Status: Flash Fiction. I may be able to turn into a story one day, but I'm not a fan of endings being wrapped up in little bows. I want to leave the reader with questions and their own imagination.
Never Knowing
Never Knowing
You stare at the television screen and see images of the little girl in the floral print sundress standing against the wind with a dandelion in her hand. Her curls are a creamy copper hue that shine despite the shadows of the setting sun, and her fair skin glows warmly even in dusk. The wind whips effortlessly through the tall yellowing grass of the hills rolling around her. The dandelion seeds dance through the air as the little girl twirls and dances about the field. You smile. It’s a picturesque moment captured by Hollywood with ease. You watch for a moment longer before changing the channel, and your stomach churns suddenly. You feel your lunch rising back up through your esophagus and take a gulp to keep it down. Your pulse quickens, your hands shake, your brow sweats, and your blood runs cold because when the little girl miles at the camera you realize you know who she is.
The little girl in the footage is you. You pause the TV to reassure yourself that it’s impossible, but she has the same scar above her right eyebrow as you do. You run your fingers over it to be sure, but you can feel the bumpy edges where you cut your forehead when you were three years old. The sporadic shape is meaningless to those who don’t know any better, but you know the angles match the corner of your grandmother’s coffee table that you fell on so many years ago. You find that coincidental, but you hit play again and also see the birthmark on the side of her cheek and the mole on the bottom of her neck as she lifts her head and takes a deep breath of the peaceful night that dwarfs her. You don’t have either of those now, but you know that you had removed those two components of your flesh for cosmetic reasons when you were eighteen years old.
It’s not possible, because the girl in the footage looks to be about twelve years old. That’s old enough to remember. It’s old enough to know people are watching you, but here you stand nervously walking back and forth across your living room floor in a panic because you can’t remember. You’ve never seen that dress, you’ve never walked through those hills, you don’t remember ever curling your board straight hair or putting on a shade of lipstick a shade darker than your natural color…but yet there you stood.
You pick up your phone and notice that it’s been on silent. You have three missed calls from an unknown number and a text message from an irretrievable contact.
“I’m sorry I never told you. Run.”
The doorbell rings, and before you have a moment to piece together what was happening, you begin to feel dizzy. A light gray gas seeps through the air vents in your home and engulfs all that it touches. It becomes harder and harder to keep your eyes open, and suddenly everything goes black.
You fight the darkness, but quickly it envelops everything. Fear causes your heart to race, but the chemicals in the air cause your brain to slow. You fight the darkness, but there’s nothing you can do. Your arms grow heavy, your legs grow weak, your heart eventually slows, and finally…you slip away never knowing.
The little girl in the footage is you. You pause the TV to reassure yourself that it’s impossible, but she has the same scar above her right eyebrow as you do. You run your fingers over it to be sure, but you can feel the bumpy edges where you cut your forehead when you were three years old. The sporadic shape is meaningless to those who don’t know any better, but you know the angles match the corner of your grandmother’s coffee table that you fell on so many years ago. You find that coincidental, but you hit play again and also see the birthmark on the side of her cheek and the mole on the bottom of her neck as she lifts her head and takes a deep breath of the peaceful night that dwarfs her. You don’t have either of those now, but you know that you had removed those two components of your flesh for cosmetic reasons when you were eighteen years old.
It’s not possible, because the girl in the footage looks to be about twelve years old. That’s old enough to remember. It’s old enough to know people are watching you, but here you stand nervously walking back and forth across your living room floor in a panic because you can’t remember. You’ve never seen that dress, you’ve never walked through those hills, you don’t remember ever curling your board straight hair or putting on a shade of lipstick a shade darker than your natural color…but yet there you stood.
You pick up your phone and notice that it’s been on silent. You have three missed calls from an unknown number and a text message from an irretrievable contact.
“I’m sorry I never told you. Run.”
The doorbell rings, and before you have a moment to piece together what was happening, you begin to feel dizzy. A light gray gas seeps through the air vents in your home and engulfs all that it touches. It becomes harder and harder to keep your eyes open, and suddenly everything goes black.
You fight the darkness, but quickly it envelops everything. Fear causes your heart to race, but the chemicals in the air cause your brain to slow. You fight the darkness, but there’s nothing you can do. Your arms grow heavy, your legs grow weak, your heart eventually slows, and finally…you slip away never knowing.