All is Forgotten

I’m standing outside smoking whilst Michelle finishes her lunch. By the time I go back inside all will be forgotten. No, really, all will be forgotten, completely.

She doesn’t look up as I approach. There are three possible reasons she does not look up. She either hasn’t noticed me or she knows it’s me and therefore has no obligation to acknowledge me on my return to the table. Or she knows I’m there and has no idea who I am and is ignoring me in the way that people ignore strangers encroaching on their space in hope that they’ll pass by.

     “What’s my name?” I say as I sit down. She stares at me with a surprised look as though we’d never met. She’s halfway through her lunch. There are two plates at the table and yet when she next looks at the second plate she will have no idea what it’s doing there.

     “I’m sorry, do I know you?” She says.

     “No, you don’t. I guess you don’t, not anymore.”

     And with that I get up and walk away, from her and me and everything we may have ever remembered. It’s all best forgotten now. I walk to the counter to pay for the meal. The elderly Italian is working at the till. I think he owns the place but I never bothered to converse long enough to know for sure.

     “Can I pay for table twelve?” I ask him.

     I ponder if I should just pay for my half and let Michelle pick up hers. It would cause less confusion when she leaves but I consider it, the meal and the confusion, to be a parting gift. I pay for us both and turn to leave. I leave no tip because in a very short while the Italian won’t remember. He turns his back on me for only a few seconds. I take one last look at Michelle from ten feet away. She’s idly pushing food around her plate whilst checking her mobile phone when she looks at my dirty plate opposite her. She has no idea why it’s there.

      “Excuse me,” she says sheepishly waving to the Italian, who turns her way and then walks past me. “Excuse me sir,” he says to me. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

     “Sorry to be a nuisance, could you please remove this dirty plate?” she asks.

     “It’s not mine,” she adds.

     The old Italian apologises and picks up the plate and coffee cup and walks back to the counter. I’m watching the whole thing. It’s amazing but no one knows that that’s my plate and cup. On seeing me he asks, “What can I get you sir?”

     “You okay if I just use the toilet before I go?” I ask.

     “Toilet’s for paying customers,” he tells me.

        I play along whilst thinking to myself that it’s happening quicker. People are forgetting me before I even leave the building now.

     “How about I buy a coffee to go?”

     “That we can do. Toilets down the corridor, third door on the left.”

     I piss and come back to collect my coffee but no one remembers taking my order. I take one last look at Michelle. If she looked up she’d not know me anymore.

I don’t know why but alcohol makes the process work quicker. People forget me more quickly when I drink. I think I’m past the point of no return, hurtling toward being nothing. I’ll drink to that. So, on the plus side I’m being erased from everyone’s mind because it’s apparently what I asked for. In the negative column we have the fact that I can’t seem to get drunk anymore. I’m halfway through a bottle of vodka, a two litre bottle, that I tried to buy but in the end it was easier to steal. I’m in a park, sitting on a bench, sharing a drink with my new found drinking partner.

     “Aren’t you mortified by your life? You know that’s what she said?”

     I hand the vodka bottle over.

     “What did you say this stuff is? It smells funny”

     “Lemonade with a hint of cherry.”

     “I really am mortified. I wanted to be rid of it. I wanted to be rid of mortification. I wanted to erase everything I’ve done. I’m thinking I’ve over done it. Everything is being rubbed out. Was my whole life that horrible? Was I mortified by everything I did? What do you think?”

     Gary looks like he’s eight years old and probably shouldn’t be drinking vodka.

     “Look Mister, can I have my ball back now?”

     His ball sits trapped under my foot.

     “I’ve done things. You’re about eight years old, right? You haven’t done things yet. You’d be mortified too if you knew. Most adults are.”

     Gary takes a sip and spits out what to him probably tastes like liquid glue.

     “You’re messed up mister,” he tells me.

     “For that I’m going to have to shatter all your childhood innocence by telling you that the Easter bunny is in jail for inappropriately touching one of Santa’s elves. Did you know that? And Santa doesn’t give a shit if you’ve been naughty or nice. He doesn’t give a fuck. He still leaves you presents because moral standards have dropped, and he takes this into account each Christmas.”

     My God, the kid looks horrified.  I do him a favour and swig hard at my cherry vodka and wait for him to forget.

     The tears and his memory are starting to dry up by the time I put the bottle down.

     “Here, take it easy, have a drink.” I offer the bottle again.

     “What is it? Smells funny,” he says sniffing at it.

     “For the fifth time, it’s lemonade with a hint of cherry.”

     I can’t decide if the kid is likely to grow up with a subconscious love or hate of vodka now. He sniffs again at the bottle and this time declines. Smart kid, at least sometimes.

     “Hey Mister, can I have my ball back?”

     Just as I take my foot off the ball a mother comes running over to our park bench shouting. I take a hint and run. 

     “Goodbye Gary, I’m sorry you won’t remember me,” I call back over my shoulder as I sprint away, vodka sloshing over me as I do.

I don’t have to run too far. I’m out of sight out of mind quickly. I glanced over my shoulder while I was running and imagined leaving a trail, a stream, a blur of light behind me and everything that touched this blur that marked where I’d been erased another piece of my past. I’m still here but erasing myself to everyone else. Anything I’ve done, anything I do, will soon be forgotten by everyone but me. Gary in the park will forget that I destroyed his Santa myth. His Mum will wonder where the smell of vodka came from.  Michelle will carry on better for never knowing the things we’ve done. Everything’s only embarrassing or humiliating or even, as Michelle had said, mortifying, if you remember it. But I will remember. I gave up fighting days ago. I can’t stop this and now I want to be forgotten. I woke up this morning with the plan to nullify my life, my old life that is. If you could start again, would you? Would you do it all better or worse?

As I walk along, I try not to linger on anything I’ve done today. I want to be as forgetful as everyone I am erasing, if only for a little while. I feel like a cold-hearted assassin when I call Tom. When I ring him I know it doesn’t matter what I say. I’ve strolled into an empty alleyway, a concrete corridor. I bump into a yuppie looking guy. As we each turn the corner we collide and my phone is knocked from my hands but I still hold on to the vodka bottle.

     “Jeez, look where you’re going.” Someone says. I think it might be me but the words seem to dissipate as soon as I’ve said them.

     The yuppie guy looks at me and smiles and picks up my phone and hands it back to me. He’s unreasonably nice about it.

     “Sorry, I guess, probably my fault,” he says. He looks back my way before leaving me alone in the alley. I sit down with my back to the wall, bottle at my side. As the phone rings I know that all I have to do is talk long enough and I’ll get what I want. I worked this out a couple of days back. My curse is so strong it can be transmitted. Have you ever got so fed up with everyone in your address book that you just wanted to erase them?

     As soon as Tom answers I know that this is nothing personal. I know that I’ll miss him, but I tell myself that I am cold and heartless, that I can do this, that if I want to remain missing then I can’t have anyone knowing about me.

     “Tom, it’s me, it’s Matt.”

     “Matt?” He pauses.

     “Where have you been? I’ve been trying on and off to get hold of you for the last week. You missed all the fun. You didn’t even make it to Julie’s party.”

     “Tom, I wanted you to know something, I have to go away.”

     “Ok man, was there something you needed? What are you telling me? You saying you’re not going to the Danby bash this weekend?”

     When you say goodbye to someone does it matter what your last words are?

     “Tom, I’m going away and I’m never coming back.”

     Before he says anything, I tell him, “This is all going to sound weird. You’re going to think I’m off my head here but I’m not. I don’t think I am.”

     “Look Matt, can you send me an email of something? Or call me back. I got to run.”

     “Tom, you might try to speak to people about me. I thought you should know. No one knows who I am anymore.”

     Tom is rational. Tom has a hard time caring. This will sound like nonsense. How do I sound now? How crazy does this sound when you say it?

    “I went to see this guy. I wanted to erase all the bad things I’ve ever done. I wanted no one to remember all the horrible shit I’ve done.”

     He interrupts, “Dude, I think you’re having a bad trip.”

     “You don’t know the fucking half of it. I can’t explain it but everyone’s forgetting me. All I have to do is talk to you for a while.”

     I knock back two mouthfuls of vodka. It still tastes like it should, sending shudders through me.

     “I made a deal. I got fucked. If you ask for all the bad things you’ve done to be erased you don’t expect it was all bad.”

     I can’t let Tom hang up before I’ve talked him out of my life. So I quicken the pace.

     “I’ve spent the day killing myself, killing everyone’s memory of me. I went to the guy who did this to me and even he’d forgotten me. I had lunch with Michelle. I called everyone on my phone. There’s just you left now and then I’m gone, down a rabbit hole, where I can do whatever I want. And you know What? There’s nothing I want to do.  I’m invisible and I can’t think of anything I want to do. I’m sitting in an alleyway. I can’t get drunk anymore. I can’t leave. I can’t forget. I’m sitting here with a bottle of vodka. I’m free. I’m dead. I’m a ghost. I’m telling you this because you’ll forget.”

     I pause for breath. If no one remembers does it matter what you say?

     “Goodbye Matt.”

     I hang up. I think I’ve done enough.

 I sit still. I am free now. I don’t know where to go from here. I sit in the alleyway until I’m disturbed by the yuppie guy from earlier. He walks past and looks at me. I hold up my bottle of vodka to him, almost like a pitiful joke.

     “It’s a little too early in the afternoon for vodka for me,” he says, his sunny disposition intact.

     I smile at the doofus and drink at him.

     “Have you been sitting here all this time?” He asks me.

     “All this time?”

     “Yeah, remember I bumped into you earlier and knocked your phone out of your hands. Have you been here all this time?”

     I scramble to my feet, my confusion evident. I can think of nothing to say. He in turn looks at me, unsure how crazy I am. I back away, moving along the alley. I don’t know what this means. I know I want to follow my instincts and run. I half stumble as I begin to move. The bottle of vodka slips from my hand and crashes to the ground and then I sprint, like my whole body is out of control, arms flailing as I go, scared of being remembered.  I move through busy streets, stumbling into the road to avoid people. I run past market shoppers and tourists. I flail past queues at the bus stops and smokers outside pubs. Some people might remember me. Some won’t. Some have seen it all before in this city, crazies on the run from something, running for whatever reason, reasons they don’t care about. Maybe some day my friends will remember me and some day I’ll want to be remembered. A complete stranger remembered me today when he shouldn’t. So I don’t know the rules. I don’t know or comprehend the symptoms of my life. I don’t know what’s going to happen next or who’ll remember me and what I’ve done and all the things I’m going to do.