My Memory

The glass shattered as he tried to run. I picked up a large shard and proceeded to take revenge on the man who was about to ruin everything…

The cold steel and the rattling of the guard's baton finally awoke me from the few fretful hours of slumber I had been able to achieve in this place. The county jail was a place for common criminals and occasionally the yet to be brought to trial distraught worker accused of torturing and murdering his boss at the investment firm over the loss of his job. At least that's what the prosecutor wants the jury to believe. The story is so convincing that it's even making its way into my dreams. If only I could recall what had really happened. 

The buzzer shook the last of the morning fatigue out of me as my cell doors slid open. Finally, time for some more of the grey sludge that passes for food in here. Over the two weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve never had the pleasure of having company at any of my meals. A hard change for a man that used to eat dinner with his family every night as part of a dying tradition to keep touch in a world where everything is done online. I wonder what my daughter would have said about the food here. Always the picky eater most of her meals were narrowed down to dino bites and blue box mac-and-cheese. The nuclear yellow carcinogenic powder being one of her nightly staples. I hardly think that this grey sludge could pass her high standards. Suddenly, my thoughts drifted to my wife. Why now? How her auburn hair danced in the wind as we pushed our daughter's stroller through the park near our Atlanta home. The way she would laugh at jokes that aren't funny only for my sake. I wonder what she would think of me now? What does my daughter think of me? She’s 12 years old now. Old enough to understand that her father is a monster, at least that's what everyone is probably telling her now. 

Every day here is grey and monotonous. Aside from the thoughts about my wife nothing else was out of place. I once again went through the normal routine of prison life. Most of the other inmates seemed intent to stay away from me after hearing about what I did on the news. I don't even try to deny it. Their fear keeps them away from me, and solitude is all I want in here. The solitude that ends with each day.

Sitting in my cell after the second meal is when I go to work. I delve deep into my memories to try and recall the events of the night that stole my life from me. I read somewhere that traumatic events can be suppressed by the brain which is why I have such a hard time remembering. Once again I lose myself in thought.

December 23, 2019, the day I lost everything. Two days till Christmas although, living in downtown Atlanta you could hardly tell with the sunny 60-degree weather. My apartment had already been decorated with a tree, lights, and two stockings hanging on the spiral stairwell that led to my room. I had already sent my daughter off to school, and I was guzzling the last of a mug of coffee before I dashed out to work. Everything about that day was normal, but something seemed off at the office. My firm specialized in making high-risk and high-reward investments, a lucrative business if you had the skills to read the markets, and oh did I have the skills! In three years I had made multiple trades that brought major profit to the company, but rarely did I ever receive a kickback for the work that I did. A week earlier I had asked for a raise to help support me and my daughter. Living downtown was beginning to eat away at the remaining money left over after the treatments for my wife. My boss agreed on the condition that I help find trades that would make a new client a large return. My boss assured me that the client was legit, and was willing to invest a large sum of cash in the company if the trades were successful. So I was on it like a shark on its prey. I invested a large portion of the money in a stock that I believed to have a large chance at a big return. A week later the company went belly up. Major losses, but hey that's what happens in the business I'm in. The company tanked on December 23, 2019. After the workday, I was called into my boss's office. I was expecting to be chewed out for the poor investment, but for some reason, I sensed a nervous apprehension in the room. His hands were sweaty and he kept glancing nervously at the door I had just come through. Something was off. “Jacob,” his voice croaked. “ We need to talk about the losses that you incurred for our recent client” still his eyes were on the door not on me. Before he could finish the door behind me creaked open. Before I could turn to see a man grabbed me and the world went black as I fell towards the floor. 

This is usually as far as I could get before the memories became a blur, at least until I saw my boss's mutilated body in front of me with my hands covered in his blood. It doesn't help that the prosecutor's story fits with the image so well. Maybe I did do it, and I am a monster. I needed to know for sure though. By seeing it in my own memories, not in the dreams that could be influenced by the way I've been portrayed. 

The trial was a joke. My lawyer convinced me to plead guilty to the charges saying it was my best chance at getting a reduced sentence. The only good thing that came from that was the visitation rights. So that if my daughter ever wanted to see me she could. Even though she could barely look at me during the proceedings. Her father’s a monster being the only thought I could see in her eyes. 

It's been two weeks since then with nothing changing. Get up. Eat. Exercise. Repeat. All-day every day supposedly for the next 35 years, but who knows if I'll even last that long. The only thing I want now is for my memories to show me that I'm not the monster everyone thinks that I am. So, every night I continue the ritual Meditating on what happened the night of December 23, 2019. I don’t expect today to be any different. 

I’ve made my way through my memories to the usual point that I skip time and am greeted with the sight of the murder I’ve just committed. This time something different. In almost a dreamlike state I relive the events that I had forgotten. 

My eyes opened slowly, my head pounding from whatever had been used to render me unconscious. I realized I was still in the office with my hands and feet bound with cuffs. I could hear my boss pleading with an unknown person to just let him make the money back. “Just a few more weeks and we’ll triple your profit”. His pathetic pleading made whoever he was talking to chuckle. I heard glass break as my boss tried to make a dash for the door, but was caught by the large figure dressed completely in black. What happened next was monstrous without equal. The figure used the broken glass to torture my boss to death. What was five minutes suddenly felt like a million years as I listened to the screams of the man who had given me a job 3 years ago. No matter how disturbing it was I couldn't look away. My eyes didn't even blink; they were frozen with terror. 

Once the man was done he walked over and knelt down next to me. Whispering in my ear he said, “ Sadly, you won't remember this, and even if you do I’ve ensured that no one will believe you”. He pulled out a small vial of clear liquid which he emptied into a white rag which he then pressed over my nose and mouth. The sweet scent on the rag reminded me of the sweet air of the honeysuckles my wife planted on the roof of our loft so long ago. Then I was once again drowned in darkness. From which I woke to the gruesome murder of a boss who according to the paperwork on his desk was about to fire me. I looked down at my hand which had been cut by a piece of glass I had been clutching while unconscious with no memory of how I got there or what had transpired. 

I awoke from the memory with tears in my eyes. Not of sadness, but of joy that I wasn’t who the world wanted to make me out to be. I reached for the pencil that I had stashed a few days earlier and began to transcribe my memories onto the roll of toilet paper next to my metal toilet inside this 5x5 box to which I was confined. Ending with a note telling my daughter that I love her. Once, I was done I then walked to my bed and dug the pencil into both of my wrists. Ignoring the pain I began to fall asleep to the memories of my family and looked forward to seeing my wife again in the next life.