Thanks for the Memories

[December 2016]

Rotting elephant skin. The incessant buzzing in my mind finally lulls as it lands on this descriptor. The remains of the swamp glare back at me with pupils of chipped gravel, its grotesque facade composed of chunks of frozen sludge. My idle eyes latch on something dully glinting, scattering the pale wintry light, and mirthless laughter escapes my lips as I recognize it to be the head of a bent shovel. Scanning the landscape, I spot the wheel of a backhoe lodged in a snowbank, and the fluorescent tip of an abandoned hard hat. The rusted construction equipment has laid dormant for the past few days due to the extreme weather - a sight that sardonically pleases me. Contemporary demands to smother this insidious wasteland have failed.

Suddenly, a merciless gust of wind picks up and buffets me, ricocheting off every pebble and piercing through the phantoms of memories suspended in the shadows. While I attempt to rub feeling back into my frozen legs and wobble to my feet, I’m reminded of why the demolition efforts are on hold for the day. Power outages wink across the town in the dead of this New England winter, each blast of wind a volley of frigid daggers, slicing through my shredded tights and nipping at my bare skin beneath, turning it red. Not a figure stirs from the comfort afforded by crackling fireplaces and fleece blankets, leaving the walkways deserted and the swamp ignored. It is my last chance to visit the gothic asylum that blemishes the backdrop of an upscale residence complex. Blinking past the screeching in my ears, I stride to the crumbling brick wall, petrified twigs and black ice grinding with a satisfying crunch under the heavy tread of my sangria combat boots. The tendrils of rotten ivy feebly cling to the cracks in the rough stone of the building, battered by the winds of time. Four years ago. The last time I was here. With her.

[February 2013]

We were almost at the edge of the marsh then, almost at the boundary of the asylum’s territory. For the first time since I had stormed out into the night, a frond of apprehension snuck through my subconscious and sent a shudder through my body. The asylum loomed ahead, with vines that crept through the cracks in the bricks, concealing the obscene graffiti, and its weathered walls starkly silhouetted against the inky sky. Keira pivoted on her heel and peered at me reassuringly, the starlight turning her eyes into pools of liquid mercury. Ah. I’d stopped walking and had just been blankly staring at the marshy bank, still several feet away. “C’mon Sahana, don’t worry. We’re not alone… there’s, like, seven of us” she said, nodding in the direction of the guys. An impish smile ghosted her lips. This forsaken structure, with the occasional gaunt face embellishing the windows and the mysterious fumes, had caught her eye the week she had moved in. And since then - it had entranced her wild spirit and lured her ever closer with its siren call.

I taste blood as a smile tugs on my chapped lips. She was a force alright - an admirably mad force that the stifling confines of this world could do little to restrain. During the few years I knew her, the fierce thing had a core of wildfire that blazed with dreams and adventure. A shard of ice shatters beneath my tread, and at that moment, I’m 13 again, facing my best friend.

I remember I was about to respond to her, but - there was a sudden commotion, and we wheeled around just in time to see an icicle rebound off of the wall of the decaying building, having missed the overgrown window by centimeters. Before we could fully process what must’ve happened, the boy farthest from the building had already whizzed past us - barely avoiding a collision with Keira. The others were hurtling towards us. Driven purely by adrenaline, the two of us sprinted after them, throwing caution to the wind as we flew across the swamp and flung ourselves over the low wall that marked the edge of the swamp, grazing our dry palms in the haste. Our legs pumped furiously beneath us until we were right on their tails. As we barreled through the fissure in the chain-link fence, the left cuff of my sweater snagged on a jagged splinter. Keira whirled around panting as I thrashed against the wiry rift, and instantly darted back to my side, stubbornly lacing her fingers through my free ones. In my terror, I thoughtlessly yanked my arm forward, and we took off hand in hand, not daring to turn around even as the rusted metal gouged my left forearm and sent a sliver of crimson streaming to my knuckles.

[December 2016]

I draw out the same knuckles now from the pockets of my leather jacket and uncoil my numb fingers. I bring my open palm ever closer to the wall, till it hovers hardly a hairsbreadth from its surface and… I let my fingers collapse back into a fist and drop to my side. Exhaling, I watch as the fog of my breath clouds the bricks before abruptly turning away. As I march across the marsh and past the web of metal remains of the fence embedded in the ground, a crumpled hexagon of faded yellow half-buried in the slush with the peeling letters T R E S S- winks up at me. Smirking, I wink back and saunter into the perimeter of the residence complex, my heels clicking on the impeccable pavement and up a set of stairs to the vast lawn beyond. The lawn that was once my whole world. I cross to its barren center and sit cross-legged on the brittle grass, facing a depilated slope. Without warning, I am engulfed by the weightless feeling of freedom that has coursed through my veins every time I’ve sat here in summers past.

[July 2012]

The world was still a distorted blur of emerald and turquoise as I sprawled flat on my back on the supple summer grass, the petals of a daisy tickling my cheek as I giggled at the foot of the knoll. “My tuwrn!” I heard the callow voice of my three year old best friend exclaim. I barely had enough time to scramble to a sitting position when Sienna’s slight frame careened into me, laughing hysterically as her blonde curls bounced over my face. Grinning, I lifted her onto my lap and scooted away from the foot of the slope as more toddlers came tumbling down. Just then, her baby sister came waddling towards us and stumbled into my open arms, then arched back to look at Sienna and me, beaming toothlessly. The flower wreath I wove for her minutes ago was perched lopsidedly on her little head. Just then, something across the lawn seemed to beckon to me, and I cannot remember what. Only that I inexplicably got up, gently disentangling myself from the younger children and pranced onto the pavement leading to the playground. The tiny bells lining my ankles jingled as my bare feet skipped off the cement. As I was about to round a corner, I heard my name from across the lawn and swiveled my head to identify the caller and - Oops! I crashed into a stranger, and caused her to drop her pink-cased iPhone. She was petite and blonde, with large, fierce eyes as gray as thunderclouds. Despite the stifling heat, she was dressed in unrelenting black jeans with a jagged tear across one knee, a simple gray tank top, and shiny black… Pumps? She must be A Teenager. Which would’ve explained how I didn’t already know her. My face automatically exploded into a cheery smile as I prattled off apologies for my klutziness. But she simply laughed and introduces herself. Keira Clyborne. She and her family had actually moved in earlier that day from Minnesota and… She was going to be in Seventh Grade with me in the fall?!

Sighing, I slump back on the freshly fallen snow, bracing my head in the crook of my elbow, and squint up at the milky sky, pierced by spindly boughs. A few weeks later, the two of us were inseparable, and each day ended with a new story to covet.

August 2012

“And at last I see the light/And it's like the fog has lifted/And at last I see the light/And it's like the sky is new…” we sang - very off-key - hands clasped as we spun and twirled around in the lawn, with her phone nestled between blades of grass as the Disney song continued to float out of its tinny speakers. We whirled and collapsed on the soft bed of green, my skirt splayed around us. A few feet away, pearls of condensation trickled down the sides of Mrs. Clyborne’s now-empty wine glasses, trapping drops of light, a perfect chiaroscuro of gold swirled with silver. The taste of its contents lingered on my lips - the heap of ice cream, chocolate syrup, topped with a mountain of whipped cream that we had gorged ourselves in for ‘dinner’, with our feet dangling in the apartment pool. Her hair gleamed as if doused in liquid moonlight as we fell back, the strands entwining with my own raven tresses to form a halo of light and dark about our brows as we gazed up at the sky.

The girl without a care in the world who cared too much for the girl with the weight of her world bearing down on her.

A summer breeze picked up and cocooned us in its comforting warmth, caressing my face as it fluttered past. I inhaled deeply, relishing in the feel of the night, the song, the wind, the crickets, the feeling of the ground beneath me as we drifted, buoyed by dreams. We laid there humming along and whispering about our hopes and planning grand escapades. Keira and Sahana. The Queen of the Universe and the Faerie Princess. The sky was a quilt of deep cobalt and indigo, stippled by constellations twinkling down on the two wisps of girls, who were awash in the glow of the distant lantern lights, and utterly alive with possibility.

She came back to visit. Once. We were back in this very spot before we parted, this time for good. But her last words seem to echo in the wind as it sweeps past.

“If you look up at the sky, just as we are right this moment, even if I’m not physically next to you, chances are I am somewhere looking up at the same sky - and we will remember this, and each other - and how much I love you.”