Chapter 4 SHADOW OF THE PAST

Sunlight began creeping into my apartment through the flimsy drapes, providing a warm solace to the room. I was supposed to bask in the sunshine and be in a state of jubilation. Nevertheless, a sense of dread within me seemed, or indeed was a heavy weight, deep down in the best of my body. Liam, this name, demanded my attention, activating parts of my subconscious that I've pushed further and further down.

I went through the motions of a morning routine, yet was a stranger to the complexity of the execution, or felt that I was watching myself from another perspective. My place was really small – a fairly large one bedroom unit with enough cutouts for the essentials. The walls were a mild, light blue in order to induce rest, or so I believed. But right then, the walls were like a prison cell with no means of escape.

While I was patient enough in front of the mirror to brush my hair, I noticed a small picture frame leaning against the edge of the top clothes dresser. This was amongst the few items I had packed when I was relocating to Los Angeles. Liam and I were facing the camera, both of us looking great in the picture since it was taken in the draft of a romantic beach sunset. We appeared exceedingly thrilled, quite excited, alive and bursting with love.

I extended my hand and grabbed the picture, sighing. My fingers swept on the plane's border. The image became fuzzy due to the fight against the tears; for a while I was transported back on that beach. Back into the scorching sun, the soothing sand, and feelings that I was going to be with someone for eternity.

But eternity had not come. The picture changed and sharpened and I was suddenly not at the beach anymore. This time round, I was in our house; the one we had lived in for close to three years. I could remember it so vividly and I saw the afternoon sun rays cutting into the house through the windows, I could hear the parasitic clock on the wall ticking incessantly in the silence. There I was seated on the couch, heart racing with anticipation as I awaited his return.

I always found it suspicious whenever he came home late. It was apparent that something was amiss; he entered the room looking quite discomposed. Physically, he appeared to be drained with weariness and looked like he had carried the weight of the world on his shoulders for too long. He just sat stiffly without looking at me, struggling with his jacket as if he was too exasperated at that moment.

''Liam, what is the matter?" I staggered and reached out to him as I asked the probable question.

He jerked away from me which dimmed my hopes. "Emma, we need to talk," he said, his voice hoarse.

I could not fathom in my mind how he was going to leave me, telling me that he was going away. The words were out so fast I didn't get a chance to make connections with them and looked at him because it felt like a blow, every time they spoke something. He spoke about how he cannot do it anymore, how he needs to be left alone, how he does not know who he is, what he wants. And then came out those words which crushed me: "I don't love you anymore."

The rest of that day was a blur of tears and desperate pleas, but nothing I said could change his mind. He packed a bag and walked out, leaving me alone in an apartment that suddenly felt too big, too empty.

I spent weeks in that apartment, going through the motions of life but feeling nothing. It was like a part of me had died when he left, and I didn't know how to bring it back. I tried to hold on, to keep going, but the pain was too much. That's when I decided to leave, to start over somewhere new where the memories couldn't reach me.

That decision led me to Los Angeles, to this tiny apartment, and to the life I'd built for myself here. But no matter how far I'd run, the memories still found a way to haunt me.

I put the photo down and wiped the tears from my eyes, trying to pull myself together. I had to get to work, and had to focus on the present, not the past. But as I finished getting ready and grabbed my bag, the weight of those memories clung to me, making it hard to breathe.

The bus ride going to the hospital was uneventful, the city just about stretching in another waking day. Through the window and into the fast autopia, I watched the scurrying of the streets overrunning most thoughts in me until I was in a lunatic perspective. I questioned if I would transcend it completely some day, or if I was likely to cherish this hurt perhaps all my life.

On stepping into the hospital, I was over soaked with sounds and smells that I knew décor which made me appreciate the present. I managed to scrape a grin when I came to where some of my colleagues were. I tried to move the stress related thoughts to hinter parts of my brain. It was not easy this time around. Each time I let my walls down, even for a second, damnit, there was that face of Liam's, reminding me of my follies.

Deep down the left corner of the hospital building that particular ray was encountering the hospital floor, as I began to pass the nursing desk on my way to Alex's room, there was a knot in the pit of my stomach. Was it possible that he was the one who had created all these new tortured fantasies and if so, was it wise to actually meet him now? No, I was not able to. He was well aware of it, that I must be there for him.

Upon entering the room, I discovered Alex lying on the bed with his eyes closed. His expression was one of both rest and trouble. I observed that the engravings of concern on his forehead did not fade away even while he was asleep, and I was left to speculate on the type of nightmares that were bugging him. I moved closer and looked at his motionless body, where only his chest was active due to breathing and for a few seconds, I felt intertwined with him, where I was also drowned in more or less the same emotions, searching for a solution.

But then he moved, and started to frown as though someone was haunting his dreams. His fingers moved and gripped the blanket, and soft moans emerged from his mouth. I crept up, afraid he was uncomfortable, but he opened his eyes up sooner than I got to touch him.

For a fraction of time, he seemed out of his wits, darting his gaze here and there like someone with blurred vision not knowing where they were. After that, he locked on me and I could feel the transformation in his eyes, from confusing looks to more ominous feelings.

"Alex?" I called quietly, among other things attempting to lower my voice. "How are you?"

He opened his eyes a few times as if he was attempting to dissipate the fog. "I... I can't say," he confessed. His throat was coarse. "It was a dream; however, it was so vivid."

"What dream is this?" I inquired after I sat down next to him.

He had a mumbled expression and repeatedly shook his head as if trying to recollect something. "I don't know. Everything is like a haze. There was a house... a huge house, and people... I think I know them, I guess their faces are nowhere. And a woman's voice... the lady was shouting, but I could not get to see her."

I did not understand and it made me annoyed. "Well, do you think it was some kind of a memory?."

"Maybe," he said while massaging his forehead as if there was some discomfort in the head. "But it's too jumbled. I can... I am not able to differentiate between what actually happened and what bad is just... a hallucination."

"That occurs, still, don't worry. Sometimes memories just come back like that," I explained slowly. "In the form of jigsaw pieces. Perhaps, once you are all better, most of it will be back to you."

He moved his head side to side ever so slightly, although I could perceive his irritation as well. "It feels very difficult; I am trying to catch the smoke in giant billowing clouds," he said, his eyes gazing down unfortunately as his voice fell into a whisper. "It's the same with too many things. I think I have something this time and it is gone. Snatched always."

Compassion welled up inside me. I imagined what it must be like for him. Losing everything but being incapable of solving the problems.

"Nobody expects you to face this and cope entirely alone," I consoled him softly, gently pulling his hand towards me. "We will undo it step by step."

At that point, though, he turned his head towards me, and his black, deep, eyes penetrated into mine and for the lightest of minutes, something unfathomable stirred within me – a whisper of familiarity. However, I was denied even that small consolation since in the next moment, he became just a real man who has so many problems in himself and has no power even to face them: all he does is simply sits in the warmth of the shameful darkness of one's worn-out thoughts.

I found it hard to deny that the dreams contained more; more than all the snippets like pieces of snapshots of memory that had suddenly found a free place at that moment. As I sat with him, trying to assist him to complete his routines, I started hearing his words much more carefully, looking for the tiniest details of the bygone period that could explain his identity.

But that feeling of concern only intensified much later, when as I was leaving his room: it turned into fear that settled like a stone unto my belly.

I was all of half down the circle when the telephone which was located at the nurse station rang , cutting through the stillness in the ICU like a knife. I halted my movements; breathing heavily by then the ringing s phone still persisted with each sharp turning on an upsetting note towards sounding in my mind.

There was something on that phone call, something on that phone call that struck me as osseous. I was overwhelmed I must admit, but at the same time, I was insistent the moment I heard that voice that this is serious, whatever the message is, is going to alter my current state.

Here, here I am, unmoving with the ringing of the stammering telephone in the stillness as if heralding some dreadful eventuality foreboding the truth. The familiar memories of the past were closing in where it was stated that nothing will go as one was prepared for. And I was surrounded by the absence of reality and knowledge, only by chains of painful anticipation.

And as I just waited behind the spotting of that phone towards ringing, this was only the start I comprehended.