this is a work of nonfiction fiction. it is not a memoir but some things are true to myself, and some, obviously, are not. while some of it is personal, I don't want anyone reading this piece to think that I am suicidal, I'm not. it is fiction, it is just the ending I gave the character.
I needed to find my keys. I listened to an interview, awhile ago, about how to think ahead when you’re the kind of person to make mistakes often, it’s a good idea to have a place designated for the items you lose the most. A place where you can always find them. My fingernails, dirt lining the insides, sift through my “lost items” basket I keep on my kitchen table. It’s too full. I turn it over, watch the pieces fall. And there are the keys, it’s silver teeth shining up at me. It is dirty with fingerprints. It is so easy to lose track of things. Keys. Time. People. Love.
I had somewhere to be. But where was it? And when? Hours ago? Days? Am I late by years, has my life already come and gone? Have I missed everything, here in this room, with my basket of forgotten things? The world outside is grey. Cold. This room, achromatic. I turned off the heat awhile ago. Back when I was looking for something, when I was leaving this place. But here I am. I’ve lost the keys. Again. Its so easy to lose track of things…
I remember a day, a year ago, or maybe years now, when my body curled up on the floor, my arms holding myself together, my stomach heaving in hard sobs, drops of water beading my short, dark hair. How much things have changed. And how they haven’t. I no longer cry on the hardwood floor, my small body contorting in pain, pining after footsteps. Now, I am more grown. I wait until I am in bed, covered in darkness, to scream in agony into my pillowcase. My hair, I remark proudly to myself in the bathroom mirror every day, is longer than its been since I was young. I comb it out, and it falls into my face in thick, dark blankets.
I try to remember where I am. What I’m doing. I remember what I’ve lost. Its everything. Everything. I cant remember, anymore, what I was looking for. It feels like I’ve been here forever, in this ever-shrinking, sterile room. Alone, but for the smiling keys, with my feet pressed firmly into the cool wood beneath them. It is so easy to lose track of things, that when I do finally remember where they are, they are too far gone – like the warm sun, gentle breeze, and tiny plastic dolls parading around my youthful body; smile full of toothless gaps, the future looming in the distance. It crushes me, now. I can feel it always bearing down on me. Pressing. Harder.
It is so easy to forget things, like the sad, small woman pressed flat by the achromatic room she called her home. It is so easy to forget her, as she sits alone in her garage, the blackness pouring out of her, mimicking night; as she turns her car key to start the engine, and sits, and waits.