Automnesia

                                           AUTOMNESIA

   Call me Nameless.  Call me Invisible.  Call me Forgettable.  Call me what barks inside your head when you read my words. The very first thing your brain registers as a connection to me—that’s what I am to you.

  It could be a telephone what makes you think of me.  It could be a lost, wet, ugly puppy that summons pity within your cold emotions, thus the picture of me—of my lost, wet, ugly features blinking inside your memory.  Of our lost ties of memory cut loose.

   After long eight years—after long forgotten memories—, your face and our lost friendship appeared in my subconscious, like an uninvited guest barges inside a house, settling into its commodities and making himself owner of every furniture and object.  That’s what you did.  The house is my heart—not the beating, numb muscle, but the symbol of what dwells behind. The not so tangible representation of emotions that ushers tears or laughs to confuse my weak body.  That’s what you did.  You confused my seamless cells of stubbornness and mass.

   Like the automnesia you became, I started remembering our squealing laughs; our little hands clenched on the immortal fence that separated us; on our childish dares that evoked unforgettable memories. Yet we forgot.  Yet you forgot me.

   But I didn’t.  I have never forgotten about you.  I have never let those memories fly to their demise.  I’ve held them captive with my iron fist. I’ve made them my personal slaves.  And I’ve found pleasure in the exploit I’ve delivered upon them.

   And you?  What have you done to our memories? Have you hidden them inside the basement of your subconscious? Have you ignored them all of this time? Have you let them starve to death without feeding them the daily doses of nutrition they need to survive? What have you done, friend? What have you done?

   And I dare to call you friend when our friendship had died out in the middle of that rainy night.

   As I remember the times we proudly marked our foreheads with the word scoundrel, I remember that night of spring when my parents urged me inside the car while the pouring rain drenched my face, hiding my sad tears from them to see.  Sitting on the backseat while the car promenaded forward, I decided to bid my old house an adieu by looking back at its structure and at the times full of sunshine we made there.  Through the violent drops that smudged the rear-window, I saw a damped boy running behind our car, his hand stretched out while he held a pained and wretched look on his face.

   A loud sob slashed the ominous and mournful silence within the car.  “Daddy, stop the car!” I cried, while I wept with you, watching you trying to stop my permanent departure. 

    But when I saw no reduction of speed, my little hands sailed to the door handle and with a forceful jerk of it, the door flew open.  And I could hear the surprise in my parents puzzled gasps, but in the frenzy I didn’t mind them, I just dived into the flood of rain and ran to you. 

    And I could hear your sad snuffles louder with every step I ran closer to you.  

   And I as I write this to you, I swear, friend, tears of joy filled with regret dance around my cheeks. Because I’ve never experienced something so pure and real like the embrace we gifted each other that night. Under the rain.

   We held our little bodies together, crying on each other’s shoulder and vowing we would never forget.  Vowing we would never forget the days we showed our asses at the passing cars.  Vowing we would never forget the evenings we spent impersonating Goku and Chi-Chi.  Vowing we would never forget the time we had a tea party against your will.  Vowing we would see each other again one day.