​Syndrome

The despair of not remembering and the desolation of my person. I forget to forget. Everything comes to make me feel drowned in confusion, what is this place? who are they? who I am? what have I been doing all this time? what am I supposed to do? I wonder how I got to this point. And if remembering is supposed to be living, am I dying in a living world?

Losing my memory means losing everything, I can feel how it's disintegrating little by little, as if it were just ashes that any breeze can blow until they mix with the rest of the environment, leaving nothing, frustrating and depressing abyss of nothing. I don't stop feeling worried and with little interest in even living my last days in this world, I'm waiting to completely fade into confusion.

Words don't even come out, it's hard for me to remember how to express myself, or how to walk, eat or go to the bathroom. I forgot. I feel useless and a burden to others, people I don't even trust, I don't remember their names or their faces, I don't know if they were with me at some point. I have fallen into the maximum state of emptiness, I feel empty because I don't even have anything in me. It's not me, I don't know who I am.

A man entered the room, he was dressed in white.

— I haven't taken you to that place in years because I know you won't remember it and it would be new for you —he said as he grabbed my hands, which upset me a bit—. But I have the need to do it, even if you don't express it, I do have to express myself.

At that moment the man picked me up, and he took me out of the house into a field where there were some giant purple spots. After going through the narrow paths of those spots, we came to a place where there was a purple chair and a blanket on the floor, a basket with strawberries, a record player, two chairs and a book. What caught my attention was the floor, it wasn't what I used to touch, it was a different texture that scared me a little.

— I hope the grass doesn't bother you, you used to love walking in environments like this —after telling me that, he settled me in the chair and let my feet touch the grass—. You know you can trust me, nothing here and no one will hurt you. I don't think you remember, but this whole field is full of your favorite flowers, the lavender ones.

The man brought one of the lavender flowers to me, and when I felt most threatened, a pleasant smell reached my nose and I could automatically feel relaxed, they had a positive effect on me, and I felt even calmer when I had a sight in front of me landscape with many of these flowers. The breeze began to subtly blow the pages of the book.

— I almost forgot about the book —said the man looking for the first pages—. Here's a note I wrote months ago, it seems I'm talking about you: "I haven't forgotten your decadence yet. I remember before this, you were confused and in extreme entanglements. The only hope was the probability that the unknown would sound familiar to you, however, it never happened, but I still have not lost hope."

After that, the man found a photograph of a girl among those pages, in the caption of the photo it said "my last attempt".

— Can you still remember her? —the man asked, his voice cracking.

Yes I can remember her, her big beautiful eyes when she was a baby, they were my entrance to the infinite sea, eyes that over time continued to have that tone of melancholy in her delicate blinking. My daughter, my little daughter, didn't live with her since she lived in another city with her father. I called her every day, but since I was diagnosed with this disease I couldn't have a good conversation, so I isolated myself, I was afraid to speak, to trust, or to listen. I stopped talking to her, but one Sunday she called me, I told her I would call her the next day but I never did because I forgot, even so it was too late to do it, my daughter had committed suicide that Sunday. Something was consuming her slowly and torturously but in a silent way, only her big eyes expressed to me the melancholy of an angel exhausted from this, from living. I never wanted to forget my little angel, but my mind was in a process of disintegration that slowly led me to the abyss of loss.

— My sister was the best person I could meet, but I suppose that good humans always die young, and evil lasts —said the man leaving a silence between the landscape—. I think it was a mistake that my sister lived with my dad, I think my dad was never really interested in any of us.

The flowers moved with the breeze of the open field, until I started to see musical notes sprout in the air, then I turned to find out where they came from, it was the record player, a song was playing that echoed in my head. I was able to remember once again, that man in front of me was my son, the only one who took care of me since I was diagnosed with this disease. My son had put on a record, the happy music that I recognized was playing.

I remembered once more. Time passed in an unreal way for me, I never fully appreciated it until my daughter committed suicide, before that happened we were a complete family: mom, dad, daughter and son. We had separated, the father of my children moved to another city, but not before taking one of our children with him, which was a free decision for each of us, but I didn't know that this freedom to decide who to live with would end with the freedom of my daughter, chained with her thoughts.

The melody of that somewhat scratched record and the afternoon that was falling, the breeze gradually disappeared to become something uniform and that went to a single rhythm.

— I remember when you had already been diagnosed, it was long before my sister's incident happened, we all still lived together and our lives seemed like an eternal dream, perfection quickly took us to the top, and little by little to the edge of the abyss, before we had that news of your illness, we were already noticing some symptoms —my son mentioned.

I remember, I woke up on those sunny days, I looked at my window, I opened my eyes and I finished waking up, I saw a man in bed who was sleeping and I didn't recognize him, who did I sleep with? what happened yesterday? that was not my husband. I got up, prepared breakfast, sat down to eat and looked at the calendar, I couldn't locate myself, what date is today? someone knocked on the door but I decided to ignore it and continue eating, it made me grumpy to be interrupted on a quiet morning, but when I looked at my plate, there was nothing, at what point did I finish eating? I answered the door, it was my son saying that he forgot his keys, but at what moment had he come out? I looked at the sky and it was already night, I still didn't bathe, without even knowing how I was coping with my days. Although in the end I kept remembering the precious love that would always unite our family, or not?

— Do you still remember why you and my dad broke up? —my son asked me—. I have not forgotten about that. It was infidelity on your part, but I feel like it's justifiable. Dad never valued you, I feel like he never truly loved you in the end. I saw how he treated you with indifference, as if you were an object or a simple mother giving him children, that's why when you were diagnosed with that disease it seemed so hateful to me that he treated you as useless and that's why I never wanted him.

The loving relationship that I had at some point with the father of my children had hit rock bottom. Maybe I had messed with the wrong person. But I miss when he pretended that he loved me, those first months in which I felt a certain kind of love, I thought I had the perfect man in front of me. He knew me from head to toe, he knew about my favorite flowers, the fragrance of the words that made me fall in love and the affection that I needed. Those days when we would go out in the afternoon, walking through the Victorian houses of our neighborhood while we arrived at that small field and played among nature, then at nightfall, we would see the night sky on the way to our houses. So many intimate and happy moments were shared, sometimes I felt that my heart was going to stop with joy at how we looked in each other's eyes; In the end, I fell so much in love that I wondered, what does it matter how my heart breaks? that version of him no longer existed and it hurt me, in the end I only looked for happiness and company in another heart, another person who turned out to be temporary.

At the beginning of my illness I was just a bit confused, did I really do what I wanted to do in life? sadness was consuming me like those memories that little by little burned my memory. It was despair to continue living, but I didn't have that many days left. I felt alone, constantly fighting with my mind and with others, I was a complete stranger to myself, so the delusions and paranoia didn't take long to start. The confusion had completely clouded me, the flow of my words was so impaired, the recollection felt so distant and broken to me, like an unsettling thing to do.

I listened to the music once more, that melody was my favorite. This allowed my mind to die once and for all. The cold breeze caressed the night sky, the sky seemed to speak with high-pitched sounds. The face of the last person I will be able to see was looking at me, how will I see myself in the eyes of the other? because in my eyes I can still feel the love for my children, who at some point shared so much of their life with me. They are part of my life, of my memories and of my being, of what I am, can they feel the same for me? Have I been a mere burden all these years unable to survive on my own?

My son hugged me gently while tears came from his eyes, then he laid his head on my legs, because that was how I comforted him after a bad day, he usually did that when he felt bad and exhausted. I felt the silent sobs of an angel and his tears fall on my clothes, there were no words. My mind had died, but in my heart I could still feel happiness. My last breaths, my last blinks and my last memories. I only reached the point of horror, where at last the long decline of my last days had come to an end, before slowly fading away.