They tell me I have a gift.

If you ask my personal opinion, I wouldn’t agree but what is the point of arguing right? They don’t know the whole story. You guys can be the judges of that after you hear the story, my story. The story of how I came to be someone with unwavering and unforgettable mind.

Growing up, they told me I have an eidetic memory. People are more familiar with the term photographic memory.

I will admit I have played around with that fact. It is true and kind of understandable where they are coming from to conclude that I have that kind of memory.

I do remember things in every last down detail and sequences they occurred. Extremely small details most people don’t even notice let alone remember them.

Exact words that were exchanged in a conversation, actions that took place and don’t seem very significant but are the base for all the continuous actions that occur after, emotional displays on people’s facial expressions and object at their exact spot when certain situations unfold, it is my ability to notice them in a sort of photographic display in my head. I also believe that is where the term came out.

But that is not my secret.

My secret is I have a very temporary memory.

Don’t be confused because really, it isn’t that confusing.

When I do remember things they are very detailed but most of the time those memories last few days. To be exact, six days. After that they sort of fall deep. As if they are memories from my childhood or they are decades long. Blurred and faded if I don’t meet the person those actions occurred with often.

Otherwise they get lost and so I need certain memories, some sort of a key to bring them back to surface.

In most of my lost memories though, I don’t find that key. I believe that, that key is mostly the main reason why that action occurred. If I am unable to find that then the memory stays blurred.

At other times though in a very rare occasions some lost memories get pulled up to the surface and they get real and clear if I remember one impactful image of that certain time. For instance a messy hair that left me confused why it was made the way it was when I first got into middle school or a key holder that was too big for the hand in one supermarket.

Those two things were the only times I remembered the occasion by them.

I told you it is very rare.

For her, it was her red dress and greenish eyes.

She was the third.

However I don’t forget people but if I don’t meet them for while, how I met them and most of the memories associated with them get blurred. I don’t forget who I am or what I like or what I don’t like but the reason behind why remains in the dark. I don’t forget where my school is or which teacher teaches what but my recollection on how I did on certain quizzes and exams are in haze.

From all of that you can imagine how tiring my life is. I feel the emotions, I know the people yet how or why are the questions that always linger in the back of my head if I don’t stay in touch.

An illusion I don’t seem to be able to figure out.

And so that’s why I write. The images and reasons and all the ordinary and extra ordinary things in my daily life, I write. In details. In hopes if something happens and those memories gets buried, the writing could be some sort of a key.

For someone whose memories are brilliant for six days and a blur after those days and nothing but some special keys that can bring them up to the conscious part of the brain, writing is the only way to live.

And so I wrote yesterday. And the day before. and the day before that and the day before the two days and then a week before and then week before that and a month before. And the month before that.

Then, was the start of summer break.

When I met her.

“Jonah, come down and bring the mails from outside!” mom had shouted at me which was why I went outside without changing my pyjamas and opened the mail box.

Not wanting to stay outside as ridiculous as I was looking with no shoes, I hurried back inside with everything I found in the mail box in my hands. I had put the mails and a sort of box which I didn’t bother turning and looking from and to whom it was sent to, on the dining table and was getting back to my room when mom called for me again.

“You have a letter Jonah. And seemingly a present too.” Mom had smiled while my older brother snickered. That was his trade mark.

I wasn’t expecting neither her letter nor my journal which I didn’t have a recollection of losing at the time.

I took the letter and the box that was wrapped poorly from my mother and went upstairs.

As soon as I closed the door behind me I looked to the letter. There was no address or name to indicate who wrote it on the front. I ripped it open.

Hey Jonah how are you doing? That is sort of an ironical question guessing by the time you have received this I am nothing but a blurred memory, that is if I am even lucky.

It is me Aurora, the girl whom you bumped into in Saint George Hospital two months ago. The one who was running away. The girl with a red dress who winked at you and told you to stay quiet and left you, running.

That is all she had to say and I remembered right then and there.

That had never happened before. Only with her.

All she had to do was bring up her red dress and her memories were brought up to the surface. Despite how little those memories were.

 I hope by now you remember me, even if it is in such a haze, I will be quite satisfied with it.

But in case you don’t and I have only managed to send back your journal just now, I will try to create the key to bring me back to the surface.

I am no writer compared to you, I will admit. You are not just a writer; you seem to have more of a skill to draw. Including each and every detail. I will have to apologize for reading your journal but before that, there are things to say first.

The day we bumped in to each other, you were wearing a blue-black hoodie and faded, sky blue jeans. You had your head down and from what I had read you were going to visit your aunt who was in hospital because she had a . Me, on the other hand, was running away from the suffocating ward I had called my room for five months.

My mother was back at home to change clothes and my father had went out to bring me water I so kindly had requested of. I was wearing a red dress and white snickers to help me run which was provided by my sister. She was the best.

I was looking to my back and you were looking to the ground. We bumped and I staggered trying to gain back my balance. You held my arms and studded me. In gratitude, I smiled yet with your blank poker face you chose to remain silent. You just looked at me without breaking a glance and so I smirked. You see, I was used to the attention and I had enjoyed it. Since I was a little girl, everyone used to comment about my eyes, my jade eyes as I call them. And then you cleared your throat and shook your head. You opened your mouth to say something to which I had beaten you first. I said I have to go before you uttered anything.

I winked at you and told you to hush before laughing silently and leaving you there.

Four days after, we met again. In the same way. Bumped into each other, I was getting back to my room in the hospital and you were going out of the hospital.

I was wearing a grey dress and a phone in the hand and you were wearing a green shirt with a black jacket and jeans.

The moment you saw me, I knew you had recognized me in the way your eyes twinkled which was why I had said hi. You in your silent way replied and I laughed. You seemed confused by my sudden laughter, looked back at me before asking me why I am laughing and I answered, “You sort of pull me.”

That was the truth. You did. But I hadn’t expected to find your journal and who you are later on. That was, I imagine, fate playing with me or you or with the both of us.

My answer, I thought, sort of pushed you away from me. Like, I was flirting with you.

I wasn’t, I had simply opted to tell you frankly why I was laughing.

But contrary to what I was thinking you would do, you smiled and walked away. I only realized why after a few days.

After you left, I turned around and was about to go back when I saw your journal on the floor. I realized right away it had fallen out of your bag when we bumped so I ran back to the hospital door to give it to you, yet you were nowhere to be found.

You had already left.

I had waited days after that but I couldn’t find you and my curiosity got the best of me and so I opened your journal.

Now I don’t have any excuse to what I had done, opening something like your journal. For you, I believe it is more than that. Since it is the record of every single thing that occurred in your life so without giving any reasons I will simply apologize. It wasn’t something I could just open and read, therefore I am sorry.

I read your journal for three days straight. I didn’t leave my hospital room to which I imagine was a relief for Sarah. She is my sister. When she realized I wasn’t going to stay still in the hospital room like the doctors told me to do and no matter what my parents said I wouldn’t change my mind, I guess she came to the conclusion ‘I will help you get out of this room once in a while and you won’t try to do stupid things outside.’ , resulting in last month’s deal, to which of course without batting my eyelash I have agreed upon. It is a deal I won’t get from anyone in my position.

You probably are wondering right now what my position exactly is. To be frank there is no less awkward or less pitiful way to say this than I am a dying girl with three or less months to go.

I have leukaemia and by the time I was diagnosed with it, it had already gotten to the level of being incurable. But now that I think about it, I don’t think that word means the same as for your parents and everyone else’s. Or maybe just my parents’.

I was diagnosed seven months ago, and my parents had taken me to every possible treatment there is. The fact their daughter is dying didn’t sink in until five months ago and I saw my mother breaking down in the hospital cafeteria in the city we have travelled for four hours to get to. After that we came back home and got decided I stay in the hospital nearby. I didn’t like that idea.

If I am going to die anyways whether I stay here or not, I didn’t see the point of being confined to one room and die first out of boredom. Yet my parents put their foot down and I didn’t want to give them more grief other than leaving them behind first. And so I agreed to stay at the hospital and I sneak out whenever I feel frustrated.

My parents know me. That I leave my room more often than their liking but one good thing about dying is your parents go easy on you.

But you, Jonah you, after reading how you live and how you get frustrated with yourself and your memories, I wished our encounter was more than two bumping incidents. If I had met you before I got sick, perhaps it might have been different for both of us. However we are two very different people. We went to the same school yet run in different crowds. I am restless and always moving, doing something, and you, I imagine, would be able to stay on one particular thing for long hours. You, I imagine, might have that patience.

Maybe I might not have helped you in any way but you, I believe, might have had a different outlook in the world I live in, on the obstacle I was faced with, dying.

Perhaps we all may not have a different perspective when it comes to death, that it is all the same. Destruction. Decay. Puff, back to where we came from. But in life you meet some people who you just know, people you would be a better person with. And you Jonah, how you see life, in the calmest way possible, in the most poetic way possible, I think, Jonah, you would make all the people who are with you better.

That is why I wanted to write to you.

To tell you just that.

While I was reading your journal, I saw how you not being able to remember as much as other people affects you. Yet I don’t think you realize you are far much better at writing than other people, any other people I have met in this short life of mine. Your six day brilliant memory can beat all the other days. Because I have seen lots of people who can write and talk well but none of them compares to your writing. Yours is more mesmerizing than you could ever imagine and I wish you would realize that.

In life, they say we all have one miracle that is granted for us. If you don’t believe in miracles you can call it luck. An incredibly lucky day. We all have one.

I have prayed to see that miracle before I die. My miracle that was granted for me. I had wished it would maybe save me from dying. But now I know for sure I am dying and there is nothing I actually want for myself that I could use that miracle on. So now if there really is something as a miracle or luck as extraordinary as it can get, I want to use that on you, Jonah. I pray my miracle become yours.

The other reason I wrote this letter is after you lost your journal and didn’t come back, I had some difficulty tracking you down. But I did find you and by the time you receive this letter, I would have been missing for two weeks. I am running away as I can’t be strong anymore. And my family probably have looked for me everywhere.

I feel bad I have taken away two weeks of their dying daughter but I needed these weeks. I was scared as the time approached and I was growing weak. And I had places I wanted to see the last time and foods I wanted to eat regardless of how it could affect me.

But I want you to tell my parents Mr. and Mrs. Colin that I am by the fountain so come. They will know it. I am not dead, don’t worry. I probably still have a few weeks.

Before finishing the letter I hurried down the stairs and started calling out to my mom. Aurora was the girl who was on the newspaper few days ago. Mom, confused by my rushed voice, came out of the kitchen, her apron still on, hurried to me wondering what I had on my hands.

And Jonah, you are great. You are good. Believe that!

But you know what’s funny? I call you a writer, yet I managed to write two pages with this state I am in.

Who is really the writer, huh?

 

 

---

 A/N

After watching Goblin, I was sad for days and I couldn’t shake off the sadness off me so I thought, write it out. Write two sad stories. Really sad stories. Those two stories I had in my mind are this and Always. What I had in mind was to make two characters feel sadness that was beyond their age but as I wrote on I realized, what is the point in that, right? We already feel that in real life.

Comparatively, this one shot is rather short. But I have always liked a story that is told through a letter. I don’t know why but I have always found it to be sincere in a way I can’t quite explain. Yes I have written one already and here it is again.

I believe this fiction just builds up to tell one statement. What all I wanted to say.

And Jonah, you are great. You are good. Believe that!

And then because of that, it comes across a miracle, a miracle we all want to feel or see at least once in our lives.