We never thought we’d see that watch again, so it was a real shock when it showed up just like Mom said it would. I didn’t even get the chance to try to convince her that buying a new one was her best bet. Turned out that the funeral hall had been keeping it as a lost item at their office the entire time. The staff member Mom called checked the safe and rang back right away to say it was there. It was back on her wrist the very next day.
Dad never realized that it was lost or that it came back. We were all dealing with a huge event—my grandpa’s sudden passing—so none of us noticed the smaller matter of the missing watch.
Mom kept her promise. She managed to convince Dad, who was paranoid about putting phones in the hands of kids, to get me one. I had just entered my third year of junior high when they bought me my long-yearned-for iPhone.
I, on the other hand, very much did not keep my promise.
Forget about studying for a sec. I talked back to my mom hundreds, if not thousands of times after that. “Shut up!”, “Leave me alone!”, “None of your business!”, “Who cares?!”, “Get outta here!”, “I hate you!”…and way worse things too. I was always so mad, I felt desperate to hurt her however I could. I wish I knew why. Maybe I didn’t want to take her for granted and thought I had to shake free of her if I ever wanted to become an adult. Or, y’know, maybe it was a hormone thing.
Who knows? Either way, Mom was right when she said, “The memory of your lack of respect will prove a strong source of regret for you.” Mom accurately predicted the future. I was really regretting my attitude right now. I wished I could take back all the horrible things I’d said to her. I wish I could start over. Tell her I loved her. Tell her I wanted to spend more time with her. Tell her how great her cooking was, how happy she made me, how grateful I was for her. Tell her goodbye in the mornings. Hello when I came home. Shout “hi” when she got in. Ask her to sit with me. Ask her for a hug. Ask her not to leave me on my own. Ask her to talk to me. Ask her to stay with me till I fell asleep, and then become a baby again, clinging to her with everything I had, crying my lungs out.
She’d probably say, “Oh.” Then she’d lift me up and pat my back and gently rock me till I stopped crying. Just like she always had. And, as always, it would soothe me. I would close my eyes and fall asleep.
I’d do anything to hear her voice again, even just once. My mind couldn’t replicate it anymore. I was about to forget what it sounded like. It was slipping away from me.
It wasn’t just her voice either. The warmth that radiated from her skin when I touched her face, her scent, everything that I’d taken for granted was dripping out of me with each drop of blood. I wouldn’t be able to remember what she was like anymore. My memories were falling apart one by one, and whenever I tried to pick up one of those lumps of time, I couldn’t even remember the title I’d given it. They got more faded the more I chased them. All of them. Disappearing.
Don’t go. Please. I want to hear her voice… Just once. Once, before my mind completely shuts down. Please. Please. Please, please…
What was it I was begging so hard for just now?
See? I’d totally forgotten. The next time I closed my eyes might have been my last. I might never open them again after that. The thought terrified me, so I was doing everything I could to keep them open. The contents of my head were still sliding down over its surface. I was steadily losing everything, steadily growing colder.
I knew there was something I really wanted to hear just a few seconds ago. So I listened as hard as I could for the sake of my past self. That was when I heard something that caught me off guard: footsteps on the grass.
At first, I thought I’d misheard. After all, there was no way that anyone was gonna find me. But they had to be footsteps, and they were slowly getting closer. I could hear a weird, rhythmic squeaking sound too, like an eraser rubbing against something hard.
That was when I saw the alien. I’m not even kidding.