MEMORIAL

MEMORIAL A short story by Rolando Garcia www.roshow.net ✧ [email protected] Some things demand to exist. My wife, Lenore, first died on April 24, 1956. She was hit by a bus after work. I wasn't there with her. We didn't have a lot of money. She worked days as a teacher and I worked nights as a janitor at a government facility. I was sleeping when she died. I couldn't afford a decent funeral. I put all my money towards her tombstone. Something unique that I knew she would find beautiful in a sad, romantic way like all her favorite novels. It read DEAR LOVE. Now I wonder if I was the first to commission it, or the last in a long line of heartbroken lovers. ✧

✧

✧

The facility I worked at researched the unfathomable. I learned of it because no one thought an uneducated janitor like myself would understand what they were talking about. They were, for the most part, right. It involved Dr. Einstein's theories. They called it a "closed time-like loop." They kept mentioning the date on which their experiment began: April 24, 1956. One night, after they had all left to tuck in their children and curl up next to their spouses, I wandered onto the main floor. The electric charge in the room made my hairs stand on end. There was a small chamber in the center of the room, surrounded by enormous metal plates that hummed with an eerie dissonance. I opened the chamberʼs doors. The light from within blinded me at first. Slowly, my eyes adjusted. I wish I had the education to better describe what I saw. It was both bright as the sun and dark as night. If Lenore was waiting for me at home, I would have walked away. But she wasn't, so I walked in. ✧

✧

✧

The next thing I remember was standing outside the chamber again, throwing up. An overwhelming sense of déjà vu washed over me. Finally, regular disorientation settled in. But never fear. I stumbled out of the room, leaving my vomit to the morning clean-up guy. I would tell them I got sick and had to leave early. I expected the cool air of night outside. Instead the morning sun greeted me. I looked at my watch -- a gold watch that Lenore had saved for and given me on our wedding day, a watch I wore at all times -- and it said 1am. Whatever was in that chamber, I assumed,

stopped my watch and knocked me unconscious. It felt instantaneous but perhaps that was another side effected of an experiment I should never have messed with. I made my way home. ✧

✧

✧

As I approached my tenement I stopped in my tracks. For a second I felt like I was standing outside my own body, watching myself walk up the short flight of stairs and through the front door. Except I wasn't outside my body. I was down the block. I was literally watching myself get home from work. Everything around me seemed to slow down as my brain tried to process something it was not created to understand. All it came back with was a vague memory of reading Jules Verne's "The Time Machine" in my youth. I wanted to run towards the tenement and into my apartment. But instinct stopped me. I guess we aren't built to confront the unnatural in so direct a fashion. I finally managed to lift my feet, one in front of the other, and walk to a newsstand. A look at the morning edition of the newspaper confirmed the date. Of course, there was only one day it could be. I checked my watch and figured I had about ten hours. ✧

✧

✧

I saw Lenore approaching the intersection. My heart raced so hard it almost exploded in my chest. I forced myself to take deep breathes. Calming my nerves I made my way to her. One little boy ran towards her, chased by a bigger, faster boy. The bigger boy tackled the little one. The little one let out a yelp. Lenore turned around and saw the commotion. "Get off him!" she commanded the bigger boy. "I'll see you in detention tomorrow." He looked angry but resigned to his fate and walked away, leaving the little one alone. Lenore made sure he was okay and sent him off. Down the avenue a bus sped toward the intersection. Lenore sometimes had trouble paying attention. She turned from where the boys had scuffled and stepped off the curb. I reached out and yanked her back. The bus flew by, barely missing her. She gasped. "That was close! Thank you," she said turning towards me. But I was already walking back to the facility, where I waited a few more hours until I could slip into the chamber a second time. Or was it the first time? ✧

✧

✧

I arrived back at the lab moments after I left. Within seconds I was running home. I burst through the front door of our tenement, shaking and unsure what to expect. I feared the whole thing had been a crazy hallucination. I also feared that it may not have been. I fumbled with the light switch, finally turning them on. I heard someone moving in the bedroom. The door opened and I found myself face to face with Lenore. The impossibility of the moment overwhelmed my senses. The color drained out of Lenoreʼs cheeks as she stood staring at me for what seemed like an eternity. Finally she let out a horrific scream, turned back into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. "Lenore! Relax, it's me!" "I've gone mad!" she screamed from inside. I opened the door and found her huddled in the corner, her face buried in her knees. She spoke to herself, between sobs. As I got closer I could make out the words: "My husband is dead and buried. My husband isn't here." She repeated the words to herself like a prayer. Horror crept into my bones. I stepped back, slowly at first then faster and fast. Before I knew it I was out the front door and running through the streets like a mad man. Everything became a blur. My feet knew the path, I didn't need to think about it. Soon I was in the familiar cemetery, at the familiar plot and there it was. DEAR LOVE The damned tombstone was still there. Only now it was not Lenore buried beneath it. I jumped back when I realized I was standing on my own grave. Perhaps it was the madness of the situation that caused me to understand what was happening. Life is filled with those kinds of paradoxes; the line between chaos and clarity is frighteningly thin. Anyway, what to do next seemed perfectly obvious: go to the library, find the details of my death in the newspapers, then go back and save myself. It was all perfectly normal at this point. ✧

✧

✧

I first died on April 24, 1936. Earlier that evening Lenor had come home and told me she was saved from a bus by a stranger whose face she didnʼt even see. "I wanted to thank him," she said. "Me too," I replied. We shared a meal, kissed and I left for work.

A few blocks from home, I stepped off a curb and was hit by a car that ran a red light. I died alone. Lenore took what little money we had and erected a tombstone. In her sad, romantic fashion she had it engraved with the simple words DEAR LOVE. Only that was not how it happened. History show that a man bumped me before I stepped off the curb. I fell on my ass. While I was on the ground, angrily screaming after the rude stranger who didn't even look up to apologize, a car ran the red light. I didn't even notice it. ✧

✧

✧

This time I crept back into the tenement much more carefully. I moved through the dark living room and slowly pushed open the bedroom door. Lenore was in bed. Her eyes fluttered open, half asleep. "You're home early." I kissed her. I hugged her. She giggled. "You're way too frisky for me right now! I'm barely awake." We slept close the whole night. When we woke the next morning, everything seemed normal to her. Nothing tragic had ever happened. As far as she was concerned it was only coincidence that we'd had bizarre encounters at busy intersections years earlier. For a few days life seemed so perfect that I didn't think my heart would be able to stand it. But even the most bizarre eventually becomes the norm. When that happens, the mind opens itself to new thoughts. Even morbid ones. Curiosity compelled me to visit the cemetery and see what became of the plot once destined for us. What I found shook me. We were alive but the tombstone remained. DEAR LOVE taunted me. It made no sense. Why should our tombstone still be there? And if we did not lie beneath it who did? A few bucks to the night guard got me access to the cemetery's records. Those gave me a name: Harold Price. The newspaper in the library told me the story: On April 24, 1956, Harold had been on the way to visit his girlfriend, Michelle. He looked forward to presenting her with the ring he carried in his pocket and proposing. Instead, he tripped over a pothole. The fall broke his neck. For a few days I tried to ignore the coincidence. I could not. I knew that Harold died only to fulfill some twisted fate that was avoided when Lenore and I survived. I had to go back.

✧

✧

✧

I saved Harold, hoping that would be the last. Walking back from work, I stopped by the cemetery to check. There it stood. DEAR LOVE What I found out next came as no surprise. Michelle was buried there by Harold, who found her dead when he arrived to propose. Her neck broke in a fall down the stairs. Back I went to April 24, 1956 this time to save Michelle. ✧

✧

✧

Charlie, Eileen, Rob, Maria, Alejandro, Jenny -- those are a few of the names I remember. After a while I had become the foremost expert on saving people from bizarre, often violent, always lonely deaths: train tracks, falling furniture, stray bullets... you name it. But every time I came home that goddamn tombstone was there, a new victim buried six feet under DEAR LOVE. The words ceased to be romantic, or even sad. They just mocked me. They infuriated me. I hated that tombstone as much as I loved Lenore. One night, on the way to work, I made a trip to visit my tormentor. A young man, Mikey, was buried in the plot by his fiancée, who never got to wear her dress. I'd go back, I'd save him and then she'd probably be the one underground. I knew the game this stupid tombstone was playing with me by now. "Why?" I screamed at it. "Why won't YOU die?" Then it hit me like lightning. I laughed the whole way to work. The answer was so obvious I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before. I guess that's why I'm the janitor, not the scientist. ✧

✧

✧

My last visit to April 24, 1956 began like the rest. I saved Mikey from an unfortunate death. I disappeared before he could thank me. But this time I didnʼt come directly back to my time. Not yet. ✧

✧

✧

The monument mason looked at me like I was crazy. "You want me to make a gravestone but no one is dead?" "Right."

"And all you want it to say is DEAR LOVE?" "Right." "Is this some bullshit art project?" I laughed. "Sure." "I don't like that bullshit." "I'll pay you extra." "How much?" I took off the gold watch and handed it over. He inspected it closely. "Deal." "One more thing. I'm going to be back shortly with something. I want you to make sure it's buried in the plot." "Whatever." ✧

✧

✧

In a few minutes I'll head back to the cemetery and hand over this account. It will be buried in the familiar plot. I expect if anyone reads this they will think it's the ramblings of a madman or a "bullshit art project." I don't care. Better than the decomposing body of a lover lost too soon. See, what I realized is that the tombstone meant no harm. It just wanted to live, the way we want our lovers to live. Every time I saved someone, I took away its life. And it found a way to take it back, the way I took back Lenore's. DEAR LOVE, here's my offer to you: existence.