Visions

The Definition of Remembrance

Remembrance: noun; something remembered; reminiscence

Arthur Bellgrove

Arthur leant back in his chair and stared intently at the screen of his Apple computer that sat on the desk in front of him. He watched closely as pictures of his daughter Katelyn's childhood moved about the display. He shut his eyes briefly to remember what a challenging upbringing his only child had had. He had never wanted her to have to go through any of the ordeals she had done at such a young age and he still couldn't seem to be able to forgive himself for the traumatic experiences she had had to endure.

            Upon reopening his closed eyes a picture of an approximately seven year old Kate smiled back at him from the monitor, her big blue eyes glistening in the sunlight. He looked at the image carefully trying to take in every detail; the gap in between her two front teeth, the freckles that were scattered across her cheeks and the stray hairs that had fallen out of her short French plait.

            Bringing up a child in the environment that he had hadn't been ideal and he had thought many times about his own schooldays in which he had spent within the four walls of the asylum and he had often cringed as he remembered the cruel things he had seen during that time. He certainly hadn't wanted to bring Kate up in that same place but had done all the same; it was this that had made him so over-protective as the years had gone by despite numerous telling offs from his daughter.

            He had slackened off a bit during her mid to late teenage years but now secretly wished he hadn't as it had been during this time that her foster brother had begun to see ghosts. She was deeply affected by this and stopped talking to her family and friends and became disconnected from the world around her. She only began to show her emotions again when Seth had been sectioned and taken away.

            She may have become more engaged and a bit more open but the emotions she was experiencing were far from positive, she began suffering from insomnia, sleepwalking and crying at almost anything that reminded her of her closest childhood friend.

            Arthur had taken this particularly badly and it became hard for him to keep the already falling apart family unit together. It was at this time that he once and for all lost the little girl that was still flashing on his computer screen, that smile he knew so well and loved so much disappeared and was replaced by a constant emotionless expression that Arthur had come to accept as the norm.

            Her facial expressions had always remained pretty much the same throughout the twenty-seven years of her life but had changed slightly with age. As a young child she always wore a toothy grin but as she got older the corners of that particular beam descended further and further down her face until eventually it had become a depressed and forced looking smile.

            Arthur tried to recall a moment within the last few weeks that he had seen Kate smile as if she meant it but was unable to think of one. Every time he had seen his daughter in the past month she looked tired and worn down as if life had fought her to the ground and beaten her up in an attempt to finish her off, it had already tried and failed more than once.

            As the pictures advanced through the years and Kate got older new faces began to appear in the images and one of the most common was of Seth and his blank expression. Arthur had started to reflect back on the many days Kate and Seth had spent together in the asylum garden, lying on the grass in summer and messing about in the snow in winter all wrapped up in their many layers of clothing hats and scarves included.