Broken Retrospective

It was a day just like any other, or night? No, it was definitely an evening I am sure of that. I was having a barbecue with my girl in the back garden of the house. After some food and a beer, the mellow music in the background swayed us to spill the memories of the past. We reminiscing about collective moments and things we never told each other, the time flew by and the calm night sky was covered by a warm blanket of stars which of some fell to their doom leaving a trail for the swift eyes to follow. Gazing the tiny shimmers took us what felt like an eternity, yet an eternity you are willing to endure just for the few precious moments. More time passed and now the warm blankets were covering our bodies as well.

Before we realized we couldn’t think of more wishes for every star that has fallen so we were repeating the wishes by now, not that it matters as I always have one wish every time I see a shooting star. Then we noticed one of the shooting stars burn brighter and growing larger, clearly it was heading directly our way.

“What is that?” asked my girlfriend.

“I don’t know, an asteroid” I laughed.

“Don’t say that, wait, is it green?” she replied

“What the hell? it is glowing green, why is it not burning out yet?”

“Wish I knew, shit it hurts my eyes, I’ll try to take a picture” she quickly exclaimed with audible pain in her voice, she turned her head to locate her phone, and then something happened that she was lucky to miss.

The green light from the orb pulsed a bit brighter than it already was, this thing pulsed and I went numb, no, not numb, paralysed. Next was the pain, deep and sharp as if someone pushed a dozen of drills into my head at the same time. I was sitting there as if on a chair of tortures and yet the whole world around me was oblivious to my pain. The green light pulsed again and a sound came that startled my already freaked out mind. Imagine if some kind of hellish machine could roar and put that on full blast in your ears and you should be close to what I heard. Then the pain for a split second intensified even more just to immediately ease up. To my surprise, my memories started emerging and flashing in front of me.

I remembered talking to my friend Greg at work last week, he said ‘Just get it done so we can go home’. I saw parents holding hands, children playing in the schoolyard, my only friend in school grabbing me from behind ‘Where were you!’. I saw clips of documentaries I watched, animals, technology, wars, movies, extracts from books. I saw my friend Lucy saying ‘Yes!’ after I asked her to go to prom with me.

Why am I remembering it all? what is going on why can’t I fucking move? Another roar, the pain rose and so did the speed of flashing memories. Is that green thing going through my memories?

Lucy ‘Yes!’, what the f… I don’t know if I forced my mind or voice to push out ‘Hello can you talk?’ what am I doing I thought, it’s just a light. Roar and my teacher saying ‘Hello‘ to class then Lucy ‘Yes!’. I froze even though I seemed to be in some kind of limbo already. What do you want? was the next question I produced in my mind but there was no voice in my head now, I just felt immense hunger despite I just ate, or is that what this intruder of my mind is feeling. ‘Are you hungry?’ I thought, Lucy ‘Yes!’ ‘

‘What do you eat?’ it was a rapid fire of images, lightning strikes, volcanos exploding, atomic bombs going off, various projectiles hitting the target. Then another roar and more images, stars imploding, planets whithering like plants, strange fires and explosions, but I have never seen these thing meaning these must be the memories of the orb. I was screaming in my head ‘Leave me the fuck alone!’ but I was only struck by a swift ‘NO!‘ of my mother when she scolded me as a child. ‘What do you want from me?’ I knew it want’s energy and lots of it but I didn’t know what I have to do with it, I just saw a map then a compass and video a plant sprouting to life thanks to the sun. Shit the sun, is that what it wants? but would it no see it coming here? I could only hope this thing didn’t catch that thought but I was wrong. A vision of the sun burning right in front of me was presented, then my mother but with Lucys voice saying ‘YES!’

Not knowing what it is I took a gamble and presumed it has completely missed our sun so I asked ‘How do you travel’ then I saw tens of planets we don’t learn about in school, one planet than a blink and another then blink and another. Thus I presumed it just teleports. The exploding surface of the sun and my friend ‘Where?’ Stop I am not gonna tell you shouting in my thoughts. ‘Where?!’ it kept repeating it over and over but then the voiced and faces started to mix it was my mother, teacher, friends all asking where in the same demanding tone. I resisted as much as I could not to think of the solar system and that’s when it stopped asking the single question and the drilling pain came back like a kick to the face. Flashes of school classes and tv documentaries until a clear layout of our solar system was in front of me and the pain stopped and one last memory surfaced that was equally painful of whom which I forgot about until now, it was my father saying ‘You are a pathetic fool.’

The green orb shot off and the pain subsided, I let out a gasp of exhaustion and pain. My girlfriend finally grabbed the camera and turned back to where the light was.

“Wha.. where is it? I only turned for two seconds. And why are you so pale all of a sudden?”

My memories and will are broken, I remember my past but the places and faces are all wrong, twisted. I remeber talking with my mother at work last week and my friend scolding me when I was a child, but I know he is younger than me damn it. Yet what’s worse I am worried that this night might be the longest the earth has seen and that it might be my fault too.

. .