In Memory by CJ Lyons

missed last week, today would have been a good day, because I don’t have work…
    Oh well. W ish I knew his phone number so I could just call him and ask if he wanted to hang out. That would simplify matters significantly.
    H ad some crazy freaky dreams last night too. You know, the ones where you can only remember glimpses of things that happened, and you just have to keep replaying them in your mind, to make sure that you actually witnessed it. Even though it’s all just a dream anyway…
    Argh , D efinitely need to go to school tomorrow. Terra’s starting to do the not-so-subtle nudge-nudge-hey-go-to-school-you-slacker thing.
    So many hyphens!
     
    143 Days, 7 October, Tuesday
    Something I read today. There is no such thing as a memory that does not exist. That is to say that, if you remember something, it happened.
    So even dreams count, I suppose. I remember my dreams , they became experiences . I remember feeling pain, love, happiness, sadness ; all emotions that accompany those memories. Those feelings for my dreams are just as real as my feelings for this reality. When we dream, we’re just travelling to another place, where we can experience just as much as we can when we’re awake. Maybe that’s why I am always so affected by my nigh tmares.
    I a lways experience them as something real, and don’t have the ability to brush them aside as fanciful fantasies made up by my brain.
    This is how I know what happened to Noah the night he showed up at my house, all broken and bleeding. I dreamt of it.
    D idn’t actually enter his house. I was just there, watching things from the sidelines, little flashes of things. Memories that didn’t belong to me played in front of me like a poorly edited movie, scenes jumping from one to another.
    A happy family, a small child hiding in a closet, someone doing laundry, a man digging a hole in the garden
    Noah, rolling up his sleeve, placing a shiny razor over his arm and pulling it down, searing through his pale flesh. The blood ran down, glistening and pure. He looked at it as it dripped down onto the floor, his eyes empty and sad.
    He cut himself…
    There was a tense silence.
    “What is this?” Noah’s father (or that’s who I imagine it was, can’t actually remember his face) spoke in a dangerously low voice, his hand clamped firmly around his son’s thin wrist, coaxing a few pearls of blood from the shallow cuts.
    Noah remained silent, closing his eyes, condemning himself. I could tell this just from the way he set his shoulders and stiffened his trembling movements that he was just waiting for the inevitable impact.
    It came as a heavy crushing blow of his father’s fist into the left side of his face. Tears sprang into his eyes, and he fell to the floor, landing roughly on his arm.
    “You want to cut yourself?” his father asked, crossing the kitchen to where the knives stood in their wooden compartment. “Then do it right!” He returned to where his son lay, holding a long, thick knife, tilting it to catch the bright white light.
    Abruptly, he knelt down, yanking Noah up by the front of his shirt. Noah looked up at him blearily, still starry-eyed from the first punch.
    “You like cuts, you little freak?” The knife flicked, slicing through the white fabric of Noah’s shirt. Blood spread quickly, staining the perfect white.
    “You like that?” Another cut, followed by a cry of pain, “Huh?”
    “No!” cried Noah, attempting to pull away.
    His father roared, slamming him into the floor by his hold on the front of his shirt. “Then why did you do it?” The knife dove again, ripping a broad deep cut up his forearm.
    “I don’t know!” sobbed Noah, “I’m sorry !!!”
    “You’re sorry?”
    “I’m sorry!”
    “Shut up. Shut up.” His father repeated through clenched teeth.
    Noah whimpered, tears rolling from his eyes, “Please…”
    His father stopped, the knife held aloft. “What?”
    “Please stop. I’m sorry.” Noah’s gaze found his