All That Slipped Away

Everyone else has written something. I need to as well. They read their texts aloud. About different rooms from childhood. How they remember double curtains, the creak of a lift, and Polish bedtime stories. The writing course tutor has praised each one. There’s something worth highlighting in almost every memory. But I remember nothing. My literary piece reads like a manual. The room has walls and a ceiling but no furniture; the floor may be cork or carpeted. Everything is blank.

A crack of light slides in from the interior door. It travels in my direction. Am I meant to remember this, or is it an illusion? I go to close it. The ceiling begins at that very moment to press downward, without violence. A natural lowering caused by my action. Perhaps that’s how things always worked in my room. Soon I have to crouch, then lie flat, and then the ceiling begins to rise again, but I remain lying there.

Voices can be heard from outside. Thuds on the stairs. Perhaps someone can tell me what it is I’m looking at. At the very least, the colour of the wallpaper. Not even to remember that. What is it? I have no reason not to recall this. There’s no trauma. Nothing repressed. I simply don’t remember, it’s no big deal. It’s not like I was sexually abused or beaten. I had a perfectly ordinary childhood. Despite the invasion. That didn’t affect me.

As I stand up, I notice the chestnut-coloured planks across the floor, like in a ship’s cabin. There’s also a trace of asbestos in the air (don’t ask how I know, I don’t understand it myself, but that’s how it is, in any case). What else? asks the writing tutor. Go on. And I describe the bed’s placement against the wall, tightly along the long side, because I’m afraid of falling out and drowning. Drowning? asks the tutor. Yes, I can’t swim, I try to explain. Could you go and lie down there, so we can see what happens? he asks.

I wander over and pull aside the crocheted bedspread, lie down fully clothed and shut my eyes. Quite nice to get a bit of rest at last, after all that writing. Well? he interrupts. What’s happening now? Already interrupted in my sleep, I say: This piece probably won’t come to anything. I don’t remember anything. Without warning I find it hard to speak — blood is running down my throat. Have I hit something, or has someone hit me? When I touch my nose, my fingers turn red. A realisation heavy as grief passes through my limbs, as I write all the things I do not remember.