Young Writers Society

Note to all readers!

I'm looking for a better title to this story. If you have any suggestion let me know. If you would like to know anything about the story to help develope a cool title or if you are confused about anything: just ask.

This story was inspired by the short story "Memento Mori" and the movie Memento.

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Forgotten Memories

INTRO

IT'S clear how it happened. At least it is to me. To most people who meet me I'm sure it's some sort of damned mystery. The mysterious retarded man, that's me. They look at me and they see a drooling lunatic because of my condition. For me it's not like that though. I look in the mirror and I see myself (plus a few years). I look in the mirror and I see memories. Some that left and some that are still embedded in my cracked brain. One of those memories is one I don't like to revisit particularly. Although I should be getting used to it by now, you'd think, because it's the first memory I replay when I'm finished forgetting all the rest.

It was a rather dark night. I'm not going to blame the darkness though or the long winding and bumpy country road. No, I'm going to blame myself. There had been a party earlier. It was for some holiday like Mardi Gras or New Years. Something stupid that has become so repetitious to the world it's idiotic for us to celebrate it anymore. I was driving down that road, intoxicated. It was 1:14 in the morning. Or at least that's what the neon green numbers on the radio told me. I needed to turn soon so I switched lanes. There was a blinding light up ahead which told me clearly "WRONG LANE, YOU MORON!" but I was drunk so I only laughed and sang some of those church hymns. I thought it was God, coming to take me to my eternal home in heaven. Then I remember the sound of grinding, twisting metal: the impact. The front of my head was about to hit something hard. I turned it sharply, as the steering wheel was thrust forward into my chest. I heard something crack before my head hit the dash, and then something rushed me backward as I slipped into an unconscious state.

I can't remember anything after that but I do have a report of the accident that someone clipped from a newspaper. The other driver died in that accident. It turned out she had a family at home who had never really encouraged her to wear a seatbelt. Her one daughter and a husband-to-be survived her. I was written to have been the bad guy in it, the jackass who drove home drunk. It was mentioned that I was reported dead. The newspaper was right, really. I was dead. I couldn't remember things for over five to ten minutes. Now I can go anywhere from ten to one hundred and twenty minutes without forgetting. I wrote down in my memory (which you remember is my scrapbook) that the doctor's told me it was impressive.

They decided to release me and sent me out into the world. I was still a corpse to them but I was now a corpse who had made progress and who wasn't eating up the taxpayer's money. Home was a place I constantly drifted around. I have written down I lived in three different places and I've been known to sort of wander as well. I'll go to a hotel and have people remember me, waving and smiling. It's as though they mock me because they know I can't remember them and won't.

Maybe it's better though, not knowing. Then I don't have to remember what she was like, my fiancé. Certain things from the past memories I'd made, before the accident, sort of faded. Just like her. I can't remember what she looked like, what she sounded like, what we had talked about or really done together. I can't remember who she was. The things I do remember are ones that hurt. I remember family, some friends, and then of course how I felt about her. The only thing I can remember, where my fiancé is concerned, is loving her.

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Working on the first chapter...