The Phenomenons

The Missing Moments

   I'm in what appears to be my house. I'm looking all around me while also frantically scanning my brain for the memories of how I got from the alley building to here. Then I see my dad holding open the front door. 

   "Dad!" I rush up to him, and as I'm about to grab his shoulder to alert him I'm here and to have him turn around, I'm suddenly unable to move my foot forward. I'm standing a couple steps away from my dad, just out of arm's length. As much as I'm pushing off the ground, using my body strength, and making sure my mind is solely focusing on the action of moving my foot forward, I just can't.

   I try to see if I can take a step behind me. I can't do that either. I try to look to the side, also a no. I try to look up, no to that either. It's like the moment I caught sight of my dad, I'm unable to tear my eyes of him, but also not able to interact with him.

   I start to panic, I'm screaming his name and he isn't even paying me any attention. It's like I'm not even here. What I'm seeing is not my own.. That's when it clicks, I'm in some sort of allusion, some sort of dreamscape. And it clearly wants me to pay attention to my dad.

   So I give in, and I start to pay attention to whatever he's doing at the front door.  He's holding the door open for a woman, but not just any woman, Olivia. My mind starts racing a mile a minute. When did this happen? Why was she at my house? And why am I even seeing this in the first place?

   But I don't have much time to dwell on these questions because all of a sudden the image, or crazy dream I'm apart of changes. And as soon as this happens I'm not even feeling like I'm attached to my body, it's like I am just in existence but with no physical body, my mind as a spectator for all that I see next. A sequence of moments.

   I first see a man, my father, I quickly notice, but he's much younger, and he's sitting at a table with another woman, not Olivia, but who looks vaguely familiar and they're laughing together. It's almost like I'm a camera because everything focuses. 

   The background is a restaurant setting, in the middle of the table is a milkshake, strawberry going by the light-ish pink color, with two straws sticking out. My father and the woman are both leaning in taking turns sipping and talking, and then all of a sudden the woman's laugh pierces the air again, but the laughs are slowly turning into cries, screams.

   And the scene before me once again changes. I'm staring into a hospital room, the crying as loud as ever, and on the hospital bed is the same woman I saw before with my dad, but she's pale, her eyes are closed, and her face is stuck in this pained and stressed, but absolutely exhausted expression. I quickly realize that she's dead. And that it looks like the life was practically sucked out of her. 

   I quickly turn away, hoping that I didn't stare at the image too long to have it too far engraved into my mind, but unfortunately it was already, and I would always be able to remember the look on her face. 

   When I look in the other direction, I see my father, face in complete shock. Then I start to notice everything else that's going on in this room, there are nurses and doctors rushing in and out, one of them is bringing in a cart with defibrillators on it, and they're quickly heading to the hospital bed the woman is lying on. But I already know deep down there's no saving her. And I start to realize I'm watching what my father would never tell me about my past play out right in front of my eyes. As if I was there. Which in a way I was, just a lot younger...

   The nurses are trying to coax my dad into saying something, anything, and he slowly falls in their arms, both of them supporting his weight. The crying intensifies and I locate its source. In the corner of the room is a baby, crying its head off while nurses are swarmed around it to cut it's umbilical cord, and trying to clean it off, trying to clean me, off. 

   And then the moment I'm admitting that to myself the scene before is changing once again. I'm back to staring at my dad holding the front door open, for Olivia. But the crying remains, and I realize that I must be viewing a time that was soon after I was born, because finally being able to turn around, I see myself in a crib a few feet away from me. But that can't be, because Olivia is standing at the door, the same age as she was just today, if I'm even still in today wherever my body is in the real world. 

   I focus on her and my dad again. Her lips are moving but I can't hear the words coming out of them, only myself crying behind me. She's giving my father a serious glare however, and she's holding out a purple envelope for him to take. He seems hesitant, but takes it either way, and I'm able to make out the final thing she says to him,

   "For when your ready," and then she gives him a very very small smile, but its one of pity. And then I think I might've finally lost it, because when she turns around to leave she just simply moves her hands in a very weird way, and a purple portal opens up in front of her, and all of a sudden she's gone. 

   My vision blurs, and I begin to think I'm about to see another moment in time, but suddenly I'm aware of my body again, and I'm waking up. The moment I realize this I shoot up and look around. 

   I'm in what I think is the same dark building I was blinded in, lying on the ground, but there is light shining in, and I look up to see a skylight that was somehow blocked off before. And as I'm looking around, Olivia is nowhere in sight, but Izzy is.

   "Izzy!" I shout, she's lying a little distance away from me on the ground, looking like she too was waking up from something just as traumatic. I rush over to her and help her up. She's holding on to me for support when she looks up and catches my eye. We somehow get everything we need to say across just through that, and then we're scrambling out of this cursed place.