The Memory Album

I've been told that when you dig up the past, all you get is dirty. But I needed to remember these people. Who they were, what they did, I needed to remember what they meant to me, what they still mean to me. And I could recall most of it. Life before the accident. My father reading his textbooks on political science or American history to me. How he'd come home from work in his neatly pressed slacks and button down shirt, playing piano, barefoot. How I'd wrap my arms around his leg and sit on his foot, to keep him right where he was. One foot pinned to our living room carpet. On the weekends we'd walk to the diner where my mother worked. How I would sit alone behind the counter with my crayons, coloring on the back of the kids menus, while my mother rushed along taking orders and smiling. These little scenes, not hazy at all, were more like small glimpses or fragments of a much bigger picture that I couldn't piece together, at least not then.

Ten True Things

Now began the part of her life where she was just very beautiful, except for nothing. Only winners will know what this feels like. If you've ever wanted something so badly and then gotten it, then you know that winning is many things, but it is never the thing you thought it would be. Poor people who win the lottery do not become rich people. They become poor people who won the lottery. She was a very beautiful person who was missing something very ugly. Her winnings were the absence of something, and this quality hung around her. There was so much potential in the imagined removal of the scars; any fool in the same room could play the game of guessing how good she would look without it. Now there was no game to play.

Her story

According to most, possibly herself included, she was normal, and a second thought was never given to the intrinsic details she was comprised of. Oddly amusing details that should never go overlooked. And it was important to understand the significance of these tiny details, these specific traits that made her so intriguing. The way she held her pen, using all five fingers to take notes, the way she twisted, brushed and curled her hair as she searched for the right words to write, and the way she rehearsed these words under her breath to ensure their clarity. The way her face grew a little flush when reading notes from strangers.

She was an intriguing character, or at least the most interesting person he would meet over the next six weeks. And it was his thing, immortalizing a person in a moment of their true self, the same way a photographer attempts to stop time by photographing the moment. She was a pointillistic portrait, each little detail as important as the next, each one a fragment of a bigger picture that still needed to be pieced together.

His Story

He was a man who by natural proclivity was not a very good man, but who nevertheless tried wholehearted and diligently to be a good man. Not a particularly wealthy man, but not particularly poor either. Every day he'd come home from work in his neatly pressed slacks and button down shirt, and played piano, barefoot. He enjoyed the feel of the cool smooth metal pressing against the arch of his feet. He was a man in the midst of decision. The decision all men make. The decision between his best possible self, and his honest self.

The Everyday Story

When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home, staring straight ahead, with the very same twisted look to their faces. Though they were certain the two could never be, one never really knows, does one?

Almost Perfect

It was a small thing, but it was a thing, and all things have a way of either dying or growing and this thing, was not dying. Years went by. This thing grew, like a child, microscopically, every day. And since we were a team, and all teams want to win,  we continuously adjusted our vision to keep its growth invisible. We wordlessly excused ourselves for not loving each other as much as we had planned to.

Till the point of distraction

She looks up and reads the silent words in his eyes. She's still quite good at reading his expressions. She smiles her tired smile and laughs with exasperation.  He smiles back. She catches his dimple and thinks to herself...How could you not love this person?