I Remember

by John Riley

Vast at any one moment are the joys and sorrows lived through existence and in the memories of others. Reverberating beyond the horizon that if we should draw back from those ripples and define reflections, and if at all forgot, we shall stand in this place centred. For you will know of it, that sense of being here.

For it is in the silence, a moment when time stopped, unreal and strangely eerie. Turned off is the bird-song, neither chatter from the streets, nor touch from a summer breeze hurrying through. All is silent.

Numbness freezes and is upon me. In this place, does a vacuum of silence encircle my existence? Standing, ever aware of this moment, curious and reaching outward to space. But, there is a quiet solitude in this room.

What do I remember?

Awoken with a start realising my forgetful nature, I had stepped upstairs for the medication, suddenly finding myself caught in some pocket of isolation. So I, curious turned to look out of the window and maybe find an answer to the source of this peaceful serenity.

I look and then stunned by what I see, that out there in the world caught as an image, caught in snapshot, a moment between, what was before and what yet is after.

For up above, birds caught suspended in the sky and down below, there seated, in the afternoon sun, a lady reading the same page for an eternity, all still and unmoving.

That my reality realised and caught in a moment.

But the horror revealed on entering that downstairs room. For I saw myself slumped and quite dead in the chair.

Here I am, in the silence of a moment at the end of life. Nothing moves beyond and all is contained and confined in a place of rest, and all I remember is this moment.

For I am here, who once existed in memories of others, but I am forgotten by them now, and will be no more if not remembering my last recollection.

-end-

back to previous episode

forward to next episode

back to list of stories