Patrick Ryan
Corporeal Memory by Patrick Ryan
Burning in the darkness a firefly darts and skips along the path ahead of me. I have never seen a firefly out this far before in these woods. I am lost. The familiar crunch of the wood chip path under my feet no longer echoes in the darkness. It doesn’t really matter, because I am walking, and it does not matter where, as long as I find the lake. This is the way things began so many years ago. Time has erased and dulled each fantastic moment in my life, but it cannot take away the memory of pain, no matter how faint. That brief moment is so vivid for me; it is almost as if I only existed for those few hours at that summer camp five summers ago.
Marlena and I were lost in these woods years ago. Holding hands in the darkness and tripping clumsily. Maybe we were in love, I’m not really sure. Whispering in the darkness to each other because a normal voice just didn’t seem to fit the world we had entered. It’s so impossible to describe her, because she was me, and I was Marlena. She told me that night that she had discovered me looking out the window late at night from the girl’s camp. I was sitting at the edge of a clearing just within the camp light’s grasp. She said that I looked like something out of a dream, some shabby wisp of thought and hope that had been forgotten by others. Not that I looked dreamy, but that I looked like I was made of a dream, out of something not inherently of this world. It was funny to hear how she had watched me quizzically for a long time, before descending from her bunk. While all the other girls slept, she stole out to meet me. And I’m not sure why.
I’m still walking tonight, and I’m still not quite sure why. My mind is cloudy, except for a vague sense of sadness and regret. Specific details seem just out of my grasp, terrible feelings remain, but what exactly happened is not clear to me. But I feel that tonight’s purpose is to trigger that memory which now lies just outside my grasp. What happened has been with me for so long. The pain of a great loss is there within me, but I don’t remember how it got there. I want to shake it off, to wring it from my consciousness, but I can’t for some reason. I will find the lake soon. Somehow this will end tonight, and I will remember.
Now I suddenly recall Marlena taking my hand as we walked through the forest. She stopped and pressed it to her. “Nothing comes easily to me, and you should know why you are here. I don’t know these woods and I need comfort tonight. Ever since my parents died, the world has not held much joy for me. I used to be so happy. Now everything I’ve lived for is gone from me. My aunt and uncle put me in this camp to cheer me up, but it will never help. I don’t want to be here anymore. I am glad you are here with me. I’m scared of dying, of going away. But I don’t belong. We’re the same that way; we don’t belong in this world.”
I shuddered.
“Marlena, why can’t I help you? I’ve only just met you, and yet you have filled this whole week with happiness and life for me. How can you just throw yourself away? I’ll stop you.”
“No, you won’t stop me, because you know me too well. You know that I don’t belong here, and you know that I’m only suffering now. I need you to remember me as I was, happy and carefree and full of imagination. I can see the good in you, you remind me of that happiness. Promise me you’ll remember me.”
“How can I do that? Marlena, all I’m going to remember is pain.”
The memory shifts out of focus, and I am frustratingly left back on the trail again, alone, and in darkness. Seeing a grove of redwoods before me, I know that this is the same place as before. This is the same lake, and the memories begin to grip me. I remember Marlena whispering to me not to be sad all the time. She told me to love the life that I had been given. Marlena was breathing life into me, picking me up from sadness, and recreating me each moment. I remember asking her why she wanted to walk with me, and she said because she had seen me in a dream once and that brought her comfort. I never had heard anything so beautiful; it was like she had illuminated my life.
A step behind the grove of redwoods, and I am at the side of the lake. Pinecones litter the rocky beach, trees that might have grown. The memories now start to flood into me, but I don’t understand why this place has triggered them. Then Marlena is there beside me, as bright as the dawn and just as fleeting. Laughing and holding my hand and pulling me toward the water, but just as I am about to go in, I let go of her hand. She swims out a great distance from the shore, and then she disappears underneath the surface. The rocks tied to her waist have pulled her under. Just like it happened before.
Minutes in agony go by but she does not return to the surface. The surface of the lake is black. I cannot see her anywhere, but fear makes me hold back from the water. I can’t swim. There is no one around who can help, but I look around me in desperation anyway, for someone. Finally, fear is nothing compared to my anguish. I dive into the water just a few feet in and sputtering and coughing, come to the surface. I’m trying desperately to see into the water, but I can’t find her, and so I stand waist deep in the water, and I cry. I walk back into shore, and sink down to my knees. Memory and reality are indistinguishable at this moment because the feeling is so powerfully etched upon me. And now I know why I wanted to find the lake and its black water: to wash me away.
The firefly from the trail flies just above my head and its light flickers in the darkness. The water shimmers like a mirror in the firefly’s glow. Just enough light is cast from the firefly and the moon that I can see my reflection in the water, and I can see that now I am smiling. Even now I can smile, and it is enough. There is no need to go further into the water.
I could see the firefly glimmering and flying beside me now. I walk back up the beach and onto the path. Somehow I know it is over. Wherever she is, I know I have done what she asked. I remember her, not for the pain, but for all the beauty, the memories, the imagination that she had. I can see her glimmering and smiling, lighting up the whole forest. It is time to leave, because I can do no more for her, and she can do no more for me. No more than a person who leaves can do for a reflection that is left behind in the mirror.