Town With No Memory
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Ebony Clarke
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26
Survived
PROLOGUE
Dear Austin,
Remember that night we lay under the stars? You told me to write it all down.
You said I wasn’t the writing type, but the feeling type. You told me to pour my heart onto paper. You knew me better than I knew myself.
So here it is: the words you gave me. The thoughts and feelings I couldn’t say out loud. Everything you needed to hear, but I was too broken to say.
Austin, you loved me without fault. All I have to give back is myself. So here I am, here we are. I’ve put our messy, beautiful love into words.
Our epic tale. The odyssey I promised you.
We always said forever like it meant eternity. Well, I love you for however long our forever lasts. Until we’re nothing but echoed stories.
SAMANTHA
I’m sitting on a swing in my front yard, staring at my empty house. I made this swing one summer and used to spend hours here.
But the grass has grown back where there was once a bald patch. This must be the first time I’ve sat here in years.
The swing has been waiting for a little girl to return. But that little girl is gone, grown up too soon. Now I sit here, all grown up, wondering where the little girl went.
I packed all my stuff into my van twenty minutes ago but can’t leave this spot. My mind is a whirlwind of thoughts.
There’s nothing to keep me here. I have no reason to stay and even more reasons to leave. This is my childhood home, where I grew up.
This is where I learned to walk, snuck out of my bedroom window, had my first kiss, and learned how to swim. Those memories will soon be lost forever.
But then I start to smile—a rare thing for me. There’s nothing to keep me here. I won’t have to see the dents in the wall or the broken windows.
I won’t have to walk by the dining room table and remember my head slamming against it. Or look at my door and wonder if I should lock it tonight.
I won’t see the empty beer bottles in the living room or smell the metallic scent of blood. Suddenly, I can’t stop smiling as I climb into my car.
Free. I am free.
Most people leave home with tears in their eyes because they’ll miss their mom’s cooking or the free rent. But for me, it’s different.
I do have tears in my eyes, but I won’t miss this house or the people in it. Most kids move out to go to college or a new apartment.
But what I’m doing isn’t as normal as that.
I can remember a time when I was one of those happy children. The ones who sing and dance without music, who play in fields and race on swings till their legs are tired.
But like any child, I moved on from swing sets. Now I listen to music alone, the volume turned up high, blocking out the screams.
My curtains stay shut to the fields I used to play in. Instead of coloring the walls, I now go into the city, trying to forget my problems and coming back late the next day with bloodshot eyes.
When I get home, I usually head straight to the bathroom, where I dig through the cabinet until I find what I’m looking for. My backup bottle of pills.
On nights like those, prayers slip out of my eyes and down my cheeks, and I pray for the night to end.
But today is different. Today nothing is ending. Instead, everything is beginning.
Today, as I was walking toward the front door, a small folded picture on the mantel caught my eye. It was a picture of my mother and me.
She used to look at it sometimes, tracing our smiles with her thumb. Some nights she would press it to her chest and start to cry.
I couldn’t have been older than five when the picture was taken, giggling as she pushed me on the swing, our matching smiles lighting up our faces.
I fell down later that day and scraped my knee. I remember how her calm voice soothed me. I remember being jealous of her gentleness.
I knew even then that I was never going to be like her. That we were different. That used to make me sad, but now it’s my only wish.
I almost took the picture with me, but put it back in a moment of determination. I knew this was how it had to be: no memories, no goodbyes.
I’m ready to leave this place and forget everyone I’ve ever known. I’m tired of the memories that haunt every corner of this damn house.
I’m ready to leave with no goodbyes or explanations. As I start the car, I know I’m ready to start over.
My plan is simple: drive until I find a place where the memories can’t find me. A place where I can sleep through the night, or where I don’t jump every time a car door slams.
Find a place where I can start over. If there’s no such place, then I’ll just keep driving. Just keep running.
I got the idea from the stories my mother told me as a kid. On the bad days, she would tell me the story of the town with no memories.
She described it as a real place, where people were happy and free, a town where there was no need to drink and no men with hungry fists.
A town that would take all the bad memories and replace them with good ones. No matter how broken you were, this town could fix you.
As a child, I dreamed it was a magical town made of clouds with people dancing in the streets.
Now I know just how innocent I was.
Years later, I heard her mumbling the story to herself in one of her drunken ramblings. Trying to comfort herself with her own story.
And somehow, if I close my eyes, it’s still just as magical as it was back then.
I knew in my heart that it was just a town, and there was no running away from my life. But all I ever craved was a place that didn’t echo the memories of this house. That didn’t echo the memories of them.
