Easily forgettable.
Her eyes were like old books. Her palms ridden with the indents left by her finger-nails from her clenching her fists too hard.
She goes through life angry and full of hate, now. Her pages tattered and worn; the words almost undecipherable as a result of having repeated the same mistakes over and over again. 
She’d tried mending the holes in her heart by covering them with patches; sewing the seams just so; the patches overlapping each other until her heart was completely covered in them. 
And then…
She would let herself love again. 
Each time forgetting to prepare the sewing kit and each time needing more thread than she did the time before.
Eventually she came to think of herself as a master book-binder. Because, she knew, better than anyone, that hearts wear down the same way books do: by being touched too often. 
But a time passed without the need for any needles and thread and patch-making and her skills grew weak.
She didn’t even notice the signs, blissful as she was. 
But the day did come, as it always does, and this heart break was so overwhelming the already-worn-down seams of her old patches began to rip. She brought out the sewing kit and frantically tried to repair the damage done, beginning with the freshest wound. 
But there wasn’t nearly enough thread. 
Her needle was rusty from years of use and then years of being left alone. 
The seams were too worn, the fresh wound was spreading too fast; they would not wait. 
She was scrambling to find new materials as fast as she could, feeling the cloth from the patches come loose and float up and form into a clump in her throat; they did not wait.
Unable to bear with the pain any longer, she fell to her knees and cried and cried until the clump came out and the bleeding had slowed and she was able to breath again. 

No longer a master book binder, she goes through life angry and full of hate, now. Her wounds are always bleeding.
People have no use for old books when they already know the story. 
Books have no use for book-binders when they cease to be read. 
She has no use for love. Not when it’s only ever left her lonely and empty and afraid. 
Not anymore. 

Our home was a reasonable size, though shabby, and I remember the kitchen didn’t have a floor at the time. I was around five years old. It was the end of Fall or the beginning of Spring and the weather was beautiful, and in Texas that’s pretty rare. So were happy times, which I remember this was. Mom was sitting in the old rocking chair we’d bought at the flea market taking a drag of her cigarette. Dad was inside getting something before we went out to eat or to the store or somewhere.

It’s funny. Even though I know this was a happy time and that they should have been happy together, they aren’t. Not in any of my memories. They were always at their happiest when they were a part. At least, until they got separated. That’s something I never understood. Why were they so unhappy being apart when they were always fighting to get away from each other? 

Now I’m stepping off our porch and onto the garden-type window sills of our smallest living room. I say garden, but really it was always just dirt.

Mom isn’t looking at me. I don’t remember her ever looking at me, though she’s told me she never knew how to stop. That she still doesn’tknow how to stop.

I’m skipping across the narrow strip and the fact that I can do it so easily makes me feel like anything is possible. I don’t know why but as I’m skipping back to mom, I put my right hand over my heart and I start saying the pledge of allegiance, because they’ve just started teaching it in school. I tell mom, “I know the pledge of allegiance, now.” She looks at me and says “Oh really?” and then I can’t remember. I can’t remember the pledge and I say it wrong and she laughs because she can’t remember it either. Dad walks out then and sees us laughing and asks if we’re ready to go. We say yes, but I don’t remember us moving. I remember my hand was still over my heart as the sun was going down. I remember Dad wasn’t looking at Mom and Mom wasn’t looking at Dad. They were looking up. I don’t remember at what, but they looked happy. I remember being happy, too. 

Stories Starring Strangers #1

Who: A girl who I once saw walk into a Dillards’ beside me. Though I remember seeing her face, I don’t remember what she looked like. 

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There she sat; impossibly balanced atop the pillars that made up the entrance to the shrine. 

With her body in a squat position, and both hands holding the beam between her feet she started down at me with blank, gray eyes.

“State your purpose.”

Her hair was white and wispy.

The hair of age.

Her eyes shone with an unmistakable light; the light of wisdom.

The light of guidance.

Her body was youthful; her skin seeming to be made of the same substance as the coating a pearl.

“My purpose?”

I had felt the wind drawing nearer. 

I had heard it travel in between the trees; chasing me as I raced up the stone steps leading to the pillars. A sweet and distant smell had been carried along with it. The mysterious smell had given me comfort.

But when I reached the top, everything was still. 

It had made me feel strange and I’d turned my head hoping the sweetness had simply stopped behind me; that the pillars had frightened it, but that it would continue to stay by my side nevertheless. 

But it wasn’t there and I was alone.

It had surely been an illusion I had created to keep me calm as I struggled to reach the top. 

I’d truly believed that. 

But now as the trees began to dance once again, I felt the scent waft through my fingers,

in between my legs,

through the fabric of my dress,

and about the strands of my hair.

I’d felt it embrace every curve of my body before I was allowed to smell it completely and entirely.

Sugar-coated walnuts.

I wrapped my arms around myself, entwining my fingers through hair and fabric hoping it would linger.

“What is your basis for coming here?”

She was standing now; perfectly balanced with her hair dancing like the leaves of the trees. Wisps of it had concealed tiny fractions of her features, only making her more mysterious.

And only making my nerves quiver more furiously.

“You shall not be granted entry until your reason is clear.”

Why had I been so desperate to reach the top?

My reason had been clear, and I had lost it along the way. 

Sugar-coated walnuts.

The scent grew stronger, ‘causing my eyes to water and the inside of my nose to burn.

It made me feel such a desperate need to remember my knees grew weak and I struggled to stay standing. 

“You will not remember.”

Squinting and holding myself, I watched as my image of the girl turned milky.

Ghostly. 

“You will not remember, and you will not be granted entry.”  

She raised her hand designating the place where I stood. 

A light began to trace a circle around my feet.

The light grew brighter and larger until it had trapped me completely within it’s beam.

As the ground beneath my feet turned dark, I began to unravel myself. As I did so the scent began to fade, and instead of clawing towards a surface, I tried to grab hold of it again. 

But, it slowly receded back into the depths of which it came; taking my memory of it as well. 

I longed for it to linger.

I longed for the memory of why I longed for it.

I longed for my reason.

I longed for entry.

But, the trees had ceased dancing, and the scent did not linger.