The struggles of Remembering

He was trying to imagine what everything had been like before. It was hard. The memories felt ghost like, they were whisping into and out of the echoing hallways in his mind.They felt alien, almost like they weren’t his memories but belonged to some complete stranger. Someone just like him, who knew the same people and yet they were both so different. Why would HE ever do that? whenever did he say this? And yet at the same time they did feel like his own, he remembered, though it was distant, particular details only one could know if one had lived them. But still when he thought of before; his memories didn’t feel real.

Thats why he didn't really think about before, 'before' was all just someone else's memory. They didn't belong to him so it felt wrong to flick through somebody else's book and leave doggy ears and creases all over it. The book would be put down, bound in leather put in a silk bag tied up, placed in a wooden trunk and locked in an attic on a farm in Slovenia. Why Slovenia? It was one of the only places the boy had never been, and he had absolutely no desire to go there, so he was perfectly fine with sending 'before' there. He was sure 'before' wouldn't mind, since 'before' was nothing like him.

So before had left and the boy, no longer plagued by foreign memories, finally could make some of his own. The echoing hallway in his mind, shall no longer echo. And so he set out ready to pick up and find a 'now' and perhaps a 'then'.

It was impossible. The journey too hard, the road too long. Every time he would take a rest, the new memories he had collected along the way now seemed like 'before', they were no longer 'now' and whenever he would find a 'then' they would become a 'now' and not long after would become a 'before'. It wasn't easy finding 'now' the boy decided. It was impossible really, for nothing could ever truly be a 'now' and nothing could be a 'then' in the end they would all become a 'before'.

But the boy, tired and cold sat in his now seemingly over crowded hallway and thought, 'why is there a before? What created it?' and the more the boy searched through his hallway, he realized he didn't know anymore, the reason was gone hidden in a place he hadn't been and a place he didn't want to go. It was bound in leather, tied up in a silk bag, placed in a wooden trunk in an attic in Slovenia. Suddenly the boy missed 'before' even though the memories seemed foreign and alien they still belonged to him. He decided he needed before, if he wanted a 'now' and a 'then'.

He decided he was going to Slovenia.