Free Remember by Cristian Mihai

Remember
    Dear
Dexter,
    What if I were to tell you how
this story is going to end? Would you read on? What if I were to tell you what
the biggest tragedy in my life was? Would you care? If I were to flood you with
useless information about who I am and what I do, would you remember any of it
for more than five minutes?
    That’s
why I am not even going to bother telling you my name.
    To
be honest, I have absolutely no idea how this is supposed to work. You know,
how writing about something that happened to me is going to help me or exactly
how I should write it down. Do I write it in the present tense, as if it’s taking
place right now, as I write the words, or do I write it in the past tense
because it already happened and there’s no way it’s going to happen again?
     I
know, I know, first world problems, but I have always thought that the one
thing we shouldn’t be afraid of is the past. It’s selfish and stupid to
remember over and over again the moments of our joys or sorrows, because
history rarely repeats itself during a man’s life. Therefore, the past should
be buried and forgotten.
    Yes,
it’s contradictory that even though I feel this way, I am writing down a little
bit of my own past, in a pathetic and absurd attempt at preserving it. You
know, when I’ll be old, I want to read these papers and remember. Because it is
sad but true that no matter how much we try to keep them intact, memories die.
Memories die, and there’s no way to bring them back once they have vanished
from our mind.
    A
long time ago, when I was a kid, I used to keep a diary. And every night, before
I would go to sleep, I would write down everything that had happened to me
during that day. It was a painstaking process, so after one month I gave up.
    But
this is not what I want to write about. No, not at all. I want to write about
her. So here goes nothing.
    If
there’s one thing that I regret, then it must be the fact that I never
experienced love at a very young age. You know, a pure and simple love, like
one you have when you’re five or six or seven. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the type
that used to play with others too much. Introverted is one of the words my
mother used ever so often to characterize me as a person, and as I grew up, I
did my best to become the exact opposite of what that word describes.
    Yes,
Dexter, I know I’m just like a dog chasing his own tail. And yes, I am going to
write about her. Eventually.
    Maybe
right now, after I write a couple more words. You know, so I can man up and
figure out how to write about her without blushing like a stupid kid who has seen
boobs for the first time.
    I’ve
always thought our first love, for those who remember it, is something that
carries with it a certain charm, a certain echo. And every other love feels
connected to this first one, to the moment of our first great disillusion, when
we forgot to be young and naïve. It’s a strange thing, to keep something as
childish as our first love as a way of comparing the amplitude of our feelings
as adults, but I reckon this happens to a lot of people.
    But,
yes, you are right. I have to write about her.
    Well,
she was my first kiss. We were young and a little drunk, and she only did it
because… well, I don’t really know why she did it. And it wasn’t a real kiss
either. Our lips touched for only a brief moment, but I remember it so clearly.
It burned. That’s how I can describe it. That kiss, that second when our lips
met, was enough to make my lips burn hot, feverishly hot to be exact, for
almost half an hour. And for a long time it was enough to make them burn
whenever I remembered.
     
Dexter, Dexter, guessing by your name, I think you don’t know much about the
educational system in Romania. So I should tell you that in Romania, when
you’re in the eighth grade, you have to take these tests, so you can know which
high school you’re entitled to go to. And well, kids from a bunch of schools
come to the same place to