Sunburn

As he sat on the wooden steps of his back porch, letting the morning’s orange sunrise splash across his weathered face, a feeling of déjà vu came over him. He had seen this before, sometime, somewhere, exactly the same yet not the same at all. He did not let this sensation disturb him, but rather he reveled in it. He basked in the comfort the sense gave him, and he leaned back. He hadn’t felt this much at peace since he had been moved here, when his memories had begun anew, with naught but a safe, and the words of the officer in his ears, not to open the box until he felt the time was right.
That had been many years ago.

A flash of bright orange sunlight streaming through branches swaying lightly.

He sat up sharply. This time it was not déjà vu; it was memory – from his lost life! Something long forgotten, something he wished he could have back. He lay down, closed his eyes, and tried to control his rapidly increasing heart rate. A few minutes of silence, interrupted only by birds singing, and crickets chirruping, and the steadying breaths of the man.

Bright orange sunlight streamed through trees; leaving orange patches on the green lawn as the young man took in his surroundings. He was filled with joy, optimism, barely controlled calm and most of all, a burning love. He smiled as he recalled the previous night, putting the ring on her finger…

The rest of the memory faded into the vivid light. He felt slightly winded; how could he have felt such love, been engaged, and have no apparent knowledge of it. He tried to recreate his fiancé’s face, but found himself unable.

“This is it,” he thought. The time felt right, this has got to be it, the time to open the safe. His heart started pounding as his body caught up with his mind. He started shaking, in anticipation, anger and fear. He went to the cupboard he knew contained the safe key.

He was unable to keep steady in his attempt to open the safe. He tried using both hands, and the key went in. He took a deep breath, and turned, hearing it click into place. The door slowly opened of its own accord, the hinges moved as if oiled recently. Inside was an envelope yellowing with age.

It was addressed to him. It was his own handwriting.
The seal had already been broken. Had he opened it before? As he pulled out the paper within it, a smaller piece of paper fell from the envelope. He picked it up. It was written in his own hand, containing only three words.

I am sorry

That didn’t make sense at all. He was now confused, and more than a little curious as to the truth of his own past. He set down his note, and opened the larger folded paper. It too was addressed to him, the handwriting eerily familiar, yet he could not place it.

"I’m missing you already! It’s only been three days since we saw each other, but it feels like an eternity!"

A clear thought floated to the surface of his consciousness – it was from his fiancé, a few years before they became engaged.

"I guess we can manage two more weeks till I get back, right? So far the family’s been good. It’s nice to meet all the cousins and aunts and uncles that I haven’t seen since the last reunion. It makes for interesting stories, and I’ve already got a few juicy ones stored that I’m sure you’d be interested in!"

The rest of the letter continued in a similar train of thought, and caused him to feel a slew of emotions rise, and memories to almost surface, surely as the time he had first read it. He smiled wanly as he read on. How could he have forgotten something so beautiful? He choked up on the last lines:

"I love you,
Megan"

He wiped at the tears forming in his eyes, both of anger and sadness. How could he be deprived of such a thing? How could he be deprived of a love he had?
Memories danced tantalizingly, just out of reach.

He wondered how his own note related to this, other than with leaving him no answers to his many questions. He stared at her letter, Megan’s letter, trying to take in all the details, the neat hand, the tendency to give a tail to the 'a's, and elongate the lines of the 't's, the slight smudging of ink where her hand must have brushed, and the way she had written “I love you”.

He tried again to remember what she looked like, but that, like all the other memories he knew were in uproar, was avoiding him. He looked to close the safe door, when he noticed a piece of card on the bottom of it. He picked it up. There was a date on it, a year or two before he’d arrived at this house, and a name – Megan.

He turned it gently in his hands. It was a sepia photograph of a beautiful, compelling woman. Megan. His breath hitched. As he looked at her face, stared into her gorgeous eyes, his heart felt suddenly desperate, and the memories arrived in torrents.

A flash of a hospital room, being strapped to a chair, an empty room, needles, precision knives, tubes and wires, a mound of earth, medical equipment of the sort to drive the bravest men away, blood, crying faces.

As the memories flooded him, he felt the emotions of the memories rushing through him, despair, anger, loss – complete and total loss, guilt, fear, depression, disgust, horror and suffering. So many emotions he had never felt so close together and in such intensity as now, he felt as if his head would cave in or fracture.

With a pounding headache, he realized what had happened, the true horror of his past and why it had been kept hidden. Why he had said he was sorry and why the emotions were so intense.

He had gone mad. Gone mad with guilt, grief, and immense suffering. He had himself committed to a mental institution. He couldn’t live with himself, not after what happened, not after all that he lived for had been taken away from him, in one foul and bloody swoop.

He had found some measure of comfort that the procedure he would endure would erase his memories up till that point, so he wouldn’t have to think about what had happened. But for this he felt guilt at not being able to remember his love, so he wrote a note for himself, put it along with a letter from Megan - her first to him, and a photo of her. He told the hospital orderly what he wanted done with it, and hope that they would respect his wishes.

But now, he had those memories, they were his again, but he wished fervently that they weren’t. Disgust, a cold fear and wave of despair fell over him, as if it had occurred yesterday, or even today.

He smiled as he recalled the previous night, putting the ring on her finger.
He thought that his life was complete; he had money, a house but most importantly, a beautiful, loving fiancé. Life couldn’t get any better.
A few hours later he set out to meet her for breakfast. He got no answer at the door. Finding the spare key, he let himself inside.

He immediately noticed the stillness in the air, the curtains all still closed. He cautiously made his way through the rooms. He gasped in shock when he entered her bedroom, and gagged at the smell. The walls were painted blood red, Megan lying in a pool of her own blood, hardly recognizable, engagement ring still on her finger.

He let out an inhuman scream of anguish as he dove to her side.
She couldn’t be dead, not his Megan!
He tried to find a pulse, “It’s going to be alright, please. Hold on, Megan! Hold on!” He struggled in vain, finding no sign of life, other than that flowing out of her.
His body became racked with sobs as the truth set in, as he realized that she could not be saved. Someone had found it appropriate to steal her breath, and in such a brutal manner.

It was hours later when the police pried the emotional man from his fiancé’s mutilated body. Her death was something he would never understand, so needless. So senseless. So cruel. It was all he had, now gone.

He was still looking at her picture, through his tears as he remembered her, when he saw at the bottom of the picture was a caption. His tears redoubled their efforts as he saw the words were the same she’d used to agree to his proposal.

Forever Yours