The Power of Forgetting Read Online Free PDF Page B

live again? She doesn’t know, and I have to tell her.
Right now, before I lose my resolve to confess all. But this has
eaten away at me long enough, and if we are all to be honest
friends we should begin to tell each other the truth.
    My eyes slide
into focus. Marcia is sitting with her head bowed down as if she is
sleeping, her arms are folded. Davey is sitting back in the chair
and staring at the ceiling, neither make a move, or speak.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I
began, ‘this has been a long time in the telling. But you will see
why… I will have to tell it the way it comes out. Please forgive me
for that. I don’t know how this ends. I only know where I am at
now. And Janey may feel a lot different from me. Please let her
tell you in her own way… please don’t press her to say anything.
This has taken years. And you two are the first people outside or
our immediate family who will know this thing I am about to
confess.’
    ‘Is this about
your older sister?’ Davey asked.
    ‘Yes. That is
part of the reason you don’t see her much either. I will ask her to
show you something that I can’t. It isn’t just about her and us
two.’ I involuntarily shut my eyes for a moment, I took a big
breath; ‘this is about our parents too. And I hope that they won’t
be cross…. But the pressure inside my head is so great; I think
I’ll really go mad if I don’t release it soon.’
    ‘Do tell us.’
Davey simply held out both hands.
    ‘I am in the
middle of a paradoxical tension pulled taut like a violin string.’
I held out my other hand to Davey. He immediately gripped my right
hand with a sharp pinch that was partly nervous curiosity.
    ‘I am not very
good at this. You need to understand that. But the things that
happened on the expedition are similar to the effects that you may
sense. So you are already aware that it happens and can make you
feel a little odd, yes?’
    ‘That’s fine…’
Marcia said, ‘is there anything else we need to know before you….
Err,’
    I smiled then:
‘I might not be able to find the sequence. I have to remember
something I have wanted to bury down inside for as long as I have
been a grown up.’ I looked from one to the other, ‘I’m sorry if
this feels discomforting in anyway okay?’
    ‘Alright.’ said
Marcia,
    ‘I’m ready.’
said Davey, sitting up straighter in the chair.
    I reach inside.
There is a sequence to unlock. It is a mental barrier that has been
put there deliberately. I find the first then the second. And each
one like a rusty lock that with a squirt of the right lubricant,
slides easily open.
     
    The last
barrier. I feel that spinning in my stomach again. But it’s
different to the other things that have happened because this time
it is me who is in the controlling position. I am still at war with
myself, this is just a temporary truce. Each barrier placed in the
mind had a key and a lock it fits. Usually a mental image that must
be placed on the right and on the left, and are then brought
together in the middle. Then the door opens in your mind and you
can go into the next level. I have ten of these locks and keys.
Seven is usually more than adequate. I asked for this many because
it made it exponentially harder to get the final code. And I have
always been afraid of what might happen if I didn’t keep the thing
locked away; especially after what happened the last time.
    I gasp as the
last key unlocks. My mind feels fluid and eased in a way that I
have never felt before. Marcia and Davey now feel like grounding
weights that will stop me from floating up into the deep blue of
the sky and communing with the stars.
    ‘Davey!’ I look
at him.
    ‘I’m fine he
says, and smiles a half smile. Easily the most understanding friend
and faithful companion I have ever known.
    ‘Jared…. Oh
Jared!’ Marcia is staring at me wide eyed. Her expression is of joy
and sorrow mixed together. I sense it then. That lifting inside
myself, communicated through our touch and