Soliloquy of a Survivor

Posted on May 12, 2003 in Book of Days Prose Arcana Soliloquy

Note: This is twenty-sixth in a series based on exercises from A Writer’s Book of Days. It’s something of a rebellion against the Friday Five and similar tupperware content memes.

Today’s topic: I can’t remember..

“I can’t remember?” Bullshit. I wish I couldn’t remember.

Memory’s like — like an iron cockroach. An iron cockroach stuck in a tube of toothpaste. You can’t get it out once it gets in there. For one thing, it’s too large to come out the hole. If you try to force it through anyways, it scurries off to another corner. And because it’s made of iron, you can’t crush it or break it down into little bits.

It just stays in there, growing bigger and bigger on the nothingness you feed it every day.

Why don’t I just cut the tube open and take it out, you ask? I can tell you why in one word: lobotomy.

Whether I like it or not, it’s in my mind. I’ll keep what I have, thank you.

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Tomorrow’ topic/prompt: ‘Even after my death…’ (after Maria Luisa Spaziani’).