Eluding Memory

Chapter 6

TW: sexual harassment

I spent what was remaining of Friday night and a fair part of Saturday early morning thinking about all of it. It all seemed a little too unlikely to be a set of coincidences. Something was behind everything, from the nightlight and the kettle to the iron box and everything at the restaurant. I tried hard to connect what happened each time but was drawing blank until I pulled out a set of sticky notes and different coloured pens. I used my dining table as the base to make a board like the kind you can see in detective shows. The table was almost entirely covered in notes pretty soon. I kept scratching my head, desperately trying to find something to have an 'Eureka!' moment. I felt like Charlie Day looking for Pepe Silvia.

I felt like ripping all the notes off in frustration, so I decided to take a break and cool off. I heated up some water and sipped on it. After I was done with the water, I stretched my arms, and the zipper on my jacket came up and hit me on the chin. I remembered that I hadn't changed my clothes since coming home from the restaurant. I took off the jacket and went to my room. I picked up a random tee and some shorts from my closet to change into. When I went to take off my shirt, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The sight of the torn shirt took me aback, and my hands froze. I couldn't take my eyes off the threads hanging from the torn edges.

I found it difficult to breathe, and my chest felt heavy. It felt like the man was still there, clutching my arm and my shirt and yelling at me. The bright tube light turned off on its own. I could no longer see the torn shirt, and my breathing came back to normal. I shook my head and quickly took off the shirt. The light came back on and I wore the tee and shorts. Without looking directly at it, I buried the torn shirt deep in the back of my closet and returned to the dining table. I tried to focus on the sticky notes, but my mind kept returning to the restaurant and the man. I took a seat and tried to look at the notes from a different perspective. I noticed that I had forgotten to turn off the light in my room. I got up to switch it off when I tripped over thin air and felt like an utter idiot. I managed to catch the edge of the table and hoist myself back up. When I turned back to my room, the light was off.

I think that was the moment when I first realised. I didn't want to believe it because I didn't think I should believe I suddenly have some supernatural powers. After all, I was not the protagonist of a fantasy novel. But nothing else made sense. Well, the explanation didn't make any sense either. So I began to entertain the idea, to wonder what if. What if it was right? What if I suddenly had some power? Then how did it work?

I returned to the dining table and the sticky notes. Now that I thought that I had caused everything, it was easy to eliminate a lot of the external factors. It seemed that some of it happened when I was in distress, like in the restaurant and with the music speaker. However, the iron box incident didn't really match with it, nor did the kettle or the lights the first time it happened. So it had to be something... intrinsic? Maybe personal?

I put my head in my hands, trying to think. The sudden pressure of my palm on my cheek made it sting. I hissed and pulled away my hands. The pain in my cheek was throbbing, and I went to the freezer to get some ice to put on it. I realised that I had forgotten to refill the ice cube tray after emptying it in the afternoon. I hadn't even kept an ice pack in the freezer. Sighing, I filled the tray and put it inside the freezer.

I picked up my phone and began scrolling through it. I remembered the phone charge incident. The more I thought about it, the more I felt sure that it had been at 10% when I first checked the battery percentage. Maybe this was also related to my newfound 'powers'?

I didn't want to believe I had powers. I didn't want to embarrass myself like that time when I bragged to my friends that I could do something. The memory was fuzzy; I didn't even remember what I told them I could do. I just remembered feeling so embarrassed when I couldn't do it. The lights flickered. Wait, had I done something just then? I rushed to the freezer to see that the tray had fully solid ice cubes already. It had barely been two minutes; does ice really freeze that fast?

Regardless, I was happy for the ice. I put some ice in the middle of a folded towel and held it up to my cheek. The relief felt good, eliciting a contented sigh from me. After a few minutes, I put away the towel and returned to the table. Okay, so something had clearly happened now. I badly wanted ice, and I got ice. So maybe I could use the powers for something that I wanted?

I thought I should try something to see if I could make it happen. I placed a pen on the table and tried to lift it using my powers. It didn't budge in the slightest, not even when I furrowed my brows together and focused the hardest I could. I gave up after a while, dejectedly pushing the pencil away. I felt like laughing at how stupid I was to believe that I actually had powers. I looked down to find that the pencil was back in its original position despite my push making it roll away to the other side of the table. I thought maybe the table was inclined at an angle and laughed at my insanity in thinking it had worked. And then it happened. The pencil rose up and floated in the air a foot above the table.

I could barely believe my eyes. I blinked a few times, even rubbing my eyes and wearing my glasses to confirm it was actually floating in the air. I felt proud of myself. Maybe I didn't really need to feel that embarrassed. It was at this point that the pencil dropped and clattered noisily on the table. Okay, maybe I should have felt embarrassed, I thought. The pencil lifted a few inches into the air again.

It took everything I had in me to not scream in realisation. The clock said it was 4:37 AM, so I probably would have scared my neighbours if I had screamed then. Of course, I would have felt embarrassed when I had to explain it to them. And then I would have been even more embarrassed when nobody would believe me. Granted, that would have granted me more power to actually make some things happen, for it seemed that the feeling of embarrassment was the secret of my power.

I waltzed around my house for an hour or so, dredging up old memories and using the embarrassment they gave me to make random things happen. The more embarrassing the memory was, the stronger the effect was. Maybe the every-night embarrassing memory parade actually had a benefit.

The doorbell rang, breaking me out of my reverie. I peeked out the window and saw that the next-door couple had come over. I opened the door and let them in. They said they had seen the lights on and come over to check on me. They were quite surprised to see me up so early on a Saturday morning. I laughed and told them I hadn't actually gone to sleep. They looked around the house warily, asking me if something was bothering me. When their eyes landed on the dining table and the mountain of sticky notes on it, I spoke up and told them that I had been a little occupied with a work project. I told them I had just figured it out and was about to go to sleep soon. They apologised for intruding and said they just wanted to check if I was okay.

I thanked them for their kindness and asked them if they would like some tea. I was going to drink some anyway before going to sleep so it would be no burden. They said they wouldn't mind some, so I went to the kitchen. While I was waiting for the kettle to heat up the water, I remembered the time that my 'powers' had made the kettle overheat. I laughed out loud, remembering how confused I was. I suddenly realised that there were other people in the house, and I turned back to them. They were looking at me with confused stares.

I told them that I saw something funny on my phone, so I laughed. My phone suddenly started ringing. I had left it on the couch when I went to open the door. I slammed my palm on my forehead and shook it. The kettle whistled, giving me a few precious seconds to come up with a believable explanation. Maybe I would say I had just seen it before opening the door and had remembered it while I was waiting for the water to heat up. I filled three teacups. I took two and handed them to my neighbours. I went back to grab my cup and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw them both looking at me with wide eyes. I was halfway between the dining table and the couch, still feeling embarrassed from the face-palm moment. I was going to give them an explanation for the random laughter when I realised they weren't looking at me but rather behind me. Or, more specifically, the pencil and a chain of sticky notes that was floating in the air behind me.