Don't Let Me Be Gone

I'm still staring at the torn photograph on the floor when he speaks. "It's alright. It's ok. You know that, don't you?" I can't see him, but I know he's watching me, searching for something new - or old - in my expression. He's afraid, too. He acts as though he's scared to touch me, or even talk to me, and the thing is that I don't even know why. I've never hurt him - I know I haven't, wouldn't - but sometimes, the way he acts makes me doubt myself.

After a moment, he turns, and looks at me as though expecting something. I shake my head, unsure of what he wants. "You know that it's ok, don't you?" He asks, unnecessarily slowly. I nod, and he adds "I asked you that just a moment ago, as well. I don't know if you remember...?" I shake my head.

He stoops and retrieves the fractions of the picture, turning them around so that they're facing us again and holding them in place for the illusion of a complete, undamaged picture. My eyes focus on the paper, and, again, I find myself looking down at these four familiar faces, each one bearing a smile, a personality, and a set of useless half-dead memories.

There, from the figure on the far right, emerges a snapshot of myself and the older man sitting in a car, outside school gates as he smiles proudly. Beside him, holding his hand, around his age, I see a full scene showing the woman's face, with tearful eyes and twisting mouth as she tries to tell me, through the sobs, that she will always love me.

In front and slightly to the left, it's me, but I don't recognise myself immediately; I would never have known that it was me if he hadn't made me learn the features of my own face. Beside me in the image, arm around my waist, he laughs, and he is the only one for whom I have a memory that attaches to the picture, rather than just a thing I have conditioned myself to think of when I see him.

I remember him being happy that night. We were celebrating something - I'm not sure what, maybe a birthday or an anniversary - and we could forget about what was, at the time, just small lapses of memory, just me being a little tired, having a little trouble understanding things every now and then.

To the left of us is the single face I don't know. It's a man, a few years younger than me, with the same colour eyes and the same delicate smile. He's the reason why the photograph is now in tatters. I've seen this picture before, so many times, and I've known who they are, been able to recall their life stories, and known everything about them that I have ever known. And then it was just the key dates, the key facts, the key events, then just these tiny snippets that are learnt rather than remembered, but I still knew all of their names, I knew that I loved them, and I recognised them as soon as I saw their faces.

Now, I know them merely as methods of keeping my mind together. I know them, in relation to me, though their names and personalities are long gone. I still remember who they are, though, and how they made me feel, and as I see them, I can think 'father, mother, me, him...'

Or I thought I could, anyway. But now, that last face, that man, with the familiar eyes and the smile, who I know should recognise, who I know I should love, who I should be able to name just by hearing his voice, leaves me with such a blank mind, such an empty, colourless space where I know something once was.

I have no idea who the man in the photograph is. The man standing beside me knows though. He knows, and he's going to tell me in a moment, and all these memories, these feelings, are going to flood back into my sore brain, and I'll realise that I'm so stupid for not recognising him, because he's going to be important, and then, tonight, as soon as I stop thinking about him, he'll disappear again, and I'm going to forget.

He crumples two of the three segments of photograph in his fist before showing me the third. It's the smallest part, and it holds only the background of some dimly lit room and the face of the man I should know. I notice the almost grotesque way that the tear in the paper comes just below his chin, separating his head from his body.