I Remember

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

I Remember

By Plot Roach

I remember days when the sun seemed like it would shine forever. I remember the color of my house, the smell of fresh laundry and the feel of grass under my bare feet.

That was before.

I made a note, in case I bumped into anyone who survived but didn’t know what was happening. I knew that I would forget, like everyone did.

It says: there was a new drug, it was supposed to make people healthy and immortal. But instead it made people get sick in the head and forget everything. We got it from a plant we found in a buried temple. The writing in the ruins said it was supposed to bring peace to the world.

Where was I? oh, yeah… Something about the broken down buildings and the plant… It made us forget everything.

Did I say that already?

It didn’t happen all at once, but in stages. First we felt better, more healthy. And we lived longer too. The promise was kept, from the writing in the ruins. We were a lot more peaceful, mostly because we weren’t so mad all the time. It’s hard to be mad at someone, be it a terrorist or a nation, if you can’t remember what they did to piss you off.

No, almost everyone got the medicine. That was the problem. We shared it with everyone we could once the tests came out that it was safe for humans to use. What the scientists didn’t know was that it made people forget.

It was a plant that we found in an ancient temple. I said that before? Sorry, I don’t remember. But back to the note…

Not everyone took it, some people didn’t believe in modern medicine and some people lived too far in the rainforests to get the medicine. Their brains are okay. Not like ours. And they ended up taking care of the rest of us.

A lot of people died at first. They just wandered off and forgot that they needed to eat and stuff in order to live. The rest of us learned to leave a lot of notes to keep us going. Some of us were more affected than others.

There is no known cure. We should have left the damned plant alone. You know, the one we found in the temple.

I’m sorry for repeating myself. I’ll make a note about it. See? Here’s my notebook. It reminds me of my house, where it is and what color the paint is. It reminds me of my favorite things. And there’s a picture of a smiling family. I think it’s mine, because I’m in the picture too. I remember the smell of fresh laundry. And the feeling of grass under my bare feet. I remember…