“Hey. How are you?,” he asked in a voice permeating with icy indifference.
“I’m good, thanks.”
“It’s been a while since I last heard from you. So, why’d you call?”
“I just wanted to ask…do you still remember the 4th of July, in 2005?” Her question was loaded with undertones of hope that somehow, he might still remember.
“What are you talking about?” There was a glaring dryness and annoyance in his timbre.
“Don’t you remember? The fireworks…the slots in the wall ---”
“You called me just to ask if I remember some random night two years ago?” He was visibly irritated.
“Yes…I…I just wanted to ask if you---”
“No, I’m sorry but I don’t recall anything special about that date.” His words sliced like daggers.
“You don’t really remember anything?,” she inquired, in a tone pregnant with sad exasperation.
“4th of July…independence day, right?”
“Yeah, and they had a fireworks display and we---,”
“Well, I’m really sorry but I don’t recall anything. All I know is that the US Embassy sets off fireworks every year to celebrate independence day. I may have seen some of the 4th of July fireworks on TV, or when I was a kid or whatever, but two years ago I don’t really remember if I saw them or not. I mean, that was ages ago already”. His voice betrayed such frost. “What’s it to you, anyway?”
At that point in time, it would have meant the world to her if he had even the slightest recollection of that exquisite evening. “But how could he have forgotten?” she thought to herself. It was just about the most resplendent event they had witnessed together. That night, their fingers were interlocked, and her heart rhythmically erupted with affection for the boy in synchrony with each glorious explosion of pyrotechnics in the sky.
Was the boy afflicted with such profound memory loss for him not to have recalled an otherwise significant event? Or could it be selective amnesia? Did he deliberately forget? Or maybe that night might not have been as momentous as she imagined it to be after all. Maybe it was just a night of meaningless noise and drab multi-colored sparklers. Maybe all along she was concocting memories unilaterally. Or did that incident even occur at all?
The girl was still plagued by questions, but she deemed it best to just surrender. Maybe there really was a sliver of truth to the boy’s statements. In the end, she just resolved to create the same memory, in the distant future, with a boy who would remember.
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