microfiction

“And who would care for your baby?” the clinic psychiatrist asked, assessing me for electroconvulsive therapy. An ache of anguish breached the numbness, slick with shame. “I’ve been here a long time already.”

I never imagined, then, what it would cost.

I could count the disconnected memories from his first years. My dazed brain scarcely retained any images, neither moments enjoyed, nor moments endured. The slippery fragments are benign, but they drift about untethered, in a dark sea years wide and unfathomably deep. Ready canvases remained blank. And a chest, devoid of treasure, sank.

Even his baby book is barely marked, with paltry snippets, flimsy scraps of evidence. 

Eventually, haltingly, my brain began sketching memories again. I’m drawn back to a moment, imbued with the tenderness of many moments. We’re crouched on a bright sandy shore, playing and laughing – my baby now a boy. I see my hope and love reflected in my son’s eyes. Beaming at me, he clambers into my embrace, into a space perfectly moulded for him by a thousand unremembered hugs.   BACK TO STORIES