Forget Me Not

Waking up, I can’t remember a thing of last night. Which isn’t new.

The only thing anyone really remembers is that they have forgotten.

“Breakfast!” a female voice called from downstairs, and she could be my mother, my sister, my aunt, hell, she could even be my wife.

“In five!” I call back, reaching at the inside of my pillow. I don’t even have to remember to do it, it has become muscle memory after all these years.

The new journal is yellow, its leather soft underneath my fingertips. I smile at the cluster inside my pillow, I am sleeping over my memories.

I can’t remember when I started journaling, of course I can’t. I sort through the colors, scanning the dates on the covers. 2012. Eight years ago.

I know nobody else who does this, but yet again, I haven’t talked to anyone about it. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s legal, with all the pastors talking about the cleansing of sin through Forgetting, the natural process of it.

I flip to the first page of the yellow one.

MY NAME IS HAIMI BENNETT.

AS OF MAY 28, 2020, I WILL BE EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD.

LOOK AT THE ORANGE JOURNAL, TITLED 2012.

The muscle memory tingles, the orange journal, yes. But something in my gut tells me to flip to the entry of the night before first.

May 27, the entry reads, and something tingles inside me. Today is the 28th. My birthday.

I keep on reading, remembering how my morning was, how I explored the woods near our house -who is we, I wonder- I had even drawed a little map. Good for me. The entry is unusually large, stretching over four A5 pages or so. But this isn’t bad; I mean, I have nothing to rush for. I love that moment each and every morning, piecing myself together.

The blood froze cold in my veins.

In red ink wrote, HARRI WAS MURDERED.

Who on Earth was Harri?

Harri is your twin brother, I had written below. You went for a walk at the park behind the town hall just before the sunset. A woman shot him straight at the head.

I shivered, the autumn air suddenly feeling very chill for my liking. I had a twin?

And the past tense striked me, for if I had one, he was dead by now. I felt strange; I couldn’t make myself feel grief for a boy I couldn’t even remember.

“Harri,” I mouthed the name, wishing it would wake up anything inside me, but it didn’t. “Harri,” I rolled the sound around my tongue.

“You comin’?” the same female voice called from downstairs, and I jumped; I had forgotten all about her.

“Give me a second, I’m getting dressed!” I called back to her.

“Okay, I’ll start with the pancakes then!”

Pancakes. My mouth watered. I couldn’t remember how they looked or even tasted for the life of me, but I knew I loved them.

I scanned the journal entry for any extra detail, but the only thing there was was a description of the woman; tall, pale with red hair. Scar??? I had written in bold lettering, but that was about it.

Pissed beyond belief to my past self for leaving out literally everything, I flipped to the orange journal, hoping for more. In sloppy handwriting wrote:

MY NAME IS HAIMI BENNETT.

I AM TEN (10) YEARS OLD.

MY FAVORITE ANIMAL IS THE CAT.

MY FAVORITE COLOR IS ORANGE.

I smiled at the simplicity of it.

ME, said below an old photo, ten year old me smiling at the camera, a gap between my front teeth.

I, HAIMI BENNETT, SWEAR ON MY LIFE TO NEVER PAINT MY ROOM, TO REMEMBER. 10/11/2012, I had written below the photo of a white room, and I shivered. The room I was in was blue.

But that didn’t make sense, how on Earth had the journals-?

“Come on, girl, they’re getting cold!”

“Yeah.” I closed the journal with shaking hands, slid it back into its hiding place. This wasn’t right. I needed answers, and I needed them now.

The woman in the kitchen was at her early thirties, white, with blonde hair in a tight braid. For a second I had the slightest feeling I was watching my reflection, only at negative coloring.

“I’m Anna,” she prompted a handshake, her smile warmer than the sun.

“Haimi,” I smiled back, amazed at how our fingers looked the same, yet entirely different. “You’re my mother, right?”

Anna smiled, nodding at the picture next to her, she, a dark man, and me. And nobody else.

“I think I will go to the lake today, wanna join me?” Anna asked over a plate of golden pancakes and apple juice.

“No, thank you, I- I think I’ll stay home today,” I bit into a mouthful. They were delicious. “Do you know where Harri is?” I tried to catch her off-guard, but failed.

“Harri? Who’s that?”

“Oh, um, just the cat,” I murmured, focusing on the honey falling drop by drop.

“We have a cat?” her face beamed. “Tell me when you find him, alright?”

“Okay.”

The morning light was shining through the window, illuminating the wooden countertops in golden light. A bird was chirping outside, the leaves in wonderful colors of orange and red. Orange is indeed my favorite color, I thought back at my journal.

The scenery seemed magical, almost ethereal. And for the life of me, I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that a woman had shot my brother to death last night.

Anna left after a while, telling me there was food in the fridge should I need it. I thanked her for her kindness, yearning for the moment she would finally turn around the curve of the road, disappearing from my eyes.

I bolted. Ran upstairs, checking behind every single door, even behind the shower curtain. But there was only one more room, with a single bed covered in a flowery quilt that was definitely Anna’s. There was no sign that another person had ever lived there, let alone a boy of eighteen.

“Harri?” I called, feeling stupid, but of course to no avail. Oh, how I hated the Forgetting.

A brass sign next to the door caught my sight.

IN CASE OF NEED OF INFORMATION, HEAD TO THE TOWN HALL.

Of course. The Town Hall.

I grabbed my bike -I knew it was mine, for it was orange- and became the embodiment of speed. There was only one road, with signs filling each and every turn of it.

TOWN HALL THIS WAY, an arrow pointed, and I followed.

I followed each and every sign titled INFORMATION until I reached a tiny desk with an old man behind it.

“Hello there!” he smiled, his teeth a flash of white.

“Hi,” I smiled back. “I am looking for everything you got on a man named Harri Bennett.”

The man raised his eyebrow. “And you are?”

“Haimi Bennett. His sister.”

“Harri and Haimi, huh?” the man smiled. “Adorable.” He ran through a database, the lines passing on the screen of his computer at incredible speed. Troubled, he turned at me. “How do you spell Harri, sweetheart?”

“H-A-R-R-I,” I spelled it for him, a wave of uneasiness rolling all over me.

“And Bennett?”

“Double n, double t.”

He nodded, typing again, his eyebrows pinched together. “I’m sorry, Haimi, there must have been a mistake. Your brother does not appear on our database.”

“And the database covers-?”

He sighed. “Birth certificates, age, name, address, photo at each age, biometric data, date of death if applicable.” He chewed on his bottom lip. “Are you sure he- Are you sure he exists? I mean, many people get confused of photos and names every morning, there is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“No, I- Thank you for your time,” I span on my heels.

What had I written in my journal? The park behind the Town Hall. With tingles of panic washing all over me, I headed to the lush green area filled with people. If there was any evidence, their steps would have carried them away, but a body?

I roamed around, hoping to feel a tug of remembrance over anything, but the only thing familiar seemed to be the ducks, making a terrible noise with all of their chatter. The air smelled of Earth, a deep, coppery smell, tricking me into safety, but I knew better.

A wisp of red caught my eye and I froze, but no, it was just a scarf in the wind.

And finally, finally, I felt a tug of recognition, the red brick building right next to the lake, the willow tree next to it. It radiated something macabre, and I could swear I could find my brother’s body beneath the branches, but my eyes only met dirt.

I wouldn’t give up.

I scanned the area until the light began to dwindle, the sunny hours were getting less day by day. Something caught my eye, a shimmer between the roots, and my breath caught in my throat. A bullet.

I had never seen one before, and it seemed ridiculous to me that I could remember how a bullet looked and not a pancake, but it didn’t matter. I had proof that somebody had fired a shot here.

And the indifference I was feeling all this time was replaced by raw panic, I was not mad, my brother had been shot to death below this very tree, yet there was no evidence he had ever existed. Watching the light fade even more squeezed my throat shut; I was standing alone where a woman had murdered Harri last night.

My knees were weak, but I managed to reach the Town Hall as the street lamps turned on. The same man was sitting behind the information desk, his tie loose by now.

“Haimi,” he smiled at me, and I felt a strange rush of safety, his appearance was all the woman of last night wasn’t.

“I have two strange requests,” I looked at his tab, “Mr. Swann. The first one is, when does the Forgetting happen?”

He seemed perplexed. “Why, dear, it is known that it happens at midnight. Everyone is very much asleep by then, so the minimum damage is done.”

I nodded. I knew, of course I knew, I just wanted the little wrinkled man to confirm it. “And my second request is even stranger. I am looking for someone.”

“Of course.”

“Could you find them only by their description?”

“I can try,” he smiled kindly.

“I am looking for a very pale, tall woman with red hair. There is a high chance she has a visible scar somewhere on her body.”

I knew the answer before he provided me with it. “There is no such woman, Haimi.”

“Why, thank you.” My voice sounded small even to me.

“Are you alright, dear?” he rose from his chair, his eyebrows creased.

“Yes, I- I’m just afraid to go home in the dark, that’s it.”

“Oh, that ain’t a problem. James!” he called, and a young man appeared.

“Mr. Swann?”

“Could you please escort miss Bennett over here to her house?”

I felt blood rushing to my face. “There is no need, really-”

“Oh, don’t worry,” James grinned, “That’s my job,” he showed the service badge on his arm. “Besides what would I do on a quiet night like this?”

We walked to my house in silence, and the scenery was peaceful, full of the sound of life in the dark.

“Why are you scared?” He turned to me once. “There is nothing dangerous around here.”

“My brother,” I cut him off, and we left it at that.

“Good night then,” he smiled at my doorstep, and I thanked him wholeheartedly, squeezing my bike through the door frame.

Anna was waiting for me in the kitchen, over a bowl of lettuce and chicken, and remembering I had eaten nothing all day, my stomach growled. She filled me in with details of her day, and I let her talk, feeling empty inside. A boy had ceased to exist just like that.

The clock chimed eleven, and she jumped. “Come on, off to bed we go, quick!”

She truly was lovely, I could learn to love her as my mother, if only I had time.

With my teeth brushed, my stomach full, I laid in the dark, and for the first time since forever, a wild thought rushed in my mind.

Tonight I wouldn’t sleep.

I watched the clock ticking minutes into silence, desperately hoping that I could remember, that Harri wouldn’t be yet again lost forever from my mind.

As the hand approached twelve, I felt strange, second thoughts rushing through my mind, what I was doing was not illegal, just clearly wrong.

It reached twelve before I realised. And when nothing happened, when I still remembered, I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders. But then I looked again.

It started slow at first. A bug that was there, but then it wasn’t.

And slowly, but steadily, the whole world around me began to disappear.