Short Story Saturday: Non Morieris in Somnis Memorias

Short Story Saturday: Non Morieris in Somnis Memorias - Photo by Robin McPherson from Pexels
Photo by Robin McPherson from Pexels

Hello everyone! As part of Short Story Saturday, I have posted another short story, this one entitled Non Morieris in Somnis Memorias. Please enjoy.

I’m walking through immaculate streets and surrounded by large and luxurious homes, monuments of better days. This place was once vibrant and full of life, now sterile, and empty except for the leaves blowing in the wind. A looming clock tower stands in the center of town. Its ticking hands reverberate inside my skull each passing step perpetually reminding me of the inexorable nature of time.

I am exhausted. Mentally. Physical fatigue is impossible here.

My journey leads me to “Johnson’s Curios”, my parent’s old store.  I feel compelled to look through the window. I see my mother dusting the wares as my father collects money from a customer. I’m there too but as a child. I see my parents later laughing, playing with an old phonograph. Old music fills the air with a haunting melody. They begin to dance, playfully, without a care in the world. Then they gesture playfully toward me to join their fun.

I refuse and instead continue to sulk. I’m still enraged that they didn’t purchase the video game all my friends already owned. They couldn’t afford it. Their attempt to convince me that there’s more to life than money falls on my deaf ears. It instead angers me further and my heart fills with resentment. Not only for our poverty but toward them for deigning to even attempt to convince me it was okay to be poor. A decade later I would leave for college and never speak to them again.

I continue forward and see a playground. My wife is there with my daughter. She is pushing our little one on a swing. Both have the most joyous grins I have ever seen. As I approach, my pace quickens with every stop. My beloved daughter notices and calls out to me in a gleeful, giggling voice, “Daddy, come play with us!” I dash towards her with arms wide while shouting at the top of my lungs, “Yes! Daddy will play with you!”

She does not hear me. In fact, she isn’t truly talking to me. Instead, she is speaking to the apparition behind me, to the man working on the bench, the one who refuses to engage in such frivolities. They all then begin to fade away.

Not long afterward, our marriage dissipated. That’s the best way of putting it. We didn’t even fight before the divorce. I just didn’t care enough to fight it. My wife and I just didn’t understand each other anymore, I figured. Her dreams and ambitions no longer matched mine. So it was only natural that we go our separate ways. She moved to a different town after the divorce and took my little girl with her. I didn’t see my daughter much after that. Despite the promises, I never did see her on weekends. “Too busy” almost became a mantra to the point that she eventually altogether stopped calling. With a dejected sigh, I continue walking.

I arrive at the edge of town and happen upon a drab, cold, and sterile bank. Its door is wide open so I walk inside. In the center of the empty lobby is a stack of money piled to the roof. It is every dollar that I have ever earned. It is everything I ever wanted. It is everything I was willing to alienate everyone for. It is everything I cannot take with me. I find a place to sit in the pile and grab two large handfuls of bills. My head jerks toward the ceiling. Tears stream down my face as I wail. The clock still chimes but its ticks begin to fade.

If you enjoyed this story, then perhaps you’d be interested in reading more by pressing the “short story” tag below or clicking this(short story) link or this(genre and tags) link or this(story list) link. I would also urge you to share this story with others and comment below. Please check out my books page as well by pressing here. Thank you for reading my story.

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