in the material world. All you take with you are memories. And millennia later explorers and archaeologists dug him up, boxed him and sent him off to a museum. And there he sits, lying dead in a glass cabinet, with his mouth open. And do you know what is in his mouth? Sand. That's it, just sand. That's all he has left.”
+
+She looked at him confused...
+
+“We do not take anything from this world with us, only memories. And I will take the memories of us with me.”
+
+The announcement came over the public address system for his flight.
+
+“That's my flight, I need to go.”
+
+She grabbed both his arms and the tea spilled. “Please don't go...”
+
+“I have to go.” he said.
+
+“Then take me with you.” she begged.
+
+“No, this is my journey. I must do it alone.”
+
+“When will I see you again?”
+
+“I don't know, but we will always have Notties.” he said as he smiled at her.
+
+He stood up, slung his back pack over his shoulders.
+
+“Kitten, you will never fathom the love I have for you, as I cannot fathom it myself.”
+
+She tried to kiss him but her turned away. “It is time.”
+
+“Can I hold you hand at least?”
+
+“Yes you can.”
+
+They walked to the gate holding hands