This is a rather strange thing that I am going to relate to you, or at least try to, anyway. When I was a boy, I developed amnesia and the spell lasted so long that a whole year is gone from my life. When I did recover, everything was just as it was, as far as I could tell, and so I lived a simple, normal life.
I grew up, got married, had kids and bought a house. You know, the usual. Then something rather odd happened. I started seeing a strange, little boy, gallivanting about my neighborhood. At the start, he stayed very far away, but little by little, he made his way closer. He seems familiar and I can't understand why. Then one day, it strikes me like lightning, it's me! The way I was as a little boy.
At first, I don't believe it. After all, how could it be possible? But no matter how many times I reason it out, there he is, like a phantom, or some such thing. But he does not behave like an apparition. He romps, plays and runs, just like a little kid. After all, he is, for all intents and purposes, a little boy who loves to play. So, I've taken to calling him Stevie. Because that is what they used to call me, when I was his age.
It became very clear early on that no one else can see Stevie but me and more than once, my observations of this invisible person, caused a few wary glances from the neighbors. I thought about seeing a doctor, but the truth is, I like Stevie and I don't want to be rid of him. There was even an occasion when he approached me, and made physical contact for the first time.
I was sitting on the porch swing when I caught sight of the apparition coming toward me. He stopped directly in front of me with a serious look on his face. "It's coming," he said as he placed a hand on my shoulder. "The thing that made us forget. The terrible thing." Slowly, he withdrew his hand as he stepped backward, regarding me with somber eyes, while mine remained as big as dinner plates. In this way we remained locked for an indeterminate amount of time.
Stevie was the first to break from the gaze and turned on his heel as he walked down the steps and into the midst of my children, where he joined in the play, as though nothing had happened. In the meantime, I remained frozen in my seat, but my stupor didn't last long and gradually, I returned to reality. After which, I rose from my seat and walked to the porch railing.
With my head still in a haze, I watched my children busy with play. They flashed me a smile and I returned it, carefully hiding my unease. I didn't want them to know the raging torrent of questions my mind had become. All of which revolved around what kind of incident could possibly have such an effect on so little a boy?
I was pondering over this conundrum when a hand on my shoulder silenced my raging thoughts. It was my wife, Carmelita, my true anchor to this life. She smiled at me and I smiled back, still shielding my anxieties. After which, she sat down beside me and we both watched the children play.
Slowly, my thoughts drifted from Stevie and settled on my significant other. I had been so wrapped up in myself, that I had completely forgotten about her. What must she be thinking? Had she noticed my absentmindedness? Had she seen me following a phantom? If she had, she did not let on.
Several days later, I'm back to sitting on the porch swing, sipping an iced tea, while I watch Stevie and my little ones playing in the sandbox. Suddenly, the phantasmal child stops moving and slowly stands up, flashing me a look of complete terror before dashing toward the side yard and out of sight.
I hurry to the other side of the porch and am just able to see him disappear into the backyard. A sweat starts to break out, all over my body. I need to know what the terrified boy is up to, but I can't leave my kids. I try to ignore the strange occurrence and focus only on my offspring, but my eyes simply will not stop roaming toward the backyard.
I'm in luck, my neighbor, Georgina, has come outside with her own kids, who make a beeline for the sandbox and my own children. They all immediately engage in rowdy play, while Georgina joins me on the porch. We exchange pleasantries while we watch the children. Then it dawns on me. I turn to my porch companion and ask if she wouldn't mind watching the kids, while I tend to a matter in the backyard.
She agrees, there's no reason not to. I thank her and hasten my steps to the backyard, opening the gate to let me inside. I search for my miniscule doppelganger all over the place, but I can't find Stevie. I start to get tense and nearly call out to him, but it wouldn't have been prudent, since I'm the only one who can hear, or see him.
I am well on my way to panicking, when I recall a crucial detail. I had forgotten the narrow corridor between the back of the garage and fence. It used to be my favorite hiding place and it's here that I find my ghostly counterpart. He's squat down with his hands over his ears, mimicking the fetal position. Now, I'm really scared. There is only one reason I ever used that position.
You see, my parents didn't always get along and the fights they used to have were terrible, to say the least. I tried everything I could to get through to them about how I felt and how I wished they would be nicer to each other, but nothing worked. So, whenever they started, I would stop whatever I was doing and assume that position.
The first time they found me like that, they realized they needed to make some changes. It was a long and arduous process, but eventually, they stopped fighting each other, at least when I was around, and I never assumed that position again, at least, I thought I didn't. But then, why was Stevie in the position when I had stopped using it, way before my amnesia?
The only other time I would have used that position was whenever I was absolutely terrified, but I could not recall any other event that would so scare me. What's more, I was never afraid in my secret place. At least, not so far as I knew, as I was completely isolated from the outside world and thus, felt completely safe.
Whatever's scaring Stevie is something that had followed him to the special, safe spot. I approach and place my hand on the trembling boy's shoulder. His head shoots upward, his eyes flowing with tears. He jumps up and hugs me. Whatever had scared him was gone. I asked him, but he wouldn't tell me, couldn't tell me. That made me really scared.
Days go by with no change. Stevie carries on playing with my children, though they do not see him, and nothing unusual transpires. I'm starting to wonder when the event is to occur. I keep my eye on the hiding place, but I never see anything out of the ordinary. I really want this ordeal to be over with.
Then it occurs to me, what happens to Stevie once it's over? Will he still be around? Will I still be able to talk with him? Or should I have to take a page from all the old children's stories, leave behind all the wonderful trappings of youth and truly grow up, all while I live the hum-drum life of an adult?
But I'm not ready to be an adult. I like being a grown up kid. I like playing with my kids and just being a kid myself. It gets me wondering about the event that transpired, the one that gave me amnesia. I start to wonder whether it was an outside force that made me forget, or if I somehow induced it in myself. This adds a darker shade to my wonderings.
Because if that is the case, do I even want to know? The answer makes me nervous, but I can't deny that I'm still curious, even though my curiosity is borne of caution. I need to avoid the event. How else can I ensure that Stevie will stick around? How else am I to know that I will stay a child? The simple truth is, I need to be me. I am not going to be anyone else.
I wish that my decision had been the end of the matter. But the truth is, it's keeping me up at night, tossing and turning before surrendering to my insomnia. And it is the only thing that I really give any thought to. In fact, more than once do I find myself involved in an activity feeling as though I had just waken from a long sleep.
But despite all this, my life goes on as normal. And I never catch my loved ones giving me a sideways glance. Whatever I'm doing, I am still able to keep up appearances, though I don't know how. Stevie is my life, and I'm loathe to let him go. As such, I follow him whenever I can, even up to the attic, where I find him standing at the far window, looking off at the setting sun.
"The time has come," he speaks without moving his head.
I cross the floor and stop at the halfway point, where I freeze in place.
"Do you remember Chet?" Stevie carries on, his eyes glaring at the dipping ball of fire in the sky.
I can't speak, but I know who he's talking about. Chet had been a good friend. Not my best friend, but still pretty good. We had a falling out, but I don't remember it. In fact, he was gone from the neighborhood once my amnesia had worn off.
Stevie walks up to me and stares up into my blank face. "I know you don't remember," he says with words that seem to pull at my soul, leaving a hollow feeling inside. "But I'm going to show you the day that changed everything."
I stand stock still as I become entranced by the tiny eyes that seem to grow and pulsate, pulling me into a yawning abyss that resides within them.
"Stevie," I hear a voice call to me and struggle to recognize the person attached to it. "Are you awake yet?"
I find myself scrambling out of bed and heading directly for the railing that allows me to look down the spiraling staircase and to the woman at its foot. "Yeah ma?" I call aloud and my memory clicks.
"Your friend Chet is here," my mother informs me, her head craned to see me. "He wants to know if you want to go outside and play."
I don't even respond. I just jump into my play clothes and dash out the door.
All through the morning we lose ourselves to one form of imaginative play or other, till the afternoon sun chases us away into the cool shade of my secret place. Together, we sit and involve ourselves in idle chatter that's as engaging as it is inane. Not a single topic in our adolescent lives is left unspoken of.
Without warning, the conversation takes a serious turn. "I have something to show you," Chet breathes and I swear a dark shadow envelopes his face. "But it's a long distance away, so we'll have to take our bikes."
There's no form of debate, as my friend is two years my senior so I usually defer to his decision. And the whole ride over my mind is completely awash with all the possibilities that this little venture could possibly yield.
We draw to a halt just outside of Sedgwick's woods, an unofficial title rendered by the local populace, and park our bikes down the ravine that runs the length of the forest cutting it nearly in two. From here we walk down the steep incline before following the small stream that runs the length of the natural depression.
I've no idea exactly where we're going and Chet is completely silent with a look of extreme determination, despite my many questions. All at once, he comes to a halt, taking me by surprise. But I soon rally and follow the trail his eyes left me for me to follow, into a dark recess that seems to block out the light.
But the obscuring veil is pulled aside by the beam of a flashlight my friend is carrying as its circle of focus rings around the glazed over eyes and lolling tongue of a face that is downcast. I feel myself drawn by the strange sight that is both alluring and repulsive at the same time as I am pulled inch by inch closer.
"Do you see that?" I hear Chet ask, but am incapable of looking away. "That's what happens to us when we get old." He steps forward, intensifying the beam. "We just fall down one day and never get up." He turns the light on me. "Even you."
I stare through the glare at the body and find myself switching places with the deceased and the image terrifies me, even with my grown up sensibilities. I flash a look of concern toward Chet who wears an expression that is half determination as though this was all by design, and half aloof.
The next thing I know, I'm back in the attic looking down at Stevie. I feel a yawning chasm growing inside me and step backward in search of a proper seating, which I find in an old trunk and I sink low as my mind reels from my previous experience. I listen to the sound of tiny steps approaching and I right my head to see the apparition that awaits the return to my senses.
"Was that," I stumble to get the question out. "Was that really the event that had such an effect on me?"
"That was only the start," Stevie informs me, a dead look in his eyes. "Every time I closed my eyes, every time I dreamed, I saw that face." He takes a step forward. "Every time I looked in the mirror, it was his face that I saw." Another step forward. "But nothing reminded me of that event, in its entirety, then every time I saw Chet."
I'm shocked by what I am hearing, that something so simple could have so devastating an outcome. But then, death can have that effect no matter how subtle its approach. The dark specter in shabby rode and arcing blade does not belong in the lives of children. And I was taken aback by just how adult this tiny child was sounding.
"There was only one choice," Stevie carries on with words that send chills up my spine. "Forget. Forget all about the terrible eyes that creep into my dreams. Forget the light that cut through darkness, no matter how thick. Forget about the terrible things that creep their way into the mind."
I put my arms out, I want to comfort the mature boy who speaks with words he should not know, but something is holding me back. It's like my muscles have frozen in place, leaving me in an awkward position.
"One by one, all of the monsters were pushed down into the pit and locked away," Stevie continues, unfazed by my odd stance. "But there was one that yet remained. The one who started it all."
A massive weight falls upon my shoulders and drives me to my knees, while my mind reels from the implication. Chet had moved away, hadn't he? He was still alive, wasn't he? I look to the boy with cold eyes that seem to look deep into my soul and bores a hole right through my core.
"We did what we had to do. What-" Stevie presses before I cover my ears and shut my eyes tight.
I don't want to know, I just want to go back to the time when Stevie had just appeared. When I would lose myself to his carefree activities. Before the implication of something far more sinister living just beneath the surface.
I open my eyes, but keep my ears shut to any surrounding sound. I watch the innocent, little boy draw closer, his mouth ever moving, forming words I cannot hear, and do not wish to. And the closer he gets the more I feel a force pulling us together, until I absorb my younger self into my person.
It takes me awhile to recover from the bizarre occurrence and once I had, I wish I remained in the stupor, as the truth reveals itself one layer at a time. Little by little I am removed from the child I thought myself to be only a moment ago. All the while, the truth circles my brain like water going down the drain.
I hadn't contracted a case of amnesia as I previously surmised. Somehow, I had taken that part of myself, pulled it away and buried it deep within my inner self, where it would remain forever untouched by my ignorant brain. But somehow, I broke through the barriers and resurrected that long since dead aspect of myself.
But now, I'm stuck with the truth, such as it is, the whole unadulterated truth and I am left to deal with it, alone. And I understand what had Stevie so afraid in our secret place, what terrible thing had followed us to that sacred place. There simply is no hiding from myself. No getting away from that which festers inside.
The truth follows me wherever I go and sits next to me as I eat dinner with my family, pretending all the while that I'm interested in the conversation that I simply can't hear and even pretend to laugh. Hoping all the while, that if I faked it, if I was able to convince myself, it may yet come true.