White Walls

White walls, I remember them, slightly textured. There was a slight dent in the lower left corner of the one nearest the door, which I would touch whenever I lost a sense of things. Elijah used to laugh at me, and tell me that when we got out of there he’d carve away that bit of wall for me and let me keep it. I knew he was trying to be nice but the words when we get out of here stopped being a comfort eventually. It was as if time had lost us, as if the sun just didn’t reach anymore, the world still turned but it had forgotten that we were a part of it.

Elijah would describe the sun to us. It was his job, in the house, to tell us what the sun was like. Canada’s was grass, she was good at it, really good. She got the description of it just right, the slight discomfort, the uneven texture, how when you got the right kind you could whistle.

My job was the rain. The sound. How it batters you. I got my inspiration from the showers whenever I felt the memories slipping from me. There was a danger in that though because sometimes I wondered if I could remember the rain at all or if I was just imagining the shower on a larger scale. These thoughts kept me up at night. Funny really, how you’d think we’d have bigger things on our mind than forgetting how rain felt.

When my mother died, I kept her clothes, for her scent. People often say the problem with this is that scent fades and then you are left with nothing. That was not the issue I found. My issue was that I remembered her smell but it stopped meaning anything to me. The memory was no longer her, it became tainted with desperation, with stomach aches and nights falling sleep with her clothes tucked behind my cheek.

This was what happened with the rain. It slipped from me. No longer the memories of the rain but memories of my eyes sealed shut in the shower begging myself to feel as I used to. Outdoors.

All we had was memory. And eventually even those betrayed us.

I sleep now, as I did, in that room. Elijah’s spine curved next to me, Canada’s small cold hands, skinny fingers interlaced with mine. We do this most nights, almost an addiction.

We don’t like the outdoors anymore.