The Sorrow of Memory
A short story

“I think it’s over.”
Her words struck me like poison.
I was instantly taken back to when I was younger and I’d been stung by a bee. I’d forgotten about it until now — I guess it had become one of those childhood events you inevitably forget about over time. But there it was again: playing out in front of my eyes. I watched my ghost slump to the ground in agony. It was excruciating — it was my first recollection of pain; my first memory of tears.
But this was worse: this was the pain of time lost; the tears of life coming to a shuddering halt.
All I wanted to do was cry. But I was too shocked. Too numb. I couldn’t cry like I had that day.
While she’d struggled to get the first sentence out, the words then flowed from her lips like a swarm of bees emerging from their hive, stingers poised — ready to strike without remorse, without regret, and without emotion:
“I just don’t think we’re right for each other.”
The seemingly simple, seemingly innocuous sentence bumped around in my head for a few minutes — well before I could even begin to think of any kind of reply. It prodded and poked my brain … my mind … my soul. I couldn’t comprehend how someone would need seven years to work that out. We uttered vows about going through everything together, all the ups and downs. We spoke of eternity, of perseverance, of everlasting commitment. Was that now gone? Could it really evaporate just like that?
I slowly lowered myself onto the bed. I sat softly, carefully, contemplatively. I studied the vase on the bedside table; the one we always had there. I noticed we hadn’t changed the water for a while — the petals of the flowers were wilting; the stems were suffocating.
I finally replied, matter-of-factly:
“How …” I said, coughing over the word a little, like it was stuck in my throat, like I might choke on it. “How can you say that?”
It sounded so stupid and incoherent. My enunciation was melodramatic, my tone juvenile — like we were back in high school. But we weren’t back in high school; I’d never felt so far from that stage of my life. I missed the innocence of it, the sheer ease of it compared to this.
Like a gun going off in my ear, I was shot back to that time. My mind was all over the place. It was like when people say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. This felt like death. This felt worse — from this I had to try and go on.
Still the picture of high school formed in front of me, on an invisible canvas. It was the first time I saw her. It was hazy and ambiguous. It was rose-coloured; so beautifully rose-coloured. I’d never seen the back of someone’s head be so mind-meltingly beautiful. Her hair glistened; her nape screamed out in raw sexuality. I just knew I loved her before she even turned around.
Suddenly she shocked me out of my daydream.
“Because I’m miserable. You make me miserable.”
As she laid her accusations, tears escaped from her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. I wondered if they were real or just for effect. She made no effort to stop them. She simply turned around — deliberately and forcefully away from me this time. I put my hand delicately on her shoulder. She pulled away without a second thought. But as she did I felt the exaggerated bump of her collarbone for just a split-second. I hadn’t kissed it for months. I hadn’t run my hands over it. I hadn’t felt it. I hadn’t felt her. It all began to make sense: we weren’t what we had been any more. I had no idea what we had become. I felt the same, but without warning she seemed utterly different. I didn’t know who this person was any more. The memories were blurred, hazy, ruined.
The silence hung in the air like stale death. I waited for the dirge to begin in the background, for the mourners to pass on their condolences — tell me it would all be okay in time. Time, they would tell me, is the greatest healer. But there was no one — no one seemed to care — no one except me. But that wasn’t enough to rescue this; one person could not salvage it.
I kept trying to form words but none would come. Even as I cobbled some together and put them in some semblance of order, my body wouldn’t function to get them out. My lips stuck to each other, eventually opening and then abruptly closing again. Every time I thought I had something rational, persuasive to say — something that might change her mind, that might fix it all — I convinced myself it would just make things worse and I simply shut up. I’d never wanted to scream so much in my entire life. I’d never felt so powerless to do so.
When had it happened? Was it sudden or elongated? Had it been all my fault? It had to be … didn’t it?
I started replaying the last days, weeks, months, and years in my head. It was a blur of delight, joy and fun. But she was right: there was pain in there; there was misery. But to me it didn’t stand out — not like it obviously did to her.
Still I searched for words. Still I found none. The silence was excruciating. I wanted to fix it. I had to fix it. I forced something … anything:
“I don’t understand how you can think that it was my intention to make you miserable,” I finally replied. “I only ever wanted to make you happy.”
“I never said it was your intention,” she spluttered.
Somehow that seemed to make it worse. I tried to look at her but she wasn’t interested. She just continued in her task of getting ready for her day ahead. She glided silently from the bedroom to the closet, in an effort to find an outfit that might make her feel better — make her not miserable. I heard the dresser drawers open and then close, some softly — others with force. She fumbled with her jewellery, searched through her make-up. It all seemed like a carefully calculated dance to alienate me from the conversation. She was already moving on — and here I was, blindsided in misery. Helpless, confused, defeated.
“So, I’ve been unintentionally making you miserable, presumably for a while, and you’re only bringing it up now … when in your eyes, it’s already too late?”
She said nothing in reply. I fidgeted on the bed, interlocking my fingers and twisting them over one another. I separated them and moved my body again. Comfort was an unobtainable goal. Again, I searched the caverns of my mind for the right combination of words to fix it; surely they had to exist somewhere. I didn’t find them. I couldn’t.
“So, that’s it … just like that? We just give up?” I continued.
An eerie calm settled over the room. We’d experienced so much in here. We’d fallen asleep together, woken up together … I couldn’t even begin to fathom how many times. We’d had breakfasts in here, birthdays, lazy Sundays, phone calls to our families. This was my sanctuary. But now it felt like my prison. She turned back to me, a disposition on her face I’d never seen before. I truly didn’t know this woman any more. The love of my life was dead, replaced by a ghost …a phantom … a stranger.
“I gave up a while ago.”
That was it. My world had been transformed into a whirlwind of emotions. I felt nauseous, and for a moment thought I would throw up there and then. I suppressed that feeling and instead let the others to the forefront. I couldn’t decide what was most prevalent — was I sad? Bitter? Angry? Was I disgusted that she almost seemed happy to have finally done this?
For a split-second I thought I was happy…
I thought maybe I could finally prove everyone else wrong. Maybe I could prove her wrong. Maybe I could make her feel regret. The next relationship I would find would be right — it wouldn’t be ‘hard,’ like they all said relationships had to be. It shouldn’t have to be hard. Not like this anyway.
Sadness came back with a vengeance. I felt moisture on my cheeks and wiped my own tears away before she could see. I quickly stood up from the bed as I felt more tears filling the void. I stared out the window at the scene outside. For just a moment I caught her image in the reflection. She looked at me, just for a second, and still it made me feel amazing. Just to have the attention again of the only girl I’d ever loved, even for a second, made me feel alive. I felt like nothing could touch me, like I was indestructible.
I was indestructible to everything but this.
Reality came back. The reality of whatever she had become made me feel like I was someone else too. The life we’d forged together was gone. The identity I’d built around that life was disintegrated. Suddenly, I had no idea who I was. It made me feel like I couldn’t go on.
The memory of the bee sting came back to me. I thought it amazing: it had been rectified to a point where I had forgotten it ever happened. I was instilled only with doubt that this new pain could ever be repaired in the same way.
Physical pain heals tangibly; emotional pain does no such thing. It was entrenched in me. It would go on forever … wouldn’t it?
I had to get out of the room. I stepped past her, not saying anything. I feigned a confidence in my stride, so she knew: knew how hurt I was — but also how okay I would be. I would show her. I noticed the vase as I left — a petal dropping quietly into the water. It floated initially, striving to survive.
The safety of isolation meant I could let down my guard. Like an unstoppable flood, the tears began. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried like this — maybe I never had. I thought back to funerals I had been to. Sure, I had let myself go, but not like this. Those emotions were wrapped up in losing someone who had no choice but to go — who would have been just as remorseful about it. Somehow the pain of losing someone who had deliberately and systematically chosen to let you go struck at a much deeper core. It was seemingly more feasible to fix, but obviously just as impossible. Remorse seemed to play no part in this. Regret was a concept that didn’t exist. But it felt just like death, of that I had no doubt.
I rushed into the kitchen and quickly turned on the kettle, pretending like I was going about my day as normal. The sound of the boiling water was really just intended to drown out the cacophony of my convulsions. I just needed a moment to gather my composure. I just needed to look at it rationally. I thought about it from every logical standpoint I could: if one person is unhappy the relationship can’t function anyway. It was better to end it now than drag it on, and for both of us to become miserable. I fretted about how much I sounded like a cheap psychiatrist.
Bullshit, I thought. If one person is unhappy, that individual owes it to the other to speak up, to try and figure it out. That’s how these things work. You’re not supposed to drag it out in silence, as if it were a cross-country drive that suddenly ends in the flaming wreckage of a collision only one person saw coming. If she wasn’t willing to do that then maybe this was the best thing. I hated the idea of logic right then. I didn’t want to think about this rationally; I wanted her to think about it emotionally. I wanted her to find the memories. I wanted her to care. I wanted us to fight.
I decided finding something to eat might distract my mind and clear my head. All I could procure was some bread and peanut butter, but still I set to work. I continued to hear her going about her morning routine. I cursed her, just for a second. Then I simply hated myself for doing so.
The sandwich was stale … dry … unsatisfying. But I finished it nevertheless. I felt a sense of accomplishment, and then a sense of depression about how sad that seemed. As I washed the plates and cutlery I studied the knife. I flipped it over and over under the water of the tap. The light glistened off its metallic surface and it took on a strange beauty. It was the kind of beauty that I could see attracting someone to testing how it would feel against flesh. I lifted my shirt and ran my fingers over my stomach: my touch was cold, my skin rough. I wondered if that pain would be worse than this one. I decided it couldn’t be.
I could bear it no more. I turned defiantly and headed back for the bedroom. I was not going to let it all die like this. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I had no idea what I would say or what I would do, but I just knew that my feelings for her were too strong. I just knew that we were meant to be together forever, and I was sure she had to know it too.
As I marched back into the room I was struck by the deathly silence. I shuddered, like I was entering a crypt. The bed was emphatic in its detail and precision. The corners of the linen were tucked in perfectly; the pillows all lined up at perfect right angles.
The vase still stood beautifully on the bedside table — the water level resting motionless. I could smell the fragrance the flowers exuded and it made me smile. I thought about how many bouquets I must have given to her over the years — how many smiles they brought to her face.
I was broken from my trance by the penetrating sound of the alarm. I walked over cautiously but abruptly to silence it, not wanting to create any more tension. I looked at it quizzically — we must have awoken earlier than we intended.
Then I remembered: she’d turned over and her hair had tickled my nose. I sneezed and then we both stirred. She started laughing at me, and as I playfully feigned embarrassment she had pressed into me with a kiss that only she could give. We fell back into our pillows and then she rubbed her hand over my arm. I rested my nose against her soft, perfect cheek. I was so close to her face I could only see one eye. The green of it sparkled and my heart raced.
I pounced on the button of the alarm and silence returned. I looked at the date on the display — it had been two years, almost to the day.
Two years since it all came to an end.
I thought vividly about her — about our memories together. I wondered if she ever thought of me now. I still missed her, with an indescribable pain. Part of me would always miss her.
But the flowers … the flowers were still beautiful.
Copyright © 2017 Nick Duhigg
