Day 94 - Fade Away

 Fade Away 

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

“When was the last time you talked to Leda?”

Brennan stared off in silence.

“Bren?”

Brennan turned to his brother Dylan, confused.

“Who?”

“Are you okay?”

 

 

The photographs had faded. Dylan could see the photos were faded, like they had aged forty years. Paper curled and brown. The image foggy.

It made no sense. The photos were just over two years old. The images taken digitally. Even if there was a problem with the paper, it shouldn’t look so old.

Dylan asked to see Brennan’s laptop. He wanted to see the originals.

 

 

“Did you delete your photos?”

“Did I delete my photos? What?”

“You don’t have any photos of you and Leda.”

“Who’s Leda?”

 

 

Brennan would sit and stare into the darkness. Some nights he would swear someone was there in the shadows. Sometimes there would be movement in his periphery but by the time he moved, nothing was there.

It was getting harder to read. He had a new eye exam scheduled and hoped that would solve his issues. He needed to get out more. He watched a video on eye exercises and switching between near and far objects to build the muscles back up. Perhaps that would fix what was wrong.

He was tired. All the time. That might have been the years catching up. Or perhaps the loneliness. He always wished he had siblings. He always wanted to be part of a larger family. When he was young, he thought he would be married and would have lots of kids. Daughters. That seemed a million years ago. He regretted not trying harder when he had dated. He should have compromised. He should have made more of an effort. If only he could have fallen in love.

Sometimes, later at night, he would hear the wood floors creak as if someone were walking his way. He felt silly. Middle aged and still afraid dark. No one was there, of course, but some nights he would be too nervous to even go and check. The next day, he would look for foot prints in the dust. No matter how he stepped, he could never create the same creak. He wondered if he was living with a ghost, perhaps there in the shadows, just out of sight. Maybe that was why he didn’t like the dark.

Brennan had a strange memory, of a girl from school. He hadn’t thought of her in years. There was one Halloween where he had tagged along with a group and she had been there at the party. He could swear someone had taken a picture from that party, but when he dug through old boxes of photos he couldn’t find it. He wondered what her name was and why he was still remembering her decades later. Brennan felt a sadness that he never asked her out. It was a silly passing thought, a middle-aged regret, wishing and wondering what could have been. But there was a tiny little pit of despair, as if something had truly been lost.

Brennan sat and stared into the darkness. His mind wandering. His thoughts fading away as he slowly drifted off to sleep. It felt like something was missing, but the moment passed and when he woke in the morning, he couldn’t remember what he had been thinking about the night before.