MEMENTO AMORIS

BY HUNTER WEAYMOUTH

I WAS SO sad the day we met...

Have you ever listened to the sound waves make when they crash into the shore? It’s so soothing, almost like they’re breathing in sync with you. As I sat in the sand, bundled up against the cold winter air, I could feel a tear roll down my cheek. Why? Why was I crying? Why was I even at the beach? I could feel the windburn on my face and my knuckles were...bloody. All this thinking was giving me a headache, so I did the thing I always do when I start feeling overwhelmed:

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Max wanted to go for a walk on the beach. I hated the beach at the best of times, but in the middle of winter, I really didn’t see the point.

“Why are we here again, Max?”

“I’ve never been.”

We brought our dog, Scout, along with us, but that was more for me. Max loves to run off and take pictures, so Scout keeps me company.

“While we’re here, why don’t we—”

“No, Ronnie.”

“Max, come on.”

“I’m tired of doing this.”

“We said we’d do it every day.”

“For how long?”

“The doctor said to keep doing it.”

“We’ve done this every day for three months. I’m fine.”

“What’s your name?”

“Maxwell Joseph Knox.” Right.

“What’s my name?”

“Veronica Elizabeth Knox.” Right.

“When’s your birthday?”

“Mar—May 18th.” Wrong.

“When did we get married?”

“April, uh…sorry, no. It was August!” Wrong.

“When did we get married, Max?”

“Friday. It was on a Friday in August.” Scout barked at Max. Even he knew that answer wasn’t close.

“What year did we get married?”

“20...18?” Nope.

“What year is it now?”

“2021.”

A tear streamed down my face, but I tried to hide it from Max. “We got married on November 7th, 2019. It’s 2022.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”

“It’s not your fault.”

This wasn’t the first time Max had forgotten something big. I knew it wouldn’t be the last. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was getting worse. We both were. Max always told me I was being silly, but I knew he felt it too. All these little pieces, gone. I mean, who is a person if not the sum of all their memories? The first person we knew who got sick was Sam. I say “get sick,” but that’s not a good way to describe it. For some people, it’s a slow fade. For others, it’s all at once. I’m still not sure which is worse. I kept thinking back to a time before all of this. It felt so far away then; it never even crossed my radar. You’d hear stories from somewhere in Beijing or Lisbon. The man running the marathon who forgot to stop running or the woman who couldn’t remember how to steer her boat, so she decided to swim home. Those stories soon became more and more frequent and started coming closer to home. A smattering of cases in Maine. An outbreak in California. The final straw came when they grounded all flights in and out of the country. After that, we couldn’t pretend it was just something in another part of the world. It was everywhere. They called it ‘LNE,’ short for Localized Neuro-Encephalopathy.

The world kept moving though. People went to school, to work. It’s not the end of the world, right? These things happen, don’t they? I’m not sure what’s worse. The fact that we’re going through this or that fact that we aren’t the only ones. We’re not special, not unique. After all, when your disaster is everyone’s disaster, why would they care about you?

The world’s top minds poured hours and hours into finding anything that resembled a cure, but they would always crumble under the pressure.

Every few weeks, a new talking head would appear on TV and proclaim that they’d found the cure, only to be proved otherwise a few weeks later. After a while, we knew better than to get our hopes up.

The worst part is there’s no order in which you lose your memories. You could remember your elementary school crush, but forget your last name. Asking basic questions is a good measuring stick for how advanced someone’s LNE is, but really, it was just a band-aid for a more serious problem. I had asked Max the same questions night after night for months, with differing answers every day, but he never tested me or asked me questions. He couldn’t. I checked up on myself though. My name is Veronica Elizabeth Knox, formerly Gabel. I’m 24, my favourite colour is green or blue, I can’t ever decide. My mother was Joan, but she died before ever meeting Max. My father is Roger, and my sister is...Melanie? No, Marissa. Or is it Megan? I can never remember. All these things make up just a fraction of who I am. Could he forget me? Could I forget him? Max was fascinated by all the sights and sounds of the beach. He ran around, taking as many photos as he could.

“Come over here!” He called out to me. When I made my way over, Max was just finishing up a sandcastle.

“Please tell me we didn’t come all this way just for you to build a sandcastle?”

“No...maybe, who cares?”

“I do. It’s freezing out here, Max.”

“Come on, let me take a picture so I’ll remember.” I bent down next to the sandcastle and Max began to frame up a picture. “Say cheese.”

“Cheeeeeeeese!” The flash from the camera blinded me for a second. It took a couple of blinks before I could finally open my eyes and see clearly again. When I finally did look back at Max, he was gone. He and Scout had wandered twenty feet down the shoreline.

“Max?” I chased after him. “Max!” When I finally caught up to him, he had a blank look on his face.

“Hi?”

“Hi?”

Max’s lips formed a pleasant smile; he looked totally at ease. “Um, ok. Bye.” He turned and kept walking.

“Max, Max, Max.” I reached for his hand.

“Hey!”

“Look at me.”

“What?”

“Who am I? Who am I, Max?”

“I don’t know.”

Max tried to pull away again, but I wouldn’t let him. I snatched the front of his jacket. “Veronica! I’m Veronica. I’m your wife!”

“Let go of me.” Max pushed me back. “Look, I don’t know who you are. I’m just out for a walk here, I think you’re confused—”

“I’m not confused.” I couldn’t let him go, not like this. I grabbed onto him one more time, but he pushed me away again. This time even harder. I fell onto the sand.

“I...I’m

sorry. Just leave me alone!”

He looked the same. He looked like the same man I’d shared my life with for the last three years, but when our eyes met, I could tell there was nothing left of me in him. Tears poured down my face, as Max turned and walked away.

I watched him walk further and further away. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was so mad, so angry. After everything that had happened, this was how I was going to lose him? The anger kept building inside of me until I couldn’t take it anymore. I erupted in a fit of anger and began to punch the sand all around me. I punched the sand until my knuckles bled. It hurt, it hurt like hell, but at least it didn’t hurt like Max not seeing me. All I was left with were memories. What good do memories do? Not much. Certain things I tried to hold onto though. Like the first time Max kissed me. It was at one of those awful office Christmas parties. The first kiss is impossible to forget; the second too, until you lose count. How many times have I kissed Max? When was the first time he made me laugh? When was the first time I felt seen by him? How did we meet? Who is Max?

Have you ever listened to the sound waves make when they crash into the shore? It’s so soothing, almost like they’re breathing in sync with you. As I sat in the sand, bundled up against the cold winter air, I could feel a tear roll down my cheek. Why? Why was I crying? Why was I even at the beach? I could feel the windburn on my face and my knuckles were...bloody. All this thinking was giving me a headache, so I did the thing I always do when I start feeling overwhelmed: breathe.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

As I was just starting to declutter my head, I could hear the sound of a panting dog coming toward me. Something about this dog seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason. Its presence felt like a breath of fresh air though, like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

“Hey there, buddy. Where did you come from?” I reached down to the dog’s collar and read its tag:

My name is Scout

If found, please call my owner, Max (718) 356-9103

What a strange name for a dog. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a man slowly walking toward me. He was looking around the beach as if he was lost, and he carried a camera around his neck. “Hey!” I called out to the man. “Is this your dog?” He started jogging toward me to bridge the distance between us.

“What?” The man asked.

“Is this your dog?”

Our eyes met and there was almost an instant feeling of connection. He grinned sheepishly at me, and I couldn’t help but return the smile.

“Max?”

“What?”

“Your name is Max?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“I read the tag.”

“Ah, I knew that thing would come in handy one day.”

I was so sad the day we met. I can’t remember why...