Memories are weird. The fact that I can forget things that have happened to me and not remember them when they’re pointed out is disconcerting, to say the least. Where do my thoughts go when I’m no longer having them? How is it that swaths of my past can just disappear?

Dreams drift off shortly after you’ve had them; I get that, I’m used to it. But memories ought to stay put, pinned like butterflies to cards, ready for viewing and indexing and scrutiny.

Not to be a downer, but how is it that someday, everything inside my head will just vanish altogether? I better start writing it down now, before I forget.

Anyway, here’s a drabble.

OBLIVION

(Noun: From Latin oblivionem for “forgetfulness, something forgotten”)

The state of forgetfulness or of being completely forgotten, or a permanent unconsciousness after death.

She drinks the water. It’s cold and clear on her tongue and something else, a word she can’t quite catch, like she spies it through trees and feels its eyes on her but just when she sees movement it darts away. Like candy, she thinks, like honey, like the smell of lilacs and the feeling of brushing hands with someone who makes your heart hurt.

She sits on the shore and the water laps at her bare feet. It’s peaceful here. Quiet. Her thoughts slow. It’s easier this way, to sit in the dark and wait to be swallowed up.