A Liquid Past

The water splashed against the bowl of the sink, racing around the plughole and teasing its edges until finding itself slurped into the hole. The sound soothed John’s mind, temporarily displacing the hundreds of thoughts crammed in there. John placed his palms below the taps and splashed water across his face, hoping it would slap the thoughts out completely and dispel them from his mind forever.

He knew, however, that the thoughts would return, and he found that he envied the water pouring from the tap and the way that it merely existed. Water doesn’t worry about its purpose in the world, the form it has taken on, or what others think of it. It merely submits to nature’s many whims and finds its way from start to finish without a care in the world. 

He longed to submit himself to the whims of nature, freeing him from who he was, what he had done, and what he would do next. He wished to live without the worries that hung over him every day. Instead, he found himself caged within the confines of his body, still subject to the whims of nature, but also the whims of his own mind.

He most hated his hands, which tortured him every time he looked at them. From the outside, they were large, well-groomed hands, like that of a friendly giant, but it how they felt that caused him distress. They moved with a heaviness, feeling better-equipped for a fight than anything else. Yet, despite their weight, they seemed disconnected from the rest of his body, ready to jump to action without instructions from his mind. This made him distrustful of his hands, for he knew that they had done something, though he was ignorant of what they had done.

In the mirror, his face looked as bad as his hands looked. His charcoal-black hair darted off in all directions, while his eyes seemed to be weighing down its sockets inside his head. His beard, while masking the lower-half of his face, added to his appearance of fatigue.

Inside, his mind was devoid of any emotion and lacked conscious control, as though it could no longer hold the burden or what he had done, and instead stored the burden in his hands, filling them with a rage that he dared not release.

He felt his thoughts returning, despite his efforts to keep them away. As always they came back to what he may have done and played a multitude of scenarios in his mind. Did he strangle? Did he stab? Did he shoot? Why did he do it? Was it for good, or for bad? His mind always assumed there was death involved, seemed unable to conjure up any other possibility.

Some days, he thought he could actually see each of these thoughts and more whizzing around his head as his mind tried to keep an eye on all of them, preparing to defend itself from whichever thought sprung its attack. But it was futile. There were too many thoughts coming from different directions, so he let each thought chip away and kept his mind numb instead.

He had just reached the deepest point in his thoughts, when he felt something clap against his shoulder. In shock, he spun round, grabbed the collar of the man in front of him, and pressed him up against the wall. John’s eyes bulged outwards as air hissed its way out of his gritted teeth.

The man stayed unusually calm, putting his hands up in the air to indicate he wasn’t going to fight back, and said “Woah! John, It’s me, Steve.”

John hesitated for a moment, the surprise of hearing his name bringing his mind back into the room. He looked the man up and down, taking in his bulky frame, he guessed around 6 foot and 3 inches, and his hawkish face with a mouth that looked too long and too narrow. Finally, he released his grip on his collar, but kept a hard stare on him, as though the man had done something to deserve it.

“Geez. I know most of us are still a bit jumpy after our service, but I’ve never seen anyone this bad,” Steve laughed, though his laugh seemed more about filling the gap than actual humour.

Then it clicked. This man knew John from before his memory began. He knows his past.

“Sorry, to shock you, but it’s been at least a decade since I met anyone from our service. I couldn’t help myself from coming over. You know, I still remember our service like it was yesterday, especially the last mission we did together, when we had to-” Steve’s reminiscing was cut off by John bursting through the door, swinging himself round its frame and dashing out of the store.

The car door slammed and the tyres screeched as he sped out of the car park, not having done his seatbelt in his haste. He let his shoulders drop as he left the car park and, on reaching the next set of traffic lights, did his seatbelt which, as always, felt tight against his chest.

On reaching his house, he parallel parked his car in one swift motion as though he had memorised the exact parameters of both the car and the space.

He stayed in his car for a few minutes, staring out at the road in front of him, not wanting to face the silence of his house. Outside the house, he at least knew he was among civilisation, and he enjoyed the distractions that went on around him. Inside his house, he would have nothing but his own mind for company. 

As though gathering his strength, he pushed a puff of air through his cheeks, before exiting his car and making his way up and into his house.

He lived in a detached house, about twenty metres away from houses on either side. It was a decent sized house, probably built for a small family, but instead only housing himself. 

This house and its contents were the only things he had from the past and the contents offered no clues to his history. In fact, the contents were made up of the basic necessities that could have been in any house.

He flicked the switch on the kettle which rung loudly in his ears as it boiled, mixing with crackling white noise his mind had conjured to replace the silence of the room. He thought he would be grateful once the kettle and its whistle stopped, but his mind only increased the white noise as though trying to combat the silence of the room.

He poured water into a wide mug with two tea spoons of coffee, and John leaned over the mug to feel the hit of caffeine-filled steam. He brought the mug of coffee over to his laptop, and placed it down with a thump. 

John lowered himself into a deskchair which he looked too large for as the edges of his legs bulged off the seat, and he towered over the laptop which basked his face in a blue-tinted glow as though he were bathing in an intense moonlight. He stared at the screen and, for the first time in a while, was at a loss as to how to begin his log of that day. He realised he was encountering resistance in his body, as though noting down the events of that day would only make it more real.

He had made the decision to just write the first thing that came to mind, regardless of whether or not it was relevant, and placed his fingertips above the keys, when a knock came at the door. 

It was a rarity for a knock to come at the door, and he assumed it was a cold caller, possibly a window cleaner. Usually, he would answer for the sake of politeness, and for some interaction with the outside world, but he felt aggrieved at having his focus ripped away from his thoughts, and decided not to answer the door.

The knock came twice more and, sensing that something wasn’t right, he lifted a floor board next to the door and pulled out a metal baseball bat. He swung it round in his hand, testing the weight and, concealing the bat behind his back, he opened the door enough to peek an eye out, and almost jumped backwards when he saw Steve standing there.

“John, it’s me. We need to have a talk”

“How did you find me?”

“I took a guess and assumed you hadn’t moved since the last time I saw you”

John considered whether to ask the question, and deciding he wouldn’t last very long pretending to know who he was, asked “And who are you, exactly?”

“What do you mean? We served together. There were only eight of us in that last mission, for God sakes, you can’t say you’ve actually forgotten me?”. It was then that Steve saw the blankness in John’s eyes and realised, “You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?”

John remained unblinking, holding Steve’s gaze, and decided not to say anything, to see how all this would play out. He didn’t want Steve to reveal his history to him, and yet a part of him was drawn in, keen to know more.

“Look, John. You can’t just keep running from this”

John kept the anger from his voice, though he knew he couldn’t hide the anger from his face and his words. “And why not? I’d clearly managed to stay away until you showed up”

“Because you’re not just running away from the past, you’re running away from yourself. And until you face yourself, you will forever be lost”.

Steve’s words hit him harder than he had expected, and John knew his reaction had betrayed a trace of his emotion, the slightest flicker across his face registered by Steve’s hawkish eyes.

“Look, I think it’s better if we do this indoors, where we can speak… Openly,” Steve said with a nod towards the inside of the house.

John paused for a few seconds, before returning the baseball bat to its original spot and letting Steve into the house. Steve’s gaze scanned the house, stopping at certain points as though taking an internal inventory of its contents, before returning his gaze back to John who had moved his desk chair opposite a lounge chair in the centre of the room a glass coffee table with papers scattered across it separating them.

He motioned for Steve to take a seat in the lounger chair, who obliged, leaning back in the chair with his right leg crossed over the other. His seating stance and the lighting of the room exaggerated his hawkish features, his eyes now two giant chasms in his face, his nose poking out further, and his long, thin smile somehow stood out among the features, looking like it didn’t belong on this face.

“So, what do you remember?” Steve asked. He noticed that, while Steve looked him in the eye, his mind appeared to be elsewhere, as though considering something else at the same time. He wondered what other thoughts Steve could be having at this moment, but dismissed this as unimportant.

“In terms of memories, nothing. I don’t even remember my childhood”

“You said in terms of memories? What do you mean?”

“Well, my mind doesn’t remember. But it seems my body does. I notice things others don’t. I can sense things about people, what they are about to do, what they are feeling”

“Hmm, interesting. What do you sense about me?”

“I sense that you are telling the truth. That we were in the same service. And yet, I feel that you are yourself hiding something. I think you are also hiding from your past”

Steve let out a short “Hah!” to indicate that he had been caught out. “Very good, you always did stand out in our training”. Steve paused for a few seconds thinking about something, before pulling out a photograph and laying it out on the table.

“Do you remember this building? Do you remember the mission we carried out here? Our final mission? Take your time,” Steve said. He was trying to speak softly, but John noticed a slight edge of urgency in his voice, as though the answer was of great importance to him.

John looked at the picture, stared at the picture for a while. It seemed that nothing was going to come of it, when a memory broke through, breaking the dam in his mind. He remembered the inside of the building, a rifle in his hand, and a handful of men also holding rifles beside him. 

He was up against the wall on the left, while Steve was up against the wall on the right. They both looked down the hallway and, after confirming that the coast was clear, ran while down the hall in a semi-crouched position. The memory shocked John back into the room, and he told Steve what he had just remembered.

He stared at Steve in anticipation, expecting him to encourage his memory recall, to tell him to keep going. Instead, he sat silently, palm across his mouth as though in deep thought, before pulling out a pistol and pointing it at John’s forehead. John stared at the pistol, the gaping hole where a bullet could fly out at any moment. He noticed that the silver of the pistol gleamed in the light, either unused or having been newly polished specifically for this job.

John realised that he did not feel surprise, or fear, as though his body had been expecting this. Instead, he felt adrenaline, his mind bursting to life, the blood coursing through his veins as though ready to run a marathon.

“I’m sorry John, I can’t afford to take any chances. I’d hoped the memories were lost, locked away forever, but I had to make sure”

“Steve. Whatever it is, you don’t have to do this. I’ll keep the memories locked away, and we’ll pretend this never happened”

“Like I said. I can’t take any chances”

John knew he had to act quickly, and remembered that, out of curiosity, he had installed lightbulbs that could be controlled from his phone. With his hand in his pocket, he increased the light to its maximum, knowing it would cause Steve to reflexively look at it for a split second, before turning the lights off, leaving the room only dimly lit.

The split second in which Steve looked away allowed John to dart to the side, beside the coffee table. Steve fired a shot, but only managed to hit the deskchair. He began to turn the pistol towards John, but John was too quick. From his crouched position, he pounced upon Steve, his left hand now gripping Steve’s right hand to keep the pistol pointing away as he tackled him across the room. The pistol fell loose and slid across the floor.

With the advantage of having surprised Steve, John tackled him to the ground and landed a punch on the side of his mouth, but this wasn’t enough and, using his strength, Steve lifted him up slightly, enough to get his boot onto John’s stomach and flip him over.

John landed heavily and looked up to see Steve scrambling up and towards the gun. Without thinking, as though by instinct, John turned to grab a wooden spindle on the staircase and, pushing his weight back with his foot, ripped the wooden spindle out from the railing.

Steve reached down for the pistol and turned ready to fire a shot, only to be met by John’s swing of the wooden spindle which landed a clean hit on Steve’s temple, knocking him out immediately. John didn’t need to check, he knew he had knocked him out cold.

John wasted no time reflecting on what had just happened, or clearing the aftermath of their scuffle. Instead, he loaded the pistol into his pocket, grabbed his mobile, left the house, and got back into his car.

From the start, he had sensed that Steve was hiding something, but there was one important truth he had spoken. He had to stop running from his past, from himself. He determined that he would run into the storm he had left behind, that he would face who he really was, even if it killed him.