A Lost Memory: Alitheia

Episode 1: Swan

October

"Are you sure the place is cleaned?" asked Kacey Troy with the phone pressed against her ear and while stirring a pot of Bolognese sauce in her kitchen. The air was heavy with the scent of fresh red tomatoes, and onions that tangled the air like the white spiral cord of the house phone nestled in between her ear and shoulder. As she gradually added crushed garlic and freshly chopped herbs, she stirred with a silver ladle, though she paused briefly by the gaze of one of the photographed frames of her parents. A young couple at the time and two-month-old, Kacey, held in her father's arms as they stood in front of a garden patio.

'They seemed so happy', she thought but shook her head full of bouncing auburn spirals to rid herself of those lingering thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm sure, Kace. The lawyers, well Uncle Mac, mentioned they have cleaners come in every month or something like that" replied Alison Jones, one of Kacey's varsity friends, engrossed by her new 'boy toy' kissing her neck and she lets out a feverish moan.

"Seriously, Ali we are on the phone," Kacey retorted and rolled her eyes at her friends.

"How old is he this time?" She added with a sigh and continued stirring.

"Hold on," she replied while halting 'boy toy' from kissing any further down her belly.

"Nineteen and a half," she answered while holding him by his hair up, this time in-between her thighs.

"I'm going to go, Ali," bewildered but not surprised by her friend's antics. Both Alison and Kacey were in their early twenties, and final year of varsity.

"Woo bye!" she elongates the word, ending the call and before, Kacey figured, things would've really got started. Deciding to have the sauce simmer for some time, she wiped her hands on her apron, put the house phone down in its place and took out her cell phone leaving it on the counter and entering the bathroom.

'Ring ring'

The phone vibrated and rang from an 'Unknown Caller ID' till it stopped; a notification popped up of one missed call, but seemingly disappeared as it appeared. Kacey, returned from the bathroom, walks over to the stove with the sauce and pasta ready. She grabs a dish and gets her dinner ready, settles on the couch, but burrowed her eyebrows in confusion, 'Did my phone go off?' She thought though proceeded to dig in to her meal with a 90s sitcom in front of her. A completely different scenery from her dorm room she once shared with Alison to hometown she grew up in. The house a charming three bedroom, two bathroom house decorated with antique vases from her parents travels.

As she digged into her meal the steam float about from the pots, fogged up all the kitchen windows and the slanted cross drawn on one of them, fitted right in place, soon to be gone before noticed.

メ

Monday mornings are the worst for Kacey and that's usually because of piles of unfinished assignments being due the Tuesday morning. She knew that starting when you get them is easier, but it has only been six months since the passing of her parents, and grieving can emerge in all forms. Conveniently, she pardoned herself. A mess of textbooks, clothes, book pages and coffee cups from AstroBucks Coffee lay about in her room which was also evidence of her 'grieving' as she put it; although that was always the case throughout the years.

"Your room is a reflection of your heart," she recalled a saying from her grand Aunt Elizabeth's ways on "How to be a real lady," when she made her monthly visits from New England.

"Yeah, well then my heart looks like crap right now, Aunt Liz" scoffed Kacey and proceeded to dress herself in black jeans, black boots and a cream pullover with a Greenhouse University emblem. She packed all essential textbooks and papers, and headed off for a drive in her late father's hatchback to attend one of her journalism class.