Mother: She remembers. John, she remembers.
Father: I am aware, Melinda. What do you want me to do about it? What can you do about it? Nothing. We can do nothing.
Mother: We have to leave. I love her but we have to leave.
Father: You love her? If you truly did, you wouldn't be wanting to leave her.
Mother: It's not like you would do anything different! Every human for themselves. That's what you told me at the start. You told me that you would leave her when it was really necessary and I know you're not changing your mind. So stop trying to make me look like the bad guy here when you're just as bad yourself!
There was a long silence. My vision was blurred and my was face wet. Their words hurt me but I wanted, no, needed to know more.
Father: Are we at least going to tell her why?
Mother: Are you out of your mind? No! I'm not going to stay stuck in that place while all hell breaks loose.
Father: She wouldn't tell anyone.
Mother: Oh, please. Trying to bottle up something of this absurd scale is impossible for anybody. I'm leaving tomorrow, whether you are, or not.
Father: We're horrible people, you know?
Mother: Yeah, I know, but we have no choice.
Leave? To go where? What needs bottling up? Perhaps my whole self. However, by that time, my eyes were hurting and my bed was calling back out to me. I decided not to think too much of whatever my parents had said just now. Probably just some heat of the moment argument or something. I slumped back in my bed, closing my eyes. It felt like all the important memories from today got washed away by my tiredness in that very moment. So I fell asleep, just like that. What a stupid mistake.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I woke up the next day. I wish I didn't.
I walked out of my room, stretching and yawning. "Good morning mom." "Mom?" I looked around the living room and kitchen, wondering where she could be. I decided to shrug off her strange disappearance for the moment and went to get dressed and ready for school.
I was almost ready for school. I just needed to say goodbye to my parents, as I always have done. However, my mother still had not made an appearance. Weird, where could she be? I decided to do the most sensible thing I could think of in that moment - go into my parent's bedroom, even though I usually was not allowed in there.
"Mom? Dad?" There was no one there. The bed looked newly made, or not slept in at all, and the room had an air of freshness. The closet looked hastily shut as one of its doors was slightly open, which was unusual since my parent's liked to keep things neat. I walked over to open it and inside, most of their clothing was missing. Yesterday's memories flooded back to me. Did they really leave me?
Tears started to well in my eyes and a red hot heat rose in me. They didn't love me. They never have. I subconsciously was staring at a spot that stood out among the pile of clothes in the ransacked closet. Why is there paper in their closet? I gently pulled it out and revealed that the paper was a receipt. A really old receipt. A hospital receipt with my name on it? I flipped it over to check if there was going to be any other information and lo and behold, the word 'boat' was scrawled hastily in pencil. I rushed over to the only area in the house which I recall having the painting of a boat - the storage room. I removed the framed painting from the wall, flipped it over, and found a small folded piece of paper wedged in-between the frame and the canvas. I hastily removed it, unfolded it and read the scrawled contents.
Dear Miriam,
I'm sorry if this letter is too hasty but I'm running out of time. Miriam and I, we're not your biological parents. If you're wondering why you don't remember your biological parents from when you were a kid, you got into an accident at sea, which lead to a coma, then memory loss. Melinda had just had a still birth and we were both devastated. She told me she wanted to kill herself so...I told the doctor we were your parents and we took you after you got discharged. You weren't adopted, but stolen. It was the only way I thought she wouldn't kill herself. It was stupid of me, I know. The doctor never suspected a thing because I could tell he was on drugs.
Why did I choose you specifically? I got wind that you had lost your memory and was still relatively young. So, Melinda and I decided that you would be the perfect child to raise as our own. But around a year after we took you, Noah showed up. You've apparently been friends since birth and when he saw Miriam and I answering the door with you in my arms, he immediately knew something was wrong. He ran for the hills and Miriam and I were afraid that we would get in trouble, thus why we moved here.
But that's not the reason we're running. When we started you on therapy, we realised the rate of world calamities increased significantly. As your therapy kept on going, so did disasters around the globe. So, we had a talk with your therapist and she expertly deduced that the more memories you remembered, the more disaster would strike. We immediately got you out of therapy and true enough, the rates of disasters decreased. Long after your therapy sessions ended, you, one day, suddenly remembered your past. We had completely forgotten what that meant for the world. The same day, tsunamis, earthquakes and landslides occured in many countries. So, when you told us about your memory yesterday, we feared for the worst. See, the other memories you had remembered in the past were small. Like some words you learnt, a book you read, the colour of your shoes when you were little. This time was a whole person.
I'm sorry for leaving and I know you can't forgive us and probably won't ever see us again. I don't want to die. Take care and enjoy the rest of your life while you still can.
Love, Dad John
and then Add to home screen.