Memento

Memento

Prologue          

              I delve into the wreckage of my forlorn ship. The sails are tattered; shown under the rippling light beaming down from the unfathomable heavens looming so much farther above than i find comforting. My eyes adjust to salty water and the dim luminescence. I dive closer to get a better look at the grim reminder. The wood is rotting away and slowly fading. The ships stern has the figure of a maiden seemingly melted into the wood. Her eyes convey nothing but what seems to be dread. She seems to be pleading with me. Her eyes tell me to vacate this place, I will find only sorrow. The ships wheel is slightly spinning as the passing currents flow against it. My hand grips the helm as if to captain this vessel. But then I remember how well I fared in our last encounter. I pull away, as if burned by the slick timber. I breathe in a breath of salt water. It burns my lungs, but I seem to still live. Why would I be forced to live this life of eternal pain?
         I float below deck, clutching my chest as it heaves once more in pain. I see a room I know somehow must be meant for me. A sparse little shack of a room. My hand is pulled to a small dresser sitting in the corner next to what would hardly be called a bed. The drawer creaks as I reach in. The sound penetrates even through the fluid all around me. A small objects glints although there is hardly enough light to merit such a reaction. My eyes water; ironic to shed a tear in salt water. I reach my hand to grab the memento. I feel it's smooth lines and striking coldness. It burns. Just like everything else in this place. The icy hands of the object grip at my heart. Squeezing it so as to make it stop. But once again I do not die. My heart frozen as it is, I finally realize why I was so drawn to this object.
         It is a locket I remember from a distant past long, long ago. The locket I now held was perfect in every way. Heart shaped, silver and seeming to glow it somehow resembles the rest of this place. I question my eyes. Do they deceive me? The locket I hold is now scarred. Hundreds of marks now mar its flawless surface. A knife has cut its way deep into the metal. It is just as tainted as the vessel I am inside. My hands are now shaking. My body trembling. Why? What have I done to warrant this hellish existence? Must my shattered life continue even after it ends? I toss aside the foolish trinket of affection. That part of me is gone. I should never have humored this mindless torment.
         I drift back to the surface wanting to depart this place. But somehow the mast catches my eye. It is cracked in two, causing the sail to drape over the aft of the ship like a shade protecting it from the sun. There is no light behind this tattered veil. Nothing penetrates through it. I cannot stop myself from going towards this darkness. I try to grasp at the mast but an unseen force rips my hands free. What seems like a lightning bolt burns my mind. I place my hands to my head. Such immense pain. It feels like one thousand white hot knives being twisted inside of my skull. This darkness is not meant for me. Was I this undeserving of mercy in my life?! How can I merit such inconceivable anguish?!
         I grasp at any shred of light; I must break free of this blackness. I must! I feel the skin on my skull being burned away. Why am I still alive? How can I possibly not have died? Through the suffering I remember that I am not alive to begin with any longer. I finally decide to end the struggle and be pulled to the center of the darkness. Whatever worsening pain it may cause, I will not struggle. The ringing in my ears from the sheer ungodly amount of pain intensifies. Must I endure this for eternity? If so, why should it matter? Is one eternity worse than another in the end?
         I see through bloody tears that I am falling. How can this be? I cannot go through solid timbers. I am not a specter. But somehow I find comfort in this falling into darkness. It seems to make the pain become more tolerable. Why should I fight for the light when the darkness is so soothing? Why is the light any more soothing than this? Why must I care if it first caused me pain? The ship of my life has sailed. The vessel has been out of port for far too long, no one will remember its existence. It has sunk. I am dead. The words are synonymous.
         The light is gone, I have chosen my path. I will live in the false comfort of darkness. I will never know what awaited me in the light above the rippling waves of despair. Farewell my love. My locket awaits you in the sunken ship beneath the sea of my heart. If you should see the darkness, I will be there. For eternity I will be there. My love, for you.



Chapter One.


         The sun slowly falls out of the sky, dipping beneath the horizon of the open vineyards. I see small grapes budding on the vines. An ocean of green dotted with small dark points of red and violet throughout. A small wind is whipping behind me, tussling my hair and making the temperature just about bearable this summer. I feel the warm glow of the sun halfway down the horizon. The white long sleeved shirt of loose fitting thin breathable cotton of the area is a welcome relief.
         I sit there on the oak swing staring at the simple miracle that lay before my eyes. Fairer than this day i do not think i have had the pleasure of experiencing. I hear a soft rustling as the wind blows through the leaves of the vines. It's almost hypnotizing. I stare out into what seems to be nothing for an eternity, or most likely only a few minutes. It is the same regardless. Right now life could last a thousand millenia or a tenth of a second longer and i would still die happy. I smile just to smile.
         The wedding had left me in a daze. My bride and I had finally become one. It was as marvelous as she had planned and dreamed it would be aloud. I thought it would just be an extension of what we shared together, but it was much more than that. From the moment I said "I do", I have had not a care in the world other than her. Sadly i did not even have the presence of mind to taste the, what i heard was, fantastic food. My bride seemed to be in much the same daze as I. It was a welcome relief to have company in my stupor. I feel pressure around my hand. Her eyes meet mine. My beautiful Claurissa. It was nice to be able to say that. Mine.
         Her shimmering toffee colored hair seemed not to move although the wind always found ways to destroy the semblance of perfection i had tried to create that morning. I probably did not do a very good job to begin with in my present state, though. My jovial manner viewed from afar with no prior information would most likely have seemed nothing short of a manifestion of dementia for someone who had known what I was like shortly before meeting my beloved Claurissa.
         I stared into her glistening saphire orbs, entranced by something i'd seen a thousand times but had never lost the wonder of the first enchanted encounter. "What are you staring at my love?"
         Her words snap me out of my trance as if it had never happened. "Only you. What else is there but you?"
         "I can think of alot of things: The sunset, the vineyard, the beautiful orchard off to the east, but you stare only at me"
         "Ahh well, do you not like it when i admire something so vastly superior to the surroundings?"
         "A bit past flattery aren't we James? You've already got a ring on my finger, and I believe you've got the rest of eternity to stare at me, why not admire something a bit more fleeting like this view?"
         I smile at that last remark. She is so naive. "If we die tomorrow, i would like to know i used my time wisely my dear."
         "Whatever makes you happy, just make sure you don't lose yourself, I'd like to talk to my husband sometime when this gawker stops inhabiting his body."
         I would never leave her, my love. No matter what may come in this life, we shall be. Not we shall last, or we shall love forever. Simply, we shall always be.




Chapter Two.



              Ripples of emotion riddle my body, if you can even call it that anymore. Sorrow, pain, joy, love, hatred, all of them. Yet hope is nowhere to be found. In this black abyss there is really nothing to focus on. My mind is forced to flicker through images of days gone past. Every face i have ever loathed or loved appears and vanishes instantaneously. An endless loop of horrid reminders of what i've left behind. My mothers smiling face looking down at me when i was a child, followed by the black coffin she was buried in. I see the faces of the mourners, crying out for some solace and comfort from god. I now see an empty courtroom, with a young man sitting alone still in utter disbelief at the events that traspired there hours prior.
         Listless dull eyes are all that are left. Broken and battered, his soul has left it's host. No more wanting of the unfairness of this life then any of us. The boy seems familiar sitting on the mahogany bench intended for the courtroom audience. A silent resolve of nothing more than self preservation keeps him breathing. I feel nothing but longing to comfort this boy who is nearly a man. Yet, i do not know why. I try to focus on his face but it is somehow hazy. As if he is behind a window that someone has recently blown their breath onto. Another flickering of images stops me from dwelling too long on the unfortunate soul. So dark this time, the image is. I can almost feel bonechilling breeze i sense must be around me. I no longer feel the odd weightless weight of the sea around me, only the free air of standing on a mans own two feet of his own volition. It takes a few minutes for my eyes to adjust while i stumble around in the grass and odd smooth rocks around me. I feel around like a blind man lost in a crowd. I have the instantaneous thought to question why my eyes would need to adjust to a memory.
         Questioning the afterlife is a bit of a moot point i concede to myself, as neither I nor anyone I'd ever met in what I remember of my lifetime had ever been to this heaven, hell, or otherwise. A smirk crosses my face at the grim irony. I'd always been someone people looked to for help in life, always a man whom people thought was of a level head. I see now how useless all of those worldly consolations are. Getting off the mental tangent, I trudge forward through the cool night air and as my eyes adjust i notice the stones are far too uniform. The grass just a tad too managable to be considered natural. A sickening realization breaks through my feeling of apathy. A cemetary.
         I walk forward with expecting the worst. A grave lay directly in front of me, with the epitaph facing on the opposite site of the cracked and chipped gravestone. It is farther apart from the others than any other single grave. Why does this grave deserve such solitude? The sound of the thoughts in my head could wake the dead. Hoping that the expression is not litteral, i continue on. I walk twenty paces and finally reach the somehow special gravestone. I try to slowly stroll around the grim marker to delay the innevitable. I tense up as i read the epitaph written into the cold stone.

"In all the garden of eden, a rose of this beauty
has never existed. May God welcome her with
open arms and bring her where she belongs."

Rest in peace,
Claurissa Ladimere.