Amnesia, Book 1: A Girl Lost In The Woods

<Jeanette> Chapter II: The Distraction

Location Unknown

You descend the layers. Navigation can be a difficult skill to master. If you don’t focus, or if you get distracted, you may end up somewhere else.

So why have you taken us here?

You feel grass under your bare feet. That’s the first sensation that reminds you of this place. The stubby, mowed-too-short overwatered kind of grass that prickles the bottoms of your toes. That’s the first aspect you created—the tactile. You’re a woman who experiences the world through touch. Only after does the rest of the scene take form. Tiny particles of what looks like sand—but we both know it’s not sand—rushes in to fill the void from all sides, and it spirals and molds itself into simple, familiar forms.

You’re standing in the backyard of a small suburban home. An overpowering yellow sun blazes overhead and bakes the peach brick and the faded stained wooden fence that closes you in on all sides. You feel warm inside just looking at it.

In the yard you see an old assortment of kid’s pool toys, tucked into a corner, but no pool this year; a small back porch with two sets of children’s handprints stuck forever side-by-side in the concrete; and a disastrous attempt at an English garden tucked away and wilting in the extreme angle where the two walls of the fence come together. In the center of the yard is a large metal swing set, originally colored purple, but time and weather have chipped away half the paint, revealing a dull brown iron underneath.

We understand. This is your home during your juvenile years.

Do you think that you chose to come here on a whim? Or is this the place that you associate most powerfully with your sister?

Are you listening to us Jeanette? Or has the swing caught your eye?

Go a little closer. There’s some writing scratched into the chair, see if you can recognize it.

You can read it right now… it’s not too bright to see. There is no glare for you. Your eyes would only need to adjust if you had eyes.

JN + DN Forever.

Does that bring back memories? Do you label all your memories good or bad? Or are there those you keep just because you choose to?

That’s why we love you.

Where are you going? Inside? You know that will be fruitless. This is just one of her memories. It’s part of her but she’s not here.

What was it that you thought when you chose to come here? If you chose to go to her, then we should be seeing her. Even in this place, where memories can take form, there would be no confusing your intent.

Ah. You chose this place on purpose. Thoughts of her led to thoughts of your childhood. And to your old home.

Next time remember to focus.