Memorial

An aura of heavy soot pressed against me. Did I just go for a swim? Or am I just sweating that much? Eyes unable to open, I felt my limp body sag against a cold wall. The experience was lucid; unable to control my own body for the only sense I could remotely interact with was sound. As I sat there, slouched, I never considered that for the time I was awake, my ears rang with the voices of my friends as if it were background music. As I searched for sounds over the muffled giggles, I would occasionally hear something that resembled crickets chirping in an extremely low tone. A tone so horrifyingly irritating but also reminiscent of my mother's countryside house.

I felt cold.

I nearly gasped out “Stop walking in front of me! The wind makes me cold!” as my light-headed self remembered my mother scolding my sister after I took a shower. I remembered how she’d cocoon me with towels and how preciously safe I felt in her arms. I remembered the heat flowing through my tiny body and how I didn’t want to open my eyes as if the heat would escape. Was that why I couldn’t open my eyes? The distinct sound of Oxford Brogue shoes cackled in the distance getting louder. I squirmed, or at least I tried to and with one fell swoop a gust of wind hit my perspiring body as if something ran towards me and stopped.

Sounds of cloth folding reached me as the character presumably squatted in front of me. I tried calling out yet I never heard myself. Where’s my mouth? I was lifted, and risen off of the comfortable floor. I didn't want to leave, at least my cocoon was intact. Feathers, it felt like feathers. I rode on what felt like feathers in a cloud but were warm to the touch. Existing in motion, I bounced, as if a sinusoidal wave gently caressing up and down. I was wrapped up, warm, happy and most of all safe. Nothing was under the realm of comprehensible, but I never wanted to leave. As I suddenly heard a cathode ray bloom, I knew that sound perfectly. The old tv was turning on. I wanted to watch my favourite cartoons.

All that happened was so eerily familiar to my days of being pampered by my mother that I wanted to open my eyes. I was a 27-year-old accountant yet felt the urging need to watch Tom & Jerry. My eyes gave way, as so did all my other senses. Rhythmic beating and paused breaths hit my face. Being cradled in someone's arms felt like bliss. A bright light parched my eyelids to the point I could see their veins. My heart filled with love and excitement.

The feeling quite starkly resembled the birth of my baby sister Abe, as I tip-tapped my feet impatiently in the long white corridors. I peeked into the glass cubicle watching her toes curl and shift from side to side, reliving the next 20 years with her right at that moment.

I opened my eyes to the hope of experiencing the most favourite memory of my life again. I opened my eyes to rather not being caressed but caressing another entity on its own. I suddenly realised the rhythmic origin of those waving gushes of wind. My hands felt warm and light as they held pure joy in their palms. I looked over to Rachel, as she wiped her tears off the crests of her smile staring at me with all the love in the world. Reminiscent of how my mother kept staring at my father when Abe came to us, I looked back down with my eyes finally open.

I hoped to find my childhood memories lying in my hands and that was exactly what lay so graciously there. I held my newborn daughter with tears from the Nile drifting down my cheeks and dripping off my chin. I was finally at home.