My Back pressed against the cold hard surface if my living room wall. I can't believe I ever chose to have flock wallpaper. I peeled myself away from the wall, the nervous sweat that clung to my back had stuck me to my shirt.- Another flashback. They would come fast, a quick second of memory then gone just as quickly as they came like trying to remember a dream.
It took me it took me twenty-one minutes to get up the stairs, probably longer than someone half my age but it's the little things you forget; how to walk properly, how to read, your first pet's name. When I finally got upstairs I was panting, a bead of sweat trickled down my forehead. I had to grab onto the bannister to steady myself, my fingers curled round the chipped painted wood, nails dug into palms leaving crescent shaped dents. It took another four minutes twenty seconds to lug my body into my bedroom and towards the bookcase.
It was the hardest thing I had to do all day, not physically but morally. Having to force my eyes to wander over all the lost memories that lay untouched and unscathed on the shelves. Totally oblivious to all the bad things that had happened since they took place.
My fingers brushed lightly over a book but when I tried to concentrate on what it was called the letters floated around my vision, impossible to catch and understand. My eyes skipped a beat as my eyes fell upon a photo. Framed in dark wood all smiles and suppressed giggles but no tears came. When the accident that left me a shell of the woman I was happened I cried for days, I constantly went over the awfulness of my situation and instinctively wrung all the grief out of myself until there was nothing left but a body and someone else's memories.
Another two minutes to force masked to leave the room, six minutes to make it to the top of the stairs, four seconds for me to trip over my own feat and three seconds for me to tumble ungainly to the bottom. After what felt like hours passed I managed to unclench my eyes and blink in the harsh light and remain in my inexplicably messy hallway with only the photo of the sickeningly happy couple gripped tight in my fists for company.
I'll never know if the man in the photo had been funny. Did he text his wife in the middle of a meeting with a stupid private joke to make her crack up?
I'll never know if the man in the photo had been argumentative. Did he ever question his wife on all her annoying quirks or love her despot them?
It doesn't really matter now because that woman in the picture was her and this is me.