Learn to Forget

by Nayt Rundquist

As I surface, the knife is already singing. Recognizing before either of us, it welcomes me back to the world, back to the biting air, back to life. Its song low, murky, like it’s still underwater.

Holding my breath, I whisper out of the pond, the chill, familiar mud squishing between my fingers. And raining, torrential glass will splash against my face, my arms, slice my palms. The crack of lightning, the groan, crunch, blackness.

But I pull my feet from water to mud. There’s no glass, no storm. It’s not then. Not last time. Not then. The knife sings a murmur—a grounding tether to now.

He floats—out-of-body-distracted, hunched over, crunching nearly drowning out the knife, forgotten on the ground at his side.

Cautious footfalls pull me away from his rooting, from the wettening sounds. Sounds that churn my stomach if I listen too close. So, I focus on the knife. Its soothing invitation to leave this cold forest clearing, this chill familiar pond behind.

And the frigid air behind the raining glass, the showering wood, will howl into our faces, will tear our hair. Dervish the shards within the cabin. Trunk, branches will stab into our night, our room, my stomach, our time together.

But icy mud. Whipping winds. The only crying now in the trees as they rustle, shiver, harmonizing with the knife’s warning song. Leave. Run. But my limbs only shiver. Only shake.

Reluctantly my arms loosen, legs shift, put pond, knife, hunching man behind. Three steps toward the trees before they rebirth a new shape. It’s beyond our shattered window. It’s before the tree line. Its one milky eye trains hungry on me, waiting. Fractured jaw hangs ajar. Papery skin crackles in the freezing air. Its limbs creak louder than wind through the trees, than knife’s lilting solo, than man’s distractions.

And the oozing, seeping feeling pierced into my gut will bleed through pins, through needles. Wind’ll bite songless into face—neck—more vicious than shattered glass, than a tree collapsing through our wall, than a cannibal. Teeth will ache from chattering. An odd sticky warmth will pool everywhere. She’ll moan something. From the shadows beyond living room lights, a stumbling, shambling something. Its shriek will drown the record we spun. Clawhands will scrabble for my face, for purchase through splintered wall. Shattered, yellow nails inches from eyes—no closer.

But it’s watching, waiting, wanting me to realize something, remember something. Something I haven’t learned to forget. Blocking my escape.

Back toward the pond, toward safety, toward silence. He’s still there, unmoored on the opposite shore. Between us the pond. Between us serenity.

I’ll whisper back in, return to sleep. Leave this beast, that man, this knife to themselves, drift off into nothing—nowhen. Or I’ll back through that window. I’ll to that neverwhen I dream-remember. Soothe my Amazon. Crack open my ribcage, swallow her. Keep us. Keep us until we’re safe, dry, warm. But as feet slip into mud and then water, I see what’s distracting him. It calls to me. Sirens to me.

Sloshing, squelching, I move to see what I foggily remember: laying on the ground. He doesn’t notice until I’m staring at her over his shoulder. Not her, but a her. That body’s a mirror—my hair, in that shitty cut I’m never satisfied with—my nose, too long to be cute—my lips, never full enough, yet she always said she loved.

And she’ll kneel there next to me, eyes locked into mine. Her blonde hair will shine, shimmer, will halo in the whipping wind, in the cyclones of glass, of splinters. She’ll scream something, sob something. I’ll hear only a pumping, a splatter of life from a puncture.

But I’m there beneath me, sleeping on the ground. He stops, turns, his way-too-red lipstick smeared all over his face—

His eyes echo from my childhood. T’hey’re surprised—I’ve never seen them surprised. Then excited. A grin crackles into crow’s feet, into so many creases around the mouth. There’s red even between his teeth. Fascinating, he says, his fingers finding their perfect homes around knife’s handle.

Splashing backward, I feel the ghoul behind me still as he stalks my way. It is nothing. It’s sour. Mirror girl. The knife’s mournful keening no comfort. It knows what’s coming.

Wide. Wild. His eyes watch me, find so much else—things that were a thousand years from now, that will be, decades in the past. A practice swing. That smile stretches wider. The knife—still singing—gashes the air. It bleeds—sticky, black, invisible. The wound heals though the bleeding remains, dripping, as he slides toward me.

Two more gleeful slashes puncture the vacuum of space, bring it howling whipping between us. We slide through the water toward it. I feel the void of the ghoul shambling closer behind me—it’s repulsive, pushing me. The howling through that wound louder, colder than howling through our shattered window. Our shattered lives.

Oh. I’ll be quiet. Still. I won’t feel a single thing.

And no one will hear her screams.

But something catches my foot. I can’t gasp before plunging back into silence.

Up through green murk, I see him tumble back into that crack in everything; the ghoul, unable to stop its lunge toward me, topples in after.

Every atom within me, each strand of DNA, tells me, whispers, sings I’m better off where I am. I don’t listen.

As I surface, it’s silent. No wind. No ghoul. No knifesong. Just me. Just an old shack. Just our pond in a clearing. No mirror girl. Just a few piles of that putrid.

As I walk, I try to remember where I need to be. I hope to remember this place this time. I’m not sure I can do either.

About the Author:

Nayt Rundquist (they/them) is a writer of weird things; editor of amazing books; and professor of creative writing, literature, and publishing courses. Their odd scribblings can be found in Inverted Syntax, Digging Through the Fat, The Citron Review, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, and anthologized in Unbound: Composing Home (New Rivers Press). They live just outside space and time with their artist-jeweler wife and their fifth-dimensional dogs.

About the Artist:

GJ Gillespie is a collage artist living in a 1928 Tudor Revival farmhouse overlooking Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island (north of Seattle). In addition to natural beauty, he is inspired by art history -- especially mid century abstract expressionism. The “Northwest Mystics” who produced haunting images from this region 60 years ago are favorites. Winner of 19 awards, his art has appeared in 56 shows and numerous publications. When he is not making art, he runs his sketchbook company Leda Art Supply.