Her

The world will never be the same. I will never be the same. The big bang, as some of us ironically called it after it happened, was the start of what I think of as the anti-creation, the opposite of when the big bang formed our universe. The memories of most of those who I gathered with in the beginning are gone. We barely remembered who each other was to begin with. Or how we got here. Now, instead of helping each other to survive, they see me and each other as enemies. Competition for the scarce resources around us. I stay away from them and all others. Rats. Scroungers, as I refer to them now.

Whatever war was fought, everyone who survived lost. I have lost, I know that. But somehow I still have more than the rest. Some memory. It's strange what I can remember, and what I cannot. I remember houses, and trees, and I have glimpses of a life I used to live. Sometimes it's a face. A flash of a smile. Sometimes it's the leaves rustling in the wind. Sometimes it's running for my life. But it seems every day the flashes are less frequent, the memories less tangible. The one memory I hold onto though, is that I know without a doubt I've lost something. Someone. The face, the smile.

I spend my days scrounging - like we all have been reduced to, in order to survive – but I am different than the others. I am not just scrounging, I am searching. Searching for what I've lost.

Most living creatures have died - plants, animals, humans - those of us surviving, are doing barely that. It was the gas, you see. The acrid smelling, thick yellow gas that came with the big bangs that wiped out nearly all of creation and most of the memories of those who were left. Everyday I search for food. Water. More people like me. The thing I don't remember but know I've lost.

I’m on a mission today, on the outskirts. Today I have found bits of what I think were houses. Hard to be sure. Smoke still rises from the earth and makes the sun and sky orange - a stark contrast against the black soot and gray rubble from everything destroyed with the big bang. I hear rocks being thrown. Another scrounger. I quickly hide. We're all desperate you see, and things can get ugly. As I'm hiding waiting for the other scrounger to leave, something catches my eye. A glimmer. Under a thick piece of rubble. Desperately, tensely, quietly, I try to uncover the glimmer. A noise. Have I been heard? Found? I cautiously peak around the corner. The other scrounger is moving on. I quickly dig to uncover the object. I uncover it. Foreign and familiar all at the same time. A shimmering string, with an equally shimmering shape attached to it. I tuck it away until I can get to a safe space to investigate.

As I turn around, I am face to face with the other scrounger. Had they seen my shimmering find? I don't think so. No. They think I've found food and was eating. Since most people lost their memories, or are losing whatever memories they have left, we barely have a common language anymore. I yell I have nothing, and show my hands and tattered clothing as proof I'm not carrying anything. I can't let them see what I've found. It isn't food, but it’s something. Maybe something I can trade. The scrounger doesn’t seem convinced, but a bang in the distance sends us both running in opposite directions.

I run until I'm certain I'm alone and can go back to my "place" at the edge of town near a lookout tower, which in the shape of an arrow, somehow still stands. A landmark that once overlooked something beautiful I'm sure, now points to the sky, looming deserted, above all the destruction and emptiness below.

I make sure I wasn't followed. Carefully, delicately, I remove the object from the rags that cover my chest. I study it. A circle. A chain. I close my eyes and I remember. A necklace. It glimmers, and I can remember gold. The shape is familiar too. I pat my chest. I have the faintest muscle memory of playing with something close to my heart, sliding an object back and forth along the chain. I hold my hand over my heart and it dawns on me. The shape on the chain is a heart. I study the shape over and over. There's something else. But what? What is this heart for? I am trembling, fumbling with the necklace. There’s something more to it. And then it happens. It opens. Staring back at me from the inside of the heart is a woman. In her arms is a smaller girl. A child. The second picture is the child’s face. Rosy cheeks, dimples. I study both pictures very hard. Suddenly, quickly, I stand up and start pacing. Heart racing. It is so familiar. Then it comes to me. I fall to my knees. The woman in the picture, that woman, was me.

The locket didn’t only open, it opened memories. Memories I had lost. Memories of not just what I had lost, but WHO, I had lost. I remember my daughter. I remember holding her in my arms. Kissing her dimpled cheeks. Her smile. Her laugh. SHE is what I’ve been searching for. I still can’t remember what happened or when we were separated, but I feel a new fire in every fiber of my being. SHE is alive. I have to find out what happened. I have to find, HER.