Entry #31

Somewhere Safe
by Michele Helene


Alex was all wrong. Apparently the woman with grey curly hair was his mother, the gangly teenager his brother and the pooch at his side was the family dog.

“You didn’t just put them somewhere safe.” The boy suddenly screamed. “You had an accident, you nearly died, you were in a coma for weeks, that’s how you lost your memory.”

Alex sat in the armchair gripping the sides, his nails digging into the fabric as if he could extract his memories and then he stood up and walked away. At the door Alex attached a lead to the curious dog and looked at the keys. “Car keys,” a voice in his head piped up. He could drive, he knew.

Alex pulled out the driveway smiling at the woman chasing after the car then looked down tenderly at Pooch.

The song on the car stereo irritated him; its familiarity was sufficiently discordant to tell him that this was not the song he thought he remembered. The white lines in the middle of the road, however, kept no secrets from him and he knew when he had arrived. Pooch leapt out the car pleased by Alex’s choice. They bounded between trees and through brambles until they arrived at a spot where strands of sunlight pierced through the leaves forming a perfect circle.

“Just where I left them!” Laughing Alex picked up a filament of light, closed his eyes and coiled it around him, the true melody of the song filling his head.