Memories

“So may we all remember Kyle Sumnthers, the most singular man in Fleetworth.”

Lost in thought while driving, Lucille was annoyed at that strange lady, with a wiry voice, who spoke at the funeral earlier in the week. Was “singular” even a compliment? Uncle Kyle had been kind his whole life, possibly suffering from being a bit too plain, that woman didn’t seem to understand him very well. The U-Haul she drove barreled down a narrow road that seemed to degrade in quality the further she went. Strands of her neat golden brown hair bounced out of place. Lucille thought she had been close to Uncle Kyle, they’d been inseparable while she was young and even through her early thirties, she frequently carved out time for coffee with him on a weekly basis, but he’d only left her a small dilapidated house that felt more like a chore than an inheritance. It wasn’t her uncle’s primary residence, and nobody had even known the insurance liability existed until the lawyers contacted her for Kyle’s bequeathal. She already had a house; she had money, too, but receiving a small chunk of her uncle's hoard would have been less cumbersome than stripping all of his junk out of the decrepit building, and then trying to peddle it off on someone else. All her cousin’s received a check, or at least she felt fairly certain that was a safe assumption. Finally, she was able to put the truck in park, and paused to stare at the unextraordinary house.

The attic was full of books; stacks of hefty books. She grimaced, thinking, “This is going to take forever.” Outside, the U-Haul and an industrial dumpster waited. She wondered which would fill first. Haphazardly, she picked up a book. It looked unintelligibly esoteric, and she casually tossed it into the donate box. Looking around a little closer, she realized all of the stacks formed a semicircle around one little black book. The hairs on her neck and arms stood upright, and she felt a chill wash over as she considered the ritualistic nature of the setup. Cautiously, Lucille stepped forward and picked up the black book from the center of the room. There was no title, author, or description of any sort. A little nervous now, she thumbed through the first couple pages, but they were all blank. Leafing deeper into the text, writing eventually showed up. But before she could even discern the words inside, the book erupted. Money spat out violently. The autonomous movement startled her, and, already on edge, she dropped the book and found herself falling backwards in the opposite direction. As the book hit the floor, it continued to spew. Frantically, Lucille grabbed at the fluttering bills. She had a few crumpled ones and a twenty. Finally, the spastic event subsided, and the eerie crinkle of settling paper filled the shocked void the rest of the room had to offer. Lucille looked at the money, real United States dollar bills, but tattooed with strange symbols in a red ink. It didn’t quite resemble blood but, nonetheless, she couldn't convince herself that it wasn't. Rattled, Lucille slinked out of the attic, leaving the pile of money on the floor.

Lucille wasn’t sure what he had just witnessed. Tensely, she made her way to the bathroom. It was the smallest room and felt secure somehow. She bent down over the sink, running cold water onto her hands and splashing her face, hoping to help dissipate all of the adrenaline her body had just released. As she looked up, she noticed that just above the sink, there was a little slit cut out in the wall. It looked as if someone had driven a kitchen knife through the drywall. It reminded her of those old razor blade disposals that used to commonly be kept behind mirrors; the ones that just dumped the shaving razors into the walls. Except this was much bigger. Unsure what came over her, she found herself reaching into her pants pocket for one of the bills she had grabbed. She carefully placed a one into the groove like it was a vending machine. The motion felt independent of input from her brain. The wall sucked in the dollar and a hacked laugh escaped her mouth when the slot didn't spit the crumpled bill back out. The room felt black and white, dulled in a way that was forcing reality to mask itself to her senses. She splashed one last dose of water from the sink onto her face and reached for a towel. It was then, when she looked at her reflection in the mirror, that she first noticed it. The bathroom was still her uncle's bathroom but outside the doorway, the scene was no longer familiar. She looked over her shoulder and a warm breeze wafted across her damp face. Creeping into the bathroom doorway, she looked around. It was a little tram stop. A weatherproof enclosure lined with some benches stood guard next to a small set of rails at street level. Cables ran overhead from pole to pole until in the distance they bent right and out of her line of sight. The buildings were all mason, and little round rocks jutted out from the concrete slabs. Lucille didn't see any doorways, and the windows were too high to peer through. The supernatural shock of the little black book was starting to leave her body, and a new curiosity pervaded. She cautiously stepped into the unknown, peering around. Periodically, she looked back to make sure the bathroom was still visible, but before long, the unmistakable rattle of a trolley came chugging down the rails on the weirdly lit cobbled road. The jet black carriage, with ornate filigree detailing came to a clanking stop and, unsure what else to do, she got on. There was no conductor to interrogate, and the rows of seats were mostly empty. She took a seat and the man across the aisle barely glanced up from his newspaper. His hair was long but neatly combed back, and his pants flooded up high on his ankles revealing bright socks that didn’t quite suit the rest of his look and demeanor. She pretended not to look at him for a few moments before she couldn’t help herself any longer, and blurted out, “Where are we going?” She was inaudible, even to herself. Had she actually said that out loud? She was unsure if she wanted help from a stranger, but she did want some answers. She attempted to speak again, but was met with silence. “This is silly,” she thought, and got up to return to the familiarity of her uncle’s bathroom. As she began moving, the car lurched forward and she fell down hard. If he could in fact see her, the man pretended not to notice. Defeated, she rode the car voluntarily now in silence; calm on the outside, but internally on the verge of hysterics. The car stopped. She politely waited for the man to leave, but he remained engrossed in the paper. What was this stop, anyways? Out the window she could see a small grass field that was mostly bare. Lucille didn’t want to get off here, but the tram seemed to be waiting for her to leave. She decided to exit. The antique tram dissipated behind her as she hopped down; the way she imagined a thirst-driven desert mirage would. The rails peeled up and evaporated too but she felt no concern, everything about the experience seemed to be pushing her in a linear direction. It was just going to be easier to follow it, than to resist.

Her dulled senses came back ten times as vivid as they had ever been as she left the trolley. The air smelled like her old backyard, like her childhood. She felt so comfortable she could have stood still forever, unbothered. For a while, she did just that, taking in the dreamscape. The tree from her mother’s backyard stood solemnly by itself. Lucille looked on from a distance, remembering the way the branches of that particular tree bowed and stretched. She recognized its bark that had always scraped her knees raw. A tire swing hung from a treacherous looking rope on the tree. It had held her up all those years as she had grown older and heavier, never breaking. She remembered the time her uncle had first installed it while her father was working from Japan, she had been so young. As she thought deeper about the memory, it animated itself into life and she watched her mother sitting on the porch smoking cigarettes, the toxic smell assaulting her nose. Kyle pushed a three year-old version of herself on the swing as she observed. How many times had she spun out of control, smacking his knees with her little sneakers stained brown with the outdoors? But her uncle never complained. It felt like that was all she had done the whole time her dad was working in Japan. She wasn't sure how much time she'd lost, observing the scene in silent happiness as the grass seemed to hum to the cadence of her childhood portrait, swinging away. Finally, she walked up and dragged her hand across the rough bark. As the familiar sense graced her hand abrasively, she felt herself being pulled softly back into reality. Her sides felt a simultaneous pinching and pulling, and between blinks, she was suddenly standing on the wrong side of the bathroom mirror. Instinctively, she pushed through it and the silvery liquid permitted her to pass. Carefully, she clambered over the standing porcelain sink and found herself back in the house. Her fear from earlier was replaced with wonder, and through a daze, she wandered back up to the attic.

A noise like a guitar string snapping spoke at her, as she poked her head into the hot wooden room. That woman from the funeral was in the house.

“What are you doing here?” Lucille inquired with a confused and hostile tone.

“My name is Sophia, I just thought you might want someone to help explain your uncle’s parting gift to you,” said the tall wrinkled lady. “Your uncle always saw you as the child he knew he’d never be able to have, and he knew his ailment was going to take his life sooner than he was ready for it to, your whole family did. Your dad looked overseas for treatment options for his brother. And your uncle, he thought he could find a cure through magic-”

“Sorry, wait. Who are you and how do you know my family?” Lucille interjected

“Your uncle came to me looking for medicine that doesn’t exist. Together we worked on a different way to help him live on,” said Sophia, gesturing to the pile of money still strewn on the floor.

“They’re each one of my memories, right? When he set up that tire swing. That’s one of the earliest things I can remember about him.”

“That’s nearly it, anyone can use these. Whoever places the bill into one of the cutouts in this house gets to ride the train and relive a memory. The symbol written on each of them means it will be a memory about your uncle. That being said, he left them for you.”

“How much money is there in this pile?” Asked Lucille.

“There’s $20,000, the bigger the value of the bill, the more powerful the memory it can evoke.”

“Oh,” said Lucille, taking some time to process all of this information. There was an awkward pause, and neither Lucille nor Sophia knew what to say to each other. Finally, Lucille broke the silence. “Would you like to use one?

Sophia smiled and nodded, “I would, thank you.” and picked a five dollar bill off the floor.

She exited the attic, and as Lucille sat in silent reflection, she thought she might have heard a small train rattle distantly.