Memory

Memory is a fickle visitor. Coming and going at the oddest moments, dredging up a reminiscence with no seeming origin. You are walking with your dog along a highway, smell some flowers, and you remember the blooms your father used to bring home to your mother. You don’t remember what your father looks like, or your mother, or even what color of vase she would put those flowers in. You do remember those flowers, and the contented humming your mother would do afterwards as she walked through the house.

It is getting harder and harder to find things – useful things, mind you – out in the wild. After decades – has it been decades? – of people combing through all the refuse left by those before, the good find is rare. Survival is key, so you look anyway. A buried knife here, an abandoned pile of clothes there.

I happened upon a hidden cellar once, in a mountain town in the early months of Fall. You would have thought it was Fort Knox. (I don’t know what Fort Knox is; I imagine it is a place filled with food and water and clothes.) The first night I opened a dozen cans and gorged myself. The pain in my stomach an hour later was excruciating and I ended up throwing up most of it. Never did that again. I learned to eat well, and slowly.

With each passing day, however, I grew more and more suspicious I was either being watched or some others, some marauding band that didn’t want to share, would come into the town and discover me. I finally left when I spent an entire night bold upright, flinching at each sound, a pipe gripped in my hands. I covered the entrance as best I could and decided, when things are better, I’ll come back.

Time moves differently now. It still goes on: the sun rises, the sun sets, Spring comes, Summer goes. Whether this is the third or thirteenth or three-hundredth Spring since before ended, no one knows. I don’t know, and I doubt anyone else knows, and if they do, it doesn’t make any difference to the now. The now is everything; seeing the next sunset, waking to the next sunrise.

Other than those things I can stash in secret places, I bring only what I can carry on my back or in my hands. There is no staying in one place – if you are alone like me – and collecting stuff you want or need. Sometimes though, you find something in the leftovers that catches your eye. I found a watch in a house some time back. It didn’t work, of course. The battery had long gone dead. I liked the look of it, the hands forever pointing at the two and halfway between the seven and eight.

You find the odd bauble sometimes, too. I have four or five necklaces – a crucifix, a flat tag, a locket, a plastic claw – each one appearing seemingly out of nowhere, like they were waiting for me to find them.

I’m always leery around settlements. When people gather together, it can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing. If it’s a bad place, I find a way to leave before sundown. Too many hurtful things happen in the dark.

When they are good places – the houses look kept up, the gardens run in orderly rows, children run around with smiles as they play – I stay a day or two longer. Eventually I leave, unwilling or unable to become part of their new life. Most seem sad as me and the dog continue on. Some even watch until I’m out of sight, like I might change my mind. I haven’t yet.

This new place, it was a good one. The squeals of the playing kids brought a smile to my face as I entered the enclave. There were a few waves as people stopped and watched me walk past. I nodded to most of them waiting for the welcoming committee.

Two men and a woman greeted me as I made it to the town center. One of the men didn’t say much, standing behind the other two with a piece of metal sharpened on one edge. The other man and the woman welcomed me, asked me politely my business. Nothing about me or the dog seemed to raise their hackles, so an offer to join the evening meal was extended. Hands were shook and names exchanged and I moved over to a trough. I got the pack off my back and the dirt from my face and arms as a gaggle of children gathered near the dog.

“He bite?” a girl, eight if she were a day, asked me, thrust to the front of the group and therefore the spokesperson.

“Not unless I need her to,” I responded. The girl, and those gathered behind, froze up, seeing the dog as the threat she could be. I whistled, her clue we were safe. She barked and crouched down on her forepaws, beginning the game. They were still at it an hour later.

You don’t know why people are nervous when you happen upon them. Were they that way cause the last guy was less than pleasant? Or are they trying to hide something from strangers like me? Never easy to tell.

A summer two, three ago I happened upon one of those nervous places. I didn’t have the dog with me yet, so I couldn’t rely on how she reacted to them. It was only me and my wits, and I convinced my wits to fade for the night.

That night, most of the community gathered around a central fire, they pulled out barrel or two of something homemade. Couldn’t tell if it was brewed or distilled. After half a cup, didn’t matter anymore.

A few started telling stories, funny things that they’d witnessed together. Eventually, an instrument or two was brought out, tuning was attempted, then a few songs that had managed to seep down through from before made their way into the chill night air. I didn’t know any of tunes. The sound of a dozen voices singing together eased my mind more, and for a time I enjoyed myself.

Late into the night, the drink working on my legs, I sat down heavily, a barking laugh coming out of me. Things in my eyes were starting to swim, and I had stopped swilling their drink hours before. Looking into my cup, I remember finding some purple leaves, a strange garnishment for the strange drink. As my vision swam even more, I couldn’t find another cup held in the villagers’ hands that had the same leaves in them.

I woke the next day, sun halfway across the sky, baking my naked back. My mind was still cloudy so it took me awhile to discover the town deserted, the residents long gone with everything I owned. They left me my pants and nothing else. Following them wasn’t an option, outnumbered as I would be. Somehow they hadn’t picked the town completely clean. I found some clothes, a few items to eat, found out which way they had left and went the other direction.

I opened the locket only a few times after I found it. I fit a picture of a woman from a soup can in one side, and the picture of a man from a magazine in the other. (He was walking around outside his house, pushing what the magazine was a ‘lawn mower.’)

Usually I kept my shiny things – the watch, the necklaces – tucked safely away, but at dinner, bending over to sit at the long table, the locket slipped out, the evening light glinting off the faded metal.

“I haven’t seen one of those,” an old woman said, pointing, “since well before the Before.”

In an instant, I felt all eyes upon me. I know not everyone was looking at me; enough were that my usual self-consciousness flared like a geyser.

“It,” I started, faltering. “It’s just something I found along the way.”

“I expected so,” the old woman continued. Her white hair was cut short, her bangs brushing her eyebrows. It was clear she afforded some deference in the community. No food had been passed around until she had sat. Three people escorted her to the table, each waiting until she had settled before moving to their own places.

“I didn’t expect a charm like that was yours from before,” she continued. “You don’t look old enough to remember before.”

I smiled at the compliment, an unfamiliar bloom rising on my cheeks. “I remember a little. Ain’t as young as I might look.”

“When I was young,” the woman said, her plate lying ignored and with cocked eyebrow, “never you mind how long ago that was, my grandmother gave me one very much like that when I was a girl. At first, I had pictures of my parents inside. Later, as I began courting with some of the boys in my town, I set in pictures of my current beau.”

“Nana!” A woman a few seats down burst out, eyes wide. The old woman waved her off.

“I cut a nice figure when I was younger,” she said, chin lifted in confidence. “Can’t help it if the boys in town noticed.”

“I expect you were the belle of the ball most days,” I said, delighted when she favored me with a demure smile.

Morning rose, and silently – I had become good at that – me and the dog left the town. I had bathed in their warmth, but it wasn’t something I could let myself get comfortable with. Too many ugly people out there trying to take what they wanted. Years of honing the blade of my survival had left me without the need for others to rely on.

Topping a rise, the dog lagged behind. Looking back, I tried one of my whistles to call her. She looked at me, then back at the community, as if she was asking permission to stay with them. For a moment I felt betrayed. We’d been through enough together that I felt had forged a bond.

Then I remembered the abandon with which the animal joined in playing with the kids. She wasn’t thinking about protecting herself, or me. She was only nipping at kids and dodging them and prompting the occasional squeal. Couldn’t begrudge her a life like that.

Bending down, I fastened the locket to the rope collar around her neck. Wouldn’t do well to have such a shiny trifle giving away my location. I stood and regarded the dog sternly.

“Well. Go on,” I said. She took a step toward the community, then looked at me again. I waved her away. Taking off, she sped down the hill, dust kicked up by her racing paws.

Memory is a constant companion, joining us when we least expect it, trudging along beside us, laughing at the same stories, sad at the same low points. Me and memory have a little more milage to put down before I’ll be able to rest.