The soft couch encouraged recollection. The locked door made it more difficult. A space heater ticked rhythmically in the corner. Lying prone, Johnson stared at the ceiling, and into his past.
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Tag: memory
The Moment by Evan Hale
She sat up, prim and proper, as if in counterpoint to her casually draped robes and the haphazardly pillowed sedan chair. Like for her previous sittings, she was artfully arranged in Laurent’s beautiful courtyard, the scent of flowers filling her nose. Her lover looked up from his canvas to offer a conspiratorial wink, as her loosely wrapped coverings rippled in the breeze and brushed against her skin. The slight movement of the cloth kept the glow of their lovemaking fresh, and the faint curve of her lips betrayed imperfectly hidden delight.
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Colour Clash by Sandra Arnold
My brother parks the car opposite the house with the red door that used to be grey. The treeless street looks even grimmer than I recall. I glance at the rows of identical houses with the grey pebble-dash walls, trying to remember the neighbours who once occupied them. Women in pinnies and headscarves scrubbing their front steps. Sweeping their concrete paths. Men rolling drunk up those paths. Sound of yelling and slapping. Immaculately dressed children with polished shoes.
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Tiny Dancers by P A Farrell
In her nursing home bed, petite Margaret, just four feet tall, stared at the ceiling under the dim glow of fluorescent lights, her face devoid of the vibrancy it once held. Legs that had leapt across a sound stage lay thin and mottled with brown age spots. Feet that had slid into dainty slippers now stood as small, rigid reminders of long ago.
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The Persistence of Ruins by Barbara Krasner
White clapboards and wooden slats nailed across double windows peek through a veil of house-high ferns, maples, and elms. Leaves caress the places where shutters may once have been. Along the front in red and white reads a sign: Private Property No Trespassing. A vacant driveway sits to the south, marked off by a heavy chain, its endpoints hidden by foliage.
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White Horse by Kate Mole.
Yesterday I walked another bit of the South-West Coast Path, from Praa Sands round to Marazion. I was with a friend, who is aiming to complete the entire circuit of the path, from Minehead to Poole Harbour. He does bits of it as and when he can, and invites people to accompany him if they live locally, or are keen walkers, or just feel like doing it with him. This was a short section, only about six miles – well, short for him; about the right distance for me to walk comfortably.
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Alan’s Lost Domain by Michael Bloor
Alan had a presentiment of a Nelson Rockefeller Moment in Dorothy’s shower, so he chose the healthy granola option for breakfast, rather than a bacon roll. It was a rare, cold, bright, windless, January day. After he’d loaded the dishwasher, he decided to take a walk down to the shore.
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Sunday Whatever – Adam Kluger
Adam is one of our more unusual writers. Since very early in the history of LS, November 2015 he has sent us quirky pieces often accompanied by his very individual art. He is a delight to interact with and is obviously a shoo in for an author interview and that treat is to come. However, one of the questions has also spawned this memoir, which was too good to turn down. And so please enjoy a bonus, Adam Kluger.
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Where Do Lost Memories Go? by Rinanda Hidayat
Somewhere in a land where only the forgotten remembered, stood a river flowing with discarded memories. Tears cry above it, ever begging for the one who shed them to return.
Sometime between now, today, and never, a man burst out under the river––let’s call him M. He splashed around, thrashing his arms, kicking his feet, but all was unnecessary, for the river never had the will to drown.
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Heirloom by Natalia Pericchi Paga
There are pieces of the past I keep on her behalf. I tie my hair in a bun and start humming a song while I concentrate on lining my lips. The kids are asleep, the dishwasher is working, the counter is wiped, the door is locked. I am getting ready to talk to my grandmother over Zoom. Preparing to reconnect. I haven’t seen her in a while. When I think of her, I remember the cigarette smell, the afternoons sitting on her lap while she watches T.V., the feeling of her long, red nails running gently through my back, up and down. I remember her evening routine.
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