Day 48 - All your loved ones are belong to us

 All your loved ones are belong to us 

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

When was the last time you talked to her?

I don’t know.

What is before covid?

God, is that how we’re telling time now?

I’m asking to see if you are.

 

 

Santiago had lost his wife and missed her tremendously. Her fever never broke and she was barely conscious and it broke his heart that he wasn’t able to say goodbye. Santos had never been a spiritual man, and he believed his wife was. If anyone could prove there was an afterlife, it would be her. He kept a memory box with precious mementos and would pray to it at night. At first it was a way to connect to her memory. Then it became a conversation. Then it became a symbol of his newfound faith.

Santiago believed her spirit was close at hand, he could feel it. He sought answers wherever he could – from the church, from shamans and gurus. Santos read about the ideas of Shintoism and the belief that every object had a spirit of its own. Perhaps he was feeling the spirit of the memory box. Or perhaps his wife had become one with her precious mementos and entered the objects.

If that were the case, he could never get rid of anything that she ever owned. He would never know if he was throwing a piece of her away with it.

 

 

My dreams have begun to change.

How so?

They’re nightmares. I never used to get nightmares.

Can you tell me about them?

I’m not me. Not really. And Elisabeth is there. But it’s not her. But it is. You know.

That’s common. Do you think she’s trying to tell you something?

I’m scared. All the time. I wake up scared. I’m afraid I’m going to lose her which is ridiculous because she’s already gone. But I wake up and I stare at her things. I started sleeping with her things.

 

 

Santiago stared into the memory box. He would sit for hours and just stare.

One night, his hands began to tremble. He felt a twitch in the back of his head and for a brief moment he had a headache.

Soon, he had put away his wife’s things. He rearranged his house, bought new furniture. All new clothes. His tastes became more refined, from fashion to food. People saw it as a good sign.

Later, people would say Santiago became a new man. Some would attribute it to a reaction to loss. Some would say it was his way of getting over grief. New hobbies, new habits, he was building a new life. They seemed like good signs, like he was finally moving on. No one had an explanation for why his eye colors changed.