The Evil Memory

Little Fiona was lying on her bed, eyes closed, waiting excitedly for the alarm to start beeping. 

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The alarm started beeping, not even lasing 5 seconds, Fiona shut it down, went to her wardrobe and took her favorite green jacket.

It was 5 am, half an hour left till sunrise. Fiona put on her slippers, tied her long black silky hair in a ponytail, took her drawing notebook, pencil, and came out of her room.

Her grandparents have a huge beautiful garden. The garden was fully planted, thanks to Fiona’s grandmother, with different kinds of yellow, pink, white, and purple flowers. It was indeed very hard to find a spot to sit on in their garden. In the middle of the garden, Fiona’s grandfather has planted small trees that encircled a huge, ancient long tree that lay in the middle of the garden, that tree was Fiona’s favorite part. At the far end of the garden, there was a small fence with chickens inside it, and another, but wider, fence for three sheep. 

Fiona was feeling tired. She doesn’t well sleep these days. She waits for the sunrise to practice drawing that beautiful scene illuminating the huge tree, without, of course, her grandparents knowing. 

She was darting down the stairs slowly on her toes, trying as hard as possible to not make even a faint sound that can wake her grandparents up, as their sleep was very light. Screwing her face and clenching her teeth, she opened the door to the garden slowly.

The cold wind welcomed Fiona. She took a few steps outside. The wind was pushing her whole body and ponytail towards the garden. 

It’s like the garden is welcoming me, Fiona thought, with a huge smile on her face.

There it was, the tall and great tree. She sat on one of the few spots that were not planted with flowers, on the dark green grass, facing the tree. She placed her notebook and pencil beside her and took a deep breath of the scent of the flowers surrounding her. She was waiting for the sun to show its first appearance.

Suddenly, something prickled her left hand that was lying on the grass. She shrieked and stood up, looking for the cause. In less than a moment, due to its size that was considered not small and the light color that it possessed, she saw a huge light brown colored ant. Like its outside appearance was not shockingly enough, the ant talked:

“are you going to draw my home, again?” said the ant

Fiona did not understand what was happening in front of her. An ant is talking, an ant.

“you are talking! But how!” said Fiona

“of course I am talking, how else can you hear me?” said the ant

Fiona remained silent 

“on the base of that big tree, there is a small hole, that’s where my home is” said the ant.

The ant received no interruptions nor a response from the dumbstruck Fiona.

“I live alone there, so it’s quite boring. You see, I ran away from my original home. I noticed you with your stuff appearing every day at this time, so I sneaked up once and saw what you were drawing” the ant explained.

Fiona finally seemed to get a grip of her voice, “what do you mean by I ran away?”

“oh, I did” said the ant excitedly, in a triumphant tone. “in our nature, we work for our ant queen, but I left because I couldn’t bear working anymore. Do you want to hear the full story of my epic survival?”

No response was received from Fiona.

“my name is Phi, by the way. You probably think that ants don’t have names, but we do” said Phi.

Not knowing what to respond to a talking ant, Fiona said “okay..”

The sunrise was starting to appear, the blue color was illuminating the surroundings now, the wind seemed to be more gentle now on Fiona’s hair.

“such a nice house you have, did your dad do the planting stuff in here? Or was it your mom? This place will be like heaven to my breed” said Phi

“this is my grandparents’ not my parents’ house” said Fiona

“do you live here with your parents?” said Phi.

“n- no. Th- they’re outside the country, working” said Fiona.

“I see” said Phi.

They remained silent, the purple color was appearing now on the scene.

“l think they’re dead. More like I remember it than I think” said Fiona.

“dead? But you said they’re outside working?” said Phi.

“My grandparents are lying to me. I remember. I was probably 2 years old. We were on a car” said Fiona

“Wha-” said Phi

“I don’t have that infantile amnesia that others have” said Fiona

“Um, sorry but what on earth is that?” said Phi

“I looked it up on a library when my grandfather took me with him to look for a war history book that he wanted to buy. Its when you can’t remember what everything was like when you were a baby, but I don’t have it because I remember” said Fiona

“but why are they lying to you?” said Phi

“probably because I’m too young and too fragile to experience the truth of death. When I ask them if I can call them they get nervous and start bringing up time difference issues. You know, they fake a call from time to time and some woman and a man speak to me” said Fiona.

“why didn’t you tell them that you know the truth?” said Phi.

“I know I’m waiting for the impossible, but I prefer my grandparents lies over my evil memory capability” said Fiona.

The sunrise has finally appeared behind the ancient tree, the light orange color was now mixed with the blue and purple colors that appeared previously, creating a beautiful scene that Fiona, to her shock, felt her cheeks were warmly wet. 

“it’s time to draw” said Phi.

Fiona smiled at him, took her notebook, flipped the pages to find a blank one, and took her pencil.

“you know what? I think I will add you to my drawing today” said Fiona.

“oh, how glad am I!” said Phi in a mocking tone.