\nThe world is in limbo at 4am. I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s late or early. The sun hasn\u2019t started to rise, but the stars aren\u2019t quite visible anymore. The crickets have stopped chirping, but no birds are awake to sing yet. Do you ever wonder whether you\u2019re reaching the end of your life or the beginning? Can you pinpoint the moment when someone you are becomes someone you were? When do you start using past tense when talking about people you know (or knew)? What\u2019s the difference, if there is one, between is and was and used to be? These are the questions that 4am asks me, and I have no answers for it. Maybe that\u2019s why, in this bleakness in between light and dark, I get the most visits at this time. I\u2019m usually on my third pot of coffee by then, so awake (and so tired) I go full minutes without blinking. I\u2019m usually about to let out the breath I take in every day once the sun starts to set and think that, for today, everything must\u2019ve been alright in the world. I\u2019m usually right. But sometimes, maybe two or three times a month, I\u2019m not. That\u2019s when I\u2019ll pull on my jacket, head outside to the edge of the windy cliffside, and invite whoever it is who was about to leave this world to stay awhile.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t have to do this,\u201d I might say, grabbing their hand and gently pulling them back. They\u2019ll turn to face me, both annoyed and relieved at the interruption, and I\u2019ll notice something about them. Sometimes they look pretty young, sometimes they\u2019re dressed very nicely, sometimes they have an engagement ring on, sometimes they have something in their hands\u2013a necklace, a letter, a picture. Sometimes they\u2019ll have taken off their shoes. I never really understood what that was about. Are they afraid of getting their shoes wet? Do they worry about trudging around the afterlife in damp socks? Do they hope someone will find them? They usually won\u2019t say much, if anything. Most of the time, they aren\u2019t even crying. But they\u2019ll always come inside. Some will have a cup of coffee. I\u2019ll have two. Usually, though, they\u2019ll go for tea.\n<\/p>\n
\nI won\u2019t ask them why, but sometimes they\u2019ll tell me. This is when they\u2019ll start to cry, if they weren\u2019t before. Once they get to the part about how lonely it is, no matter how many people are around you, that\u2019s when they\u2019ll start. I\u2019ll tell them that it\u2019s ok, that everyone has people who love and care about them and that I\u2019m sure they are not as alone as they think they are. I don\u2019t mind lying to keep people away from my home.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThank you,\u201d they\u2019ll say.\n<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ll nod. Afterwards, I\u2019ll find a place on my mantel and they\u2019ll leave me their name. They\u2019ll stay until the sun rises. I\u2019ll hope they never visit me again. Usually, they don\u2019t. Usually Beachy Head is a place they\u2019d rather not remember.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe delivery boy comes on the first Monday of each month with my groceries. It\u2019s the only package I ever get. The 24-hour Waitrose is a fifteen-minute drive from my cottage on Beachy Head. Fifteen minutes there, fifteen minutes back, half an hour getting groceries. It\u2019s just too long to be gone. For over a year, the delivery boy hasn\u2019t asked me why I can\u2019t come to the store myself, and for over a year I haven\u2019t asked him whether or not he should be in school. We have an understanding.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cShe\u2019s a beautiful day today, isn\u2019t she, Miss Kayla?\u201d he asks.\n<\/p>\n
\nI like his accent. Something about British children (he must be about seventeen though, old enough to resent being called a child) is off-putting and charming at the same time, especially with the odd drawl people from Sussex seem to have. He\u2019s got a ruddy complexion and a pleasant, customer service smile.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt is,\u201d I say. 64 degrees fahrenheit, a slight breeze, partial clouds. It\u2019s very nice for November, but I\u2019m sure by next week it\u2019ll be bitter cold and gusty, especially up here. I tip him \u00a310 and take my groceries.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThank you!\u201d he says, always chipper. \u201cCheers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cCheers,\u201d I say back, but I can tell it sounds weird coming out of my American mouth.\n<\/p>\n
\nI return to my post. I spread smooth peanut butter on soft white bread while I keep watch. It\u2019s only 5:43pm but maybe someone had a bad day at work. I never have bad days at work. Sitting solitary in the comfort of my own quiet home, I make calls and ask people if they\u2019d like to spend money on something they\u2019re not already spending money on. I\u2019m thankful when they hang up on me. Most of them do, but some are too polite, or maybe too lonely, or maybe too bored to give up the brief company. I\u2019m thankful I\u2019m paid for hours and not commission. I\u2019m thankful this job lets me focus on living here on the cliff.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nNobody visits me that day, and I\u2019m glad. It\u2019s a bit early in the month for it anyway; it gets worse closer to Christmas. So I take a ten minute shower around 8am. It\u2019s the one luxury I allow myself, and it\u2019s as good as sleep. Better, even. I leave the door open while I shower, though. It doesn\u2019t really make any sense, I know that, but I feel like I\u2019ll be able to feel someone in my front yard better that way. After my shower, I don\u2019t look at myself in the mirror; the mirrors in my house are gone. I\u2019ve become afraid of tracking the changes in my own reflection. Still, even without seeing myself, I can tell the circles around my eyes have gotten darker. I slip into a soft bathrobe, pour a cup of coffee, and go back by the window. Before I sit down, however, I notice someone\u2019s already out there. I rush outside to pull her back, but she whips around to face me before I can grab her hand. Then, she does something that I don\u2019t know how to respond to. She smiles. Not a teary-eyed, devastated smile. She beams so wide I notice a missing tooth towards the back of her mouth.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSo, it\u2019s true. The lifeguard,\u201d she says. Her accent doesn\u2019t sound very Sussex, but I can\u2019t place it.\n<\/p>\n
\nI don\u2019t have time to say the things I\u2019m supposed to say or invite her in or get her name before she thanks me and runs off. I wouldn\u2019t have said any of those things either way. I would\u2019ve asked what she was talking about. Either way, I\u2019m so confused it takes me five full seconds to call after her, \u201cWait!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nShe doesn\u2019t.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nI get a call on Wednesday\u2013I never get calls.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHello?\u201d I\u2019m almost not sure how to answer it. My hello comes out as a faded recording of an impression of someone else\u2019s.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHello, Miss Coleman!\u201d the friendly voice greets me as if we\u2019re already friends. \u201cIs this a good time?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry, who is this?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019m from the Mid Sussex Times.<\/em> I was hoping we could schedule an interview with you. The Middy<\/em> is very interested in your story!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMy story?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWell, of course! You\u2019re the Lifeguard!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThat name again. I hang up. No distractions.\n<\/p>\n \n \nOn the second Monday of the month a visitor comes at 4:06am. She\u2019s sitting down on the cliffside, shoes still on, when I go out to meet her. She doesn\u2019t want to come in, so we sit outside and look out at the black waves and the cautionary white beam from the lighthouse just off the shore while she tells me about her daughter, Myrna, who just turned nine and likes to do ballet and whose goodness frightens her. I don\u2019t blame her for being afraid of not being good enough. I don\u2019t blame her for feeling trapped in a role that she never really signed up for. I don\u2019t blame her for worrying that she\u2019ll fuck up and cause her daughter to be just like her. They\u2019re all reasonable fears.\n<\/p>\n \nAfter a while she does come inside for tea (She\u2019s surprised at how strong I make it\u2013 \u201cI didn\u2019t think Americans could brew a proper cup.\u201d) and warms herself by the fire before writing her name, Sharla Abbott, on the mantel. It\u2019s still dark when she says she has to leave, but she assures me that she\u2019ll be okay.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMaybe I\u2019ll come back up with Myrna,\u201d she says.\n<\/p>\n \nI shake my head. \u201cI think it\u2019s best not to come back. Not to dwell. You know?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe frowns, but nods. \u201cYou\u2019re right. Thank you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThese are the fleeting visits I get on Beachy Head every so often when someone\u2019s flimsy will to live snaps like a twig and they find themselves on my property, drawn to the lighthouse in the water like moths to a flame. Without them, the only company I have is the faraway, faceless lighthouse keeper, the wind, and the mean sound of the collision of waves with jagged rocks.\n<\/p>\n \nI don\u2019t see Sharla again after that, only her name above my fireplace, and I\u2019m glad for the loneliness. Until the third Wednesday of the month when that strange visitor comes back at midnight. I wish I could be happy to see her, but I\u2019m annoyed. I\u2019m annoyed that I didn\u2019t have enough time to tell her not to come back.\n<\/p>\n \n \nWater.\n<\/p>\n \n \nMy memories of Beachy Head are watercolor stills. I have spent centuries forgetting. A re-memory:\n<\/p>\n \n \n…A little Black girl, four years younger than me…It\u2019s 4:30pm\u2026Our father bought us pocket watches so we could pretend to be high society Londonites\u2026Waves crash against rocks like bad dreams\u2026<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nI have a memory that isn\u2019t my own of drowning.\n<\/p>\n \nI think a lot about the hyphen in my ethnicity.\n<\/p>\n \nI have memories that are not my own of ships.\n<\/p>\n \nI have never liked boats. I have never been on a cruise. I like the beach, but I don\u2019t like the ocean.\n<\/p>\n \nI have been afraid of water for generations.\n<\/p>\n \nI often wonder whether trauma is a dominant or recessive trait.\n<\/p>\n \n \n…I have my own room now…I have a dream that is not my own about washing up on shore…<\/em>?\n<\/p>\n \n \nI catch her hand just as she\u2019s about to fall, and she just looks back at me and says, \u201cHi.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHi?\u201d I say. I mean it as a greeting, but it comes out as a question. I notice her shiver; over halfway through November and she\u2019s wearing a flowy white dress as if it were spring\u2013an odd sort of optimism. She has on a partially unzipped backpack, no shoes, and her long locs are wrapped around themselves in a bun. \u201cI take it you\u2019re about to run off again?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNot this time!\u201d she says, and smiles as if she wasn\u2019t just about to use my front yard as burial ground. \u201cI have a surprise for you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBefore I can finish my \u201cWhat?\u201d she\u2019s unzipped her backpack and there is a small dog in my arms. This doesn\u2019t make me any less confused.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t have any money to take care of her,\u201d she explains, \u201cBut I saw her by the side of the road on my way up here and I just thought that since you\u2019re up here alone it\u2019d be nice to\u2013\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI stop her with a look. The dog, a wiry haired mutt, whines so I put it down. \u201cYou were going to jump to your death with this in your bag?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe cocks her head as if confused. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t jump to my death.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI open my mouth to respond, but realize I don\u2019t know how to continue the conversation.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cPlease just take care of her,\u201d she says.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTake her to a shelter. I don\u2019t have any food and\u2013\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe grocery store is ten minutes away! I\u2019m sure they have pet food.\u201d She\u2019s ready for each rebuttal, as if this is an argument we\u2019ve had before.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI have to keep watch.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe looks left, then right, then behind her. \u201cI can watch until you get back. I\u2019ll scare off any potential jumpers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI hate that word. \u201cWe just met,\u201d I say. \u201cI can\u2019t let you keep watch for me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nInstead of responding, she shrugs and sits down at the cliff, looking out into the English Channel. The dog crawls into her lap and curls up.\n<\/p>\n \nI\u2019ve never been uncomfortable with silence before.\n<\/p>\n \nI go inside, and ten minutes later come back with \u00a320. While she\u2019s gone at the store, I put dog food on my monthly order. The dog sleeps at my feet while I keep watch. She snores sisi…sisi\u2026 <\/em>so I name her Sisi. Nobody visits in the twenty minutes that my strange visitor is gone and I\u2019m glad.\n<\/p>\n \n \nShe comes into my home as if she isn\u2019t a visitor and lays a bag of dog food on the kitchen table and two bowls on the floor. I glance back at her and lift up a hand in greeting as she fills one of the bowls with food.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThank you,\u201d I say.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThank you,\u201d she says.\n<\/p>\n \nPouring another cup, I notice that my pot is running low and I get up to brew more coffee.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cTea or coffee?\u201d I ask her.\n<\/p>\n \nShe shakes her head.\n<\/p>\n \nI shrug and place a fresh filter into the basket, then add four tablespoons of dark ground beans. I add water to the pot and then pour the rest into Sisi\u2019s bowl. One new step to the routine doesn\u2019t hurt, I guess.\n<\/p>\n \nShe hums a tune I know that I remember. Then it\u2019s quiet until she asks me, \u201cDon\u2019t you wanna ask me why I jumped?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n…Mm-mm mm-mm through my window\u2026My mother\u2019s bare feet on the kitchen floor, her soft voice makes everything she sings a secret\u2026<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \n\u201cYou didn\u2019t jump,\u201d I remind her. \u201cAnd no, not really. Unless you want to tell me.\u201d I take a sip of lukewarm coffee and frown, impatient for a fresh pot. \u201cI will ask you your name though.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe looks up, as if trying to remember. \u201cYou can call me Bird.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBird,\u201d I say. I cross over to the fireplace and take the felt pen from off the mantel. \u201cWould you?\u201d I say, holding it up to her.\n<\/p>\n \nShe joins me by the fireplace. \u201cWho are these people?\u201d she asks, running a finger over each name. I realize that nobody\u2019s ever questioned it before. I still can\u2019t place her accent.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s everyone who\u2019s visited me here.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe nods, understanding. \u201cSo these are your trophies.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI feel my eyes narrow. \u201cNo, nothing like that. Just a way to remember.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSeems a little too proud.\u201d She takes the pen from me, caps it, and hands it back. \u201cI don\u2019t like monuments to tragedy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s not a monument,\u201d I say. Bird, I realize, is exasperating. \u201cDon\u2019t you keep reminders? Letters, trinkets?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMaybe,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I\u2019m not a memory.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI hear my coffee brewing and decide not to respond. I finish my cup and pour a fresh one as Sisi wakes up and trots over to the food bowl.\n<\/p>\n \n \n\u2026 \u201cBut mommy we\u2019d both take care of it!\u201d…\n<\/p>\n \n \nFootprints in fresh snow\u2026 <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \n\u201cKayla,\u201d she says, and I realize this is the third time she\u2019s tried to get my attention. I\u2019ve been staring out the window, watching. My cup is half empty. I wonder if she wonders if she\u2019s offended me. I wonder if our memories of people even exist.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cSorry. Are you alright?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe nods. \u201cI should leave though.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAre you sure? It\u2019s pretty dark.\u201d Only 1:15am. Sunrise is hours away, and I feel protective. It\u2019s dangerous going down Beachy Head at night. \u201cYou should rest. It can get really lonely out there and the path is steep.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBird smiles. \u201cI\u2019ll be back! I have to visit the puppy, after all.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI frown. \u201cI think you shouldn\u2019t come back. The rest of your life should be about how you live it, not dwelling on all this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBird laughs, and for the third time that night I am very confused. \u201cDoes this Catcher in the Rye<\/em> thing ever get boring?\u201d She rolls her eyes. \u201cYou can\u2019t just make people names. It doesn\u2019t matter if you think you saved them.\u201d She laughs again and picks her backpack up from by the door. \u201cI\u2019ll see you later, Lifeguard.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBefore I can object, Bird is gone.\n<\/p>\n \nFor the rest of the season, she makes it her duty to haunt me.\n<\/p>\n \n \nMemory.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe things I\u2019ve forgotten are like phantom limbs.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI can feel a whole language, invisible, unspeakable, intangible, rolling around in my mouth. My own sister\u2019s name is a familiar tune that I can\u2019t quite place.\n<\/p>\n \n \n…It\u2019s 4:45pm…Someone I love disappears into water…<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nThere are no faces or names in that memory, but it smells like the old wood floors of my childhood home.\n<\/p>\n \n \nSometimes when the delivery boy comes with the newspaper, I like to read the obituaries. It\u2019s not as morbid as it sounds; I\u2019ve never read anyone\u2019s name in The Middy<\/em> whose name is also on my mantel. I remember all of their names. Maybe that\u2019s why there are so many things in my own life that I\u2019ve forgotten\u2013you can only shove so much into a suitcase until some spills out. Moving here, I had to pack everything I owned into two large suitcases. I\u2019ve only moved once, but I have some advice on packing:\n<\/p>\n \nStart with sorting. Throw all your clothes, books, jewelry, shoes, bags, bad memories, and hair products onto the floor and decide what you\u2019ll take with you, what can stay behind, and what should be thrown or given away. It\u2019s nice to give things away because it feels like if something were to happen to you, who knows, then at least someone will have a piece of you that couldn\u2019t fit into your suitcase. That piece\u2013the sweater you no longer like, those ugly, regifted earrings\u2013can be theirs when you no longer belong to anyone or anything.\n<\/p>\n \nFragile items can be hard to pack safely, especially if you\u2019re travelling by plane, so just break them before an unfortunate mistake breaks them for you. Be in control of your own self destruction. Swaddle the broken pieces in bubble wrap and place them between two layers of sweaters.\n<\/p>\n \nIf you\u2019re nice to the person that checks your bags, they might let you get away with an extra kilogram. After all, if the plane goes down won\u2019t it all get wet just the same, even if you\u2019ve moved it to your carry on?\n<\/p>\n \n \nThree of the six obituaries say that the person \u201cdied in their sleep.\u201d I know that isn\u2019t true. That isn\u2019t a way that you can die. Nobody just slips peacefully off to an even deeper and more permanent dream. There\u2019s always a reason. I used to wake up in my bed unable to move and think I\u2019d died. Now I\u2019m thankful that I rarely sleep.\n<\/p>\n \n \nIt\u2019s not quite 3am, and my eyes are starting to glaze over. I yawn and reach for my pot of coffee and take the last sip. I\u2019m about to get up to brew another pot when Bird materializes in the window and startles me, her grinning face pressed against the glass. She disappears for a moment only to reappear at the door. Again, she enters as if she has lived in this house for years.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHi!\u201d she says.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI have a gift for you.\u201d She sits down across from me at the kitchen table. I notice she\u2019s still wearing that dress. \u201cHere.\u201d She places a plastic bag of coffee beans on the table.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThese are for me?\u201d I don\u2019t remember the last time I\u2019ve gotten a gift (though I\u2019m warming up to Sisi, who is asleep at my feet.) \u201cThank you.\u201d I smell the bag and allow myself to smile. \u201cWatch the window a minute,\u201d I say, getting up to grind my new beans and make another pot.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m worthy of guard duty now?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI look at her, searching for any signs of uncertainty. Unable to spot any, I say, \u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBird watches the window and hums while I make coffee.\n<\/p>\n \n \n…Bluebird bluebird through my window… <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nFinally I place it\u2013a song my mother used to sing me. I wonder again about Bird\u2019s accent and realize I know nothing about her except that she is childlike and strange.\n<\/p>\n \nThe coffee is a bit weak, but I don\u2019t complain. While I watch the window, Bird sits by the fire and hums.\n<\/p>\n \n \nAt 9am, I jolt awake, sitting upright on the couch in my small living room. I won\u2019t ever get those six hours back. I didn\u2019t even dream. Or maybe I did and just can\u2019t remember. Maybe my dream is another in a long string of memories I\u2019ve willfully forgotten. Either way, the fire is out and Bird is not watching at the window. I feel stupid for trusting someone who should be a stranger. Someone who is not consumed with a dreadful sense of duty to this cliff and its visitors. Someone who can sleep without waking up to the sticky feeling of bloody hands.\n<\/p>\n \nThere is nobody on the cliff and nobody that I can see in the water below. My hands are clean this time. How can I feel so guilty for a life I did not lose? I sit down by the edge and listen to the restless water. The sound of the waves and the fierce wind is not a lullaby, it\u2019s a warning. A reminder that any body of water is more powerful and less forgiving than any human body. Some people find this, the knowledge that our bodies are fragile and miniscule, scary. I, however, find it soothing. Our bodies are normally possessed by false importance and the absence of light and the dangerous illusion of strength. It\u2019s an odd sort of comfort to remember that your body, a frail vessel, cannot protect you from everything. This way you know you don\u2019t have the great responsibility of being immortal. This way you are reminded that you are small and so too are most things that might hurt you, relative to the size of sea. This way you see that because you are weak there must be stronger things that might protect you.\n<\/p>\n \nBird is sitting at the kitchen table with Sisi in her lap when I get back. She looks up at me and smiles a greeting.\n<\/p>\n \n \n\u201cI need you to leave,\u201d I say. I take the pen from the fireplace and try to hand it to her.\n<\/p>\n \nSomething flashes in Bird\u2019s eyes for a moment. What is that look? Is she hurt? No. Angry. She takes the pen, caps it, and hands it back to me again. \u201cDo you really think you\u2019re saving them?\u201d she asks. I don\u2019t answer. She sets Sisi down and walks to the door. She looks back at me. \u201cDo you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe shrugs. \u201cGood luck, Lifeguard.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \nAnd then I am alone.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI go back to the window.\n<\/p>\n \nI take my seat.\n<\/p>\n \nI watch the cliff.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI usually get a visit on the first snow of the season. Not this year, though. Things have been quiet on Beachy Head. A few tourist families taking pictures, the distant presence of the lighthouse keeper, but I\u2019ve been mostly alone through December. The delivery boy came with my groceries, but it was during the ten minutes I use to shower so he left the box at the door. Sisi is good company, although she doesn\u2019t talk much.\n<\/p>\n \nMost of my life before Beachy Head is a blur, but I can assume I didn\u2019t have that lonely a childhood. There are people in most of the old memories that I have, although not all of them have names or faces. Now all I have of the people I know is their names and the knowledge that they are alive. I\u2019ll have that until I see their name in the obituaries–I never have. That, for me, is enough. Bird was wrong. My mantle is not a monument. It\u2019s the company I keep. I don\u2019t know if I had friends as a child though, or if I was liked. If I didn\u2019t live up here, would I be? Would I care enough to make friends?\n<\/p>\n \nI make a few calls while I keep watch. Most of the people I call hang up, and one man is comically angry that I\u2019m calling on Christmas Eve, as if I remembered that\u2019s what day it is. I manage to convince the one person who lets me talk, an older woman, to purchase a new security system for her home. She worries about burglars and has priceless china that\u2019s been in her family for years–she\u2019s saving it to give to her daughter when she gets married. Her daughter is forty-three. She also has a son who has a wife and a thirteen year old daughter. She doesn\u2019t want him to have the china, though. She wants it for her daughter when she gets married. Her birthday is next month. I don’t know why she tells me all this, but I\u2019m glad she feels some sort of illusion of safety.\n<\/p>\n \nOnce she hangs up, I get a call. Someone returning the favor, I guess.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHello! Ms. Coleman?\u201d a slightly familiar, too-friendly voice greets me. I wait for him to go on, and he waits for me to say hello. He clears his throat and breaks the silence. \u201cI\u2019m calling from The Middy<\/em> again. I wanted to ask once more if you\u2019d do an interview. I think your place on Beachy Head could make quite a story!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI want to hang up, but a small part of me is too polite, or maybe too lonely, or maybe too bored to give up the brief, though unwelcome, company. A larger part of me, though, is too proud to be the subject of someone else\u2019s story.\n<\/p>\n \nWhy not let people know there is someone out here to protect them?<\/em> I hear Bird\u2019s voice like a conscience. I disagree. I can\u2019t let this place gain notoriety. It\u2019s too distracting. I hang up. They won\u2019t call again.\n<\/p>\n \n \nWhen Bird left, she took my solitude with her. In return, she left me with the heavy presence of no company and the constant feeling of being watched. This is what my cliff must feel like, always under my distant eye. But at least the cliff knows who\u2019s watching it. I, on the other hand, have no idea if the eye I feel on me is even there. Sometimes I swear I hear Bird humming, only to realize I\u2019m hearing my own voice, idly filling the silence with futile sound. Sisi is odd company–I think she can tell I\u2019m lonely, or at least beginning to remember the feeling of loneliness. She\u2019s mostly silent, but sometimes she\u2019ll bark forcefully at the door, wary of some intruder that is not yet here, or maybe just not yet visible to me. Sisi, I think, is smarter than I am, letting her anxiety loudly manifest rather than forcing herself to forget it was ever there. I told Bird to leave, but the empty space on my mantle makes me sure that her absence is as temporary as her existence is. What was that look? Was she angry? No. Hurt.\n<\/p>\n \n \n…Bluebird bluebird, through my window\u2026 <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nI hum the song my mother taught me while I fill Sisi\u2019s bowl with food. The song that Bird resurrected and brought back to my memory. Why does she know it? Why does she enter my home as if she is not a stranger? Why is she childlike and strange?\n<\/p>\n \n \n…Bluebird bluebird, through my window\u2026 <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nSisi barks at something in the distance, and I realize she\u2019s been barking for a while now, trying to get my attention. It\u2019s 11:49 and someone\u2019s out on the cliff. I try to reach for my coat, but my body isn\u2019t receiving any signals to move. This, among other things, is why I don\u2019t let myself sleep. I close my eyes and take inventory of the parts of my body. Toes. One\u2026 two\u2026 three\u2026 four\u2026 five\u2026 six\u2026 seven\u2026 eight\u2026 nine\u2026 ten. Fingers. One\u2026 two\u2026 three\u2026 four\u2026 five\u2026 six\u2026 seven\u2026 eight\u2026 nine\u2026 ten. Two legs. Two arms. A mouth. Two eyes. A nose. Usually I can get my body to wake up by reminding myself that it\u2019s real. That I\u2019m here. I\u2019m here. I\u2019m here\u2026 I bend my right big toe, just slightly, and open my eyes.\n<\/p>\n \nThe visitor is still out on the cliff, but someone else is out there with them now. She\u2019s wearing a flowy white dress as if it were spring\u2013an odd, optimistic sort of obliviousness. She has on no shoes, and her long locs are wrapped around themselves in a bun. The cold hasn\u2019t turned her brown feet red. She seems impervious to it. Snow falls around her; none of it seems to get in her hair. She stands next to the visitor, and I can see her mouth moving but I can\u2019t make out what she\u2019s saying to them.\n<\/p>\n \nThe only parts of my body that I can move are the toes on my right foot.\n<\/p>\n \nHer palm is flat against the middle of the visitor\u2019s back, her arm bent slightly.\n<\/p>\n \nI feel the thumb on my right hand move. I try with all the strength in my weak, tired body to make a fist, but only half my fingers will move.\n<\/p>\n \nShe straightens her arm, her palm still flat on their back, and they\u2019re moving forward. She\u2019s pushing them forward.\n<\/p>\n \nI stretch the fingers on both my hands.\n<\/p>\n \nShe steps forward, and they fall. She stands there and that visitor, lost on top of my cliff, falls.\n<\/p>\n \nThey fall.\n<\/p>\n \nThey fall.\n<\/p>\n \nThey fall.\n<\/p>\n \n \nBird turns around and looks directly at me.\n<\/p>\n \nShe lifts a hand in greeting and smiles. ?\n<\/p>\n \nHome.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe dead return.\n<\/p>\n \nNot as ghosts or as the undead, they just refuse to stay dead. Everybody that’s ever been thrown into the ocean will claw their way back to the surface, dry and breathing healthy breaths.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe dead return.\n<\/p>\n \nThey do it well and they do it easily. They slip into our thoughts and live on as melodies, as scents, as reflections.\n<\/p>\n \n \n…Bluebird, bluebird…<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nThis is how the dead return.\n<\/p>\n \nThey beg us\u2013demand<\/em> us to see them. To recognize who they are. Until inevitably our memories of them, sickly and fading, slip away into the sea and drown. But they return and return and return.\n<\/p>\n \nNot as ghosts or as the undead.\n<\/p>\n \nAs the sinking feeling of being watched. As a tangible loneliness. As strangers with familiar faces.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe dead return.\n<\/p>\n \nAnd when they do they are livid, furious, broken with love and grief.\n<\/p>\n \nThey want fiercely. They need endlessly.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe dead return.\n<\/p>\n \n \nAnd when they finally leave they will try to take you back with them.\n<\/p>\n \n \nForget the words to that song.\n<\/p>\n \n \nSend them back. Send them all back. ?\n<\/p>\n \n \nShe\u2019s back the next day. I look away from the window to brew a pot of coffee (my usual dark roast. I tucked the beans she brought me away in the back of my cupboard and they haven\u2019t seen the light of day since) and there she is, starting a fire in the fireplace.\n<\/p>\n \nBird meets my gaze and grins, the space where her back tooth should be visible. \u201cYour house is so cold!\u201d she says. She does not ask if it\u2019s okay that she\u2019s returned. She does not mourn or show remorse for the person whose name is not on my mantle. Bird\u2019s relentless cheerfulness scares me, but I don\u2019t want her to leave as much as I don\u2019t want to have to worry about her coming back. The look she gave me, I\u2019ve decided, was a warning.\n<\/p>\n \nThe sun is just starting to rise, orange seeping into the dark horizon, black revealing itself to be dark blue, less and less dark as the orange takes over. This is my favorite time of day, because it’s a sign I’ve made it through the night.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat do you want to do today?\u201d Bird asks, as if we had been in the habit of doing anything.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cKeep watch,\u201d I answer simply, pouring hot coffee into my biggest mug.\n<\/p>\n \nBird lies backwards on the couch, her skinny legs draped over its back. \u201cBut I\u2019m bored,\u201d<\/em> she whines. \u201cWe should go out to the lighthouse.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhy?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBecause it\u2019d be fun.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI can\u2019t remember the last time I wanted to do something for the fun of it.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHave you been before?\u201d she asks. When I shake my head no, there\u2019s that look again. Why? \u201cHave you been down to the lighthouse before?\u201d She repeats her question, rejecting my answer.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo, I\u2013\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nBird is no longer lounging catlike on my couch. She is two inches from my face. Her wide, tired eyes are like two black holes and her breath smells like salt and sadness. \u201cYou\u2019ve never been?\u201d she whispers it through gritted teeth, and I hear it as if she was shouting. \u201cI don\u2019t believe you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBird, I don\u2019t\u2013\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t believe you!\u201d This time, she is shouting. The lights flicker from wind.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI mean it, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever\u2013\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d Bird screams, her voice hoarse and rattling like the gusts outside. \u201cThat\u2019s not true!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nAnd the lights go out. For a moment, Bird just stands there in the dark, looking into my scared, confused face. \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d She shrinks away from me. \u201cPlease don\u2019t be mad.\u201d She looks small and lost, but there is an unspoken \u201cor else\u201d in the tone of her voice.\n<\/p>\n \n \nGetting down to the English Channel from Beachy Head is no easy feat. Not only because of the wind and the steep rocky path warning us to retreat, but also because of the distractions that pull us–mostly me–away every few moments. The blackberry bushes on the path to Beachy Head have no thorns to fend off reaching fingers and beaks. There are colors I don\u2019t remember seeing on my way up here. Beachy Head, despite all its ugliness, is a beautiful burial ground. Bird, however, is uncharacteristically focused, pulling me along every time I stop to wonder why I don’t remember ever taking this walk. It\u2019s as if we\u2019ve switched places–me, full of a confused and curious sort of wonder and her, quiet, far away, unspeaking. But once we\u2019re on the rocky shore facing the water, her eyes are wide and sunlit again. And I\u2019m filled with an emotion that is not quite fear.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCome in!\u201d She doesn\u2019t hike her skirt up as she wades into the water. \u201cKayla!\u201d she reaches a hand out to me, but I\u2019m firmly planted on dry land.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo!\u201d I laugh, despite myself. \u201cI don\u2019t do the ocean.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \n…\u201cYou didn\u2019t go in?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nNo.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow come?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI don\u2019t know…I\u2019m scared.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOf drowning?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI guess. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nNo, that\u2019s not it.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHave you gone in before?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nNo.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nYes, over and over.\n<\/p>\n \nBird frowns and I remember that face she made. Was she hurt? No. Worried. Of what, I wonder. \u201cFine.\u201d She wades further, almost up to her hip now, and that feeling that\u2019s not quite fear starts to take over me again.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBird, come back.\u201d I feel protective, and I\u2019m suspicious of this water that seems to, like a siren, call stoic, hopeless people into its depths. \u201cWhere are you going?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThe lighthouse!\u201d She turns back to me and beams. \u201cCome on!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSo I slip off my shoes and follow her. Immediately the icy water stings my feet. I stand in place, the water just over my knees. \u201cIt\u2019s too cold!\u201d Bird wades back to me giggling. She grabs my arm, pulling me out further. I protest, but laugh and let her lead me out into the water. In another world, this could have been us. Friends, splashing and laughing on our way to sneak a peek at the faceless lighthouse keeper. But I keep glancing up at the cliff\u2019s edge, worried I\u2019ll miss somebody. That a visitor will suddenly collide into the rocks just feet away from us.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cKayla, stop it!\u201d She splashes me. Bird doesn\u2019t want my attention split between her and the cliff. She pulls harder, and suddenly her grip is too tight, her laugh is too malicious. I push her away and she lets go and stumbles backwards, disappearing fully into the water. When she doesn\u2019t come back up, I look around for her frantically, calling her name. Then I feel a hand around my ankle, and the water covers me. Just a cold, black prison and the water’s surface a thick glass impossible to break, and if I scream the water will swallow me whole\u2013\n<\/p>\n \n \nI have a memory that is not my own of falling into cold, blood-stained water. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nForgetting.\n<\/p>\n \n \nWhat is memory if not a ghost?\n<\/p>\n \n \nMemory is the physical absence of someplace, someone, something, sometime. An intangible representation of the past. For Black people, there is no past; time doesn’t exist for us. Only blood. Our hyphenated names are written with it. Two names bound by the wakes of ships on metallic, dirty water. The living and the dead and not the not yet born–we exist simultaneously.\n<\/p>\n \nThere is no I, only we.\n<\/p>\n \nOnly the crashing of waves.\n<\/p>\n \n \nWhat is repression if not an exorcism?\n<\/p>\n \nThere are ghosts that I cannot exorcise possessing my lungs.\n<\/p>\n \nEverytime I take a breath, I cough up saltwater and blood. Much of my memory, though, escapes me. I\u2019ve lost years (Or hours? Or moments? Or lifetimes?) to willful exorcisms.\n<\/p>\n \n \nBird is so familiar, but my ghosts of her exist only as singular senses. She is not a whole memory. She is the sound of my mother\u2019s quiet humming and she is the smell of blood in the water and she is the hoarseness of my throat after too much mourning.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI have a dream that is not my own about being eaten alive by sharks. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nSomething in the way Bird watched that body fall, smiling and unbothered, felt personal. She is childlike and strange, but flashes of that warning look bring me back to the person she led to the edge of the cliff. I\u2019ve seen them fall over and over and over, the only part of them visible their brown hands. Every time, I try to look close enough at them to see the name that should be on my mantle carved into their knuckles or hidden like code on the palms of their hands, but there\u2019s never anything there. And I\u2019m distracted by Bird. Her turn towards me. Her wave. Her smile. A threat? No. Something else. ?\n<\/p>\n \n \nI open my eyes to the familiar and suffocating view of my cliff. There\u2019s a young fire going in the fireplace, and my biggest mug is filled with fresh, hot coffee. Flashes of that incident in the water feel so familiar. I hope to willfully forget it, as I\u2019ve learned to do. Bird is nowhere to be seen. If she\u2019s not infiltrating my home, she\u2019s infiltrating my mind. She disappeared as so many people and things and memories of mine have. It\u2019s easy to lose something, but fishing it out of the ocean is next to impossible when you can\u2019t bring yourself to open your eyes underwater.\n<\/p>\n \nI have accepted the fact that maybe Bird is not real. Delusions coming to visit me on this cliff are as likely and as unwelcome as any other visitor. I accept this fact mostly because I hope it\u2019s true. If Bird is real, she is dangerous. And what about Sisi? Sisi looks up at me, waking from her nap as if she\u2019s aware she\u2019s being spoken about. My watchdog. Why did Bird almost jump with this in her bag? It seemed odd before, but now it fills me with something like fear. The feeling I get when my body forgets that it\u2019s real. The reason (one of many) I don\u2019t let myself sleep.\n<\/p>\n \n \n4am. The dreamlike place between night and day. A visitor comes and I am immediately afraid for him. Afraid the ocean will call him too loudly. Afraid Bird will trap him. I run out to him and pull him back. He fights me, angry at the interruption. I don\u2019t blame him, but I don\u2019t let him go. I won\u2019t let him go. I can\u2019t let him go and see him fall. He comes inside, and we sit quietly in my home. I have run out of things to say to these trespassers, and he\u2019s not much of a talker either. But then, he tells me he lives alone at the bottom of Beachy Head, only house down there. He\u2019d never made the trek up until tonight. Didn\u2019t know he was going to jump until he was at the cliff\u2019s edge. Didn\u2019t know the sorrow he\u2019d held in his chest until there it was, laid out for him as expansive as the ocean.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou should go.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou should go,\u201d I tell him again. I look over at Sisi, watching the cliff dutifully. \u201cAnd you should take her.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYour dog? I\u2019m not taking\u2014\u201c\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLiving alone on this cliff is dangerous. You need her. Please.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI have no idea what this stranger needs, and I know that loneliness is only as dangerous as you yourself are. But I need to remove Bird from my lungs, to be rid of every trace of her and her chaos. If I remove everything she\u2019s tethered to, maybe she will dissipate like smoke. Maybe she will find another cliff to haunt. Maybe she will cease to exist altogether. \u201cPlease.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe holds my gaze and sees something broken there beneath my desperate plea. He takes Sisi out in his backpack, much like how Bird carried her in. Sisi whines as he leaves with her, but I won\u2019t be swayed. Just as he\u2019s out the door, I remember that I don\u2019t know his name. \u201cWait!\u201d I get him to come back and leave his name, Charlie Horne, for me on the mantle.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou know where I live,\u201d he says, and gives a small smile. \u201cCome visit Sisi whenever you want. Really.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI nod. \u201cOf course.\u201d Though I will never visit. I watch him walk away into the darkness until he disappears completely, leaving me with only a new name on my mantel and, finally, solitude.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI don\u2019t remember much about moving up here to this cliff. Bits and pieces\u2014that\u2019s all I have of many things. Much of my own childhood is a song I can\u2019t quite remember the words to. The last visitor, Charlie, said something I don\u2019t remember. That the ocean called to him. I have never felt called by this ocean. I\u2019m more bound to<\/em> it than called by<\/em> it. Tethered to something at the bottom of the sea, something I hope never to find.\n<\/p>\n \n \nBluebird, bluebird, through my window <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n \nThat song returns to me at random moments now that Bird has resurfaced it. When it does, I\u2019m immediately reminded of the smell of the old wood floors in my childhood home. The way my mother\u2019s soft voice made everything she said a secret, shared in confidence. Her eyes, like mine, two black holes \u2014 deep, pitch black, and endless. But in all these memories, there is something missing. Something just outside of my peripheral vision. I can\u2019t turn to look. I can only sit by and watch through my young eyes, tracing the patterns on the light wood below me. Watching my mother prepare four plates. For me, and her, and two silhouettes whose faces are blank and whose names I could not speak aloud even if I did remember them.\n<\/p>\n \nThe ocean doesn\u2019t call to me. Quite the opposite, it fills me with a sense of dread so deep I have let myself go mad protecting others from it. I have a dream or a memory or a story I once heard \u2014 I\u2019ll never be sure which, but when I think of it, it happens around me as vividly as the present \u2014 of washing up on shore. My mother, when I told her this, recalled something similar. No, not similar. Identical. The same as mine, to the detail. She stared out the window, far away, and told me she didn\u2019t think it happened to her.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThen it\u2019s a dream?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t know, baby. Maybe it belongs to someone else and they\u2019re lending it to us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou can give someone else a memory?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe turned to me and looked me in the eye, no light in hers. A seriousness I wish I didn\u2019t remember. \u201cSome memories are hard to get rid of. Even after you\u2019re gone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDo you have it too?\u201d I start to turn to someone else, but that\u2019s where the memory fades around me and dissolves into smells, into faint lights, into the feeling of my bare feet on the cool, light wood.\n<\/p>\n \nI sit at the window, watching that cliff. The snow is almost fully melted now \u2014 Spring will be in full bloom soon. It\u2019s been quiet, leaving me with only my worry to keep me company. I don\u2019t want to see Bird again. I\u2019m worried what she may say. Whose name she may take from me. There\u2019s a visitor outside, and more than their name I want desperately for them to leave.\n<\/p>\n \nI open the window and shout at her from my seat. \u201cHey!\u201d My voice is hoarse from underuse. \u201cYou need to leave!\u201d I spit into the wind. The visitor turns and meets my eye, a confused fear on her face, and she starts walking towards my home. \u201cNo!\u201d I shout. \u201cGo home! Go away!\u201d But she keeps on towards me. And once she\u2019s right up to the window, she says, \u201cWhere am I?\u201d tears flowing from her wide eyes.\n<\/p>\n \nShe turns out to be one of the least talkative visitors I\u2019ve had. She doesn\u2019t tell me why she\u2019s there or indulge me with questions to distract herself as others have done. We sit in silence for half an hour, as she stares, catatonic, out towards the ocean until the tea I\u2019ve poured her goes cold. Finally, she tears her gaze away from the ocean and asks again. \u201cWhere am I?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201dBeachy Head.\u201d I say. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be here.\u201d I look away, back out towards the lighthouse. \u201cPeople come here to die.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI don\u2019t…I don\u2019t remember\u2014\u201c\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCan you get back down the hill? I need you need to leave. Please.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe writes her name, Rosaline Tyler, on the mantle. Because she doesn\u2019t remember how she got up, I lead her part of the way down. Past the blackberry bushes and the steepest patches of flattened grass. Past the break in the dirt path and up until the lights of the other homes are visible. She clasps my hands and thanks me. Rosaline, I know, will never walk back up this hill again.\n<\/p>\n \nI walk back up the hill and when I open the door, there she is. Bird. Standing right in the doorway, just inches from me.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhere is she?\u201d Bird asks. A quiet intensity in her voice that is about to break. \u201cWhere\u2019s Sisi?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cShe\u2019s not here, Bird. You shouldn\u2019t be either.\u201d I push past her, returning to my post, but Bird won\u2019t leave.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cBut, Kayla, where\u2014\u201c <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI gave her to someone. He lives down the hill. If you want to see her you can go visit him instead.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou\u2019re trying to get rid of me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYes. I am. Why do you keep coming here? We don\u2019t know each other, Bird. We\u2019re strangers. Go home.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nSomething in her breaks at this. She is silent for a long moment, just staring at me, and I\u2019m worried she\u2019ll start to cry. But she doesn\u2019t cry. Instead, she grabs the fire iron from beside the fireplace and hurls it at me with a wild shriek. I duck, just avoiding being impaled by the pointed metal tip, and the fire iron shatters through the window. Bird collapses into sobs, apologizing to me in one breath and cursing me for hurting her in the next. Instead of being terrified at her trying to kill me, I feel compelled to comfort her. I sit with her by the fire and she lets herself be held, soaking my shoulder with her tears. I hold her close and tell her she\u2019s alright. That I\u2019m here. For once, I feel as if I\u2019m not lying. ?\n<\/p>\n \nI had a sister.\n<\/p>\n \n \nRemembering anything beyond that is like going through a box of old letters that are written in a language I no longer speak. I\u2019ve forgotten every word of her. Each and every letter. Why? What pain am I protecting myself from? Sometimes, during the dark blue times of day when the sun and moon are equally alien and misplaced in the sky, I think I still know her. A girl, four years younger than me, childlike and strange. My mother would sing bluebird bluebird and it was the only way she\u2019d fall asleep. Remembering her name is like overhearing the conversation in a passing car. Here and gone before I can sound out the shape of the words I\u2019ve heard. Sometimes, during the indigo parts of day when everything in the distance is a cool, black silhouette, I run my hand over every name on my mantle and hope more than anything in the world that one of them will singe my cold fingers and push me into the knowledge of something and someone I didn\u2019t know I still remembered. None of them ever do. I remember walking along Beachy Head swinging pocket watches and laughing and feeling a sort of unbothered happiness I know I won\u2019t ever feel again. And then I remember washing up on shore. When I see that part of the memory though, it\u2019s through a borrowed set of eyes. Viewed through the reflection on a window. A memory of mine that is not my own. Sometimes I cry for the living, for the dead, for the not yet born. All existing simultaneously. All aching to be remembered. One of them, though I remember only the material from which she is made, is mine.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI had a sister.\n<\/p>\n \n \nMy memories of her are faded ink, barely legible. My memories of her are muddled songs heard from a staticy radio. I remember the cadence of her voice but not the things that she would say. I remember the crease of her palms but not the shape of her hands.\n<\/p>\n \n \nI had a sister.\n<\/p>\n \n \nThe only detail of her I can recall clearly is that she was mine. ?\n<\/p>\n \nI cancelled my deliveries. If the delivery boy was lured into the ocean by Bird, I would never be able to face myself. I\u2019ll be fine for awhile\u2014as long as I have enough coffee to keep myself from sleep I have everything I need. I need to snuff out any excuse for her to return. I haven\u2019t called anyone to fix the window. It means that I have to keep the fire going to keep from choking on the cold, but it\u2019s spring now and summer will be here soon enough. Soon it won\u2019t matter. Bird hasn\u2019t come back since I called her a stranger. I think about that a lot. More often than I think about her hurling a sharpened metal pole at me, though that crosses my mind at times. I think about how severely it broke her and wonder if I\u2019m cruel. There haven\u2019t been many visitors lately, and I\u2019m glad, but there are empty spaces on my mantle I\u2019m anxious to fill. And that makes me wonder if I\u2019m cruel, too. ?\n<\/p>\n \nI remember you. Do you remember me? I remember how we\u2019d sit on the wood floor and listen to the sound of our mother\u2019s bare feet and her singing. How you couldn\u2019t sleep without that song. Do you? I do. I remember sitting in between your legs while you braided my hair. Tight, even though I\u2019d cry. I remember you loved me. Do you? I do. I remember everything, everything. Every word of you. Each and every letter. Is it easier not to remember? It isn\u2019t easy to remember you. Why won\u2019t you say my name? Why won\u2019t you call me by my name? If you heard it would you know it was mine? I won\u2019t give it to your collection. There\u2019s no room for me there. I\u2019m too big now. My love is too big. The people who you pulled from the edge of my burial ground do not love you and they do not deserve to be watched over by you. I do. I love you. Why didn\u2019t you catch me? It\u2019s not your fault, but why didn\u2019t you? The ocean called too loud, and I couldn\u2019t hear anything else. It tricked me. A mean, mean trick. We die in the water and are baptised by it, so the living and the dead and the not yet born can all exist together in fragile harmony. The ocean called too loud. I didn\u2019t have the dream that you and Ma both had about washing up on shore. I remember you told me, but I couldn\u2019t find it. Couldn\u2019t find that bad dream anywhere. No. My dream was of flying over the water and finding home. Where\u2019s that? It\u2019s not here. I remember swinging pocket watches and loving being a visitor and hating being a visitor and loving the newness of somewhere far away. But this is not our home and these people do not love you and I hate them for taking up space in you. They don\u2019t deserve it. I do. You remember each of their names, but if you heard mine out loud would you know it was mine? Do you remember me? I remember you. I remember everything, everything, everything. I do. Do you think the call of the ocean is your fault? Some of us were thrown, some jumped. Some eaten by sharks, some washed up on shore, some are sinking still sinking into the blackness. But me, I came back to see if you still knew my face. A long journey. Generations long. Lifetimes long. If you slept would you see me? If you saw your reflection would you see me? I always had your face. You had our mother\u2019s. Ma had Grandma\u2019s. We all had black, black eyes like staring down a hole. You can\u2019t ignore that all, it\u2019s a history. You say it scares you, but then why don\u2019t you leave? Why do you stay? Why is it all you ever want to see? Can you see my face? Do you know me? My memory cracks and fades and falls apart at a certain point, but not as bad as yours. Distance from time has given me opportunity to find as many pieces as possible and glue them back together again. You brought me here. We had to beg. We wanted to see the lighthouse. We saw it. We were swinging pocket watches. I felt a breeze. I heard my name in the ocean…I saw you looking past me, over me. I was trapped under glass. Trapped in your dream, if you ever slept. Every time you came and looked out, I\u2019d try to make you see me and you never did. Even now, looking right at my two deep black holes, you don\u2019t. Why? Is it easier not to remember? Is it easier not to have to ask if you should blame yourself? Do you think this is the only cliff in the world? Do you think yours is the only sadness? Do you think yours is the heaviest guilt? Do you think the names on your mantle belong to you? Do you think they\u2019re the only names? Do you think you\u2019re saving them? Why didn\u2019t you catch me? Do you remember? I remember. I remember everything. You. Everything. Everything. Everything. I even remember the cracked black crevices too dark to make out. You remember our song. I hear you humming it. We needed it to sleep. If I sang would you sleep? If you slept would you dream? If you dreamt, would you see my face? Would you remember? Bluebird, bluebird, through my window\u2026Do you remember me?\n<\/p>\n \nI remember you. I remember everything.\n<\/p>\n \nI do. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n Maya Durham is a writer from Maryland. After graduating from Cornell she attended artist residency Centre Pompadour in Picardy, France, where she completed her debut novelette Beachy Head. Currently she lives in LA, writing, working as an assistant, doing drag performances, and doting on her cat, Zami. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The world is in limbo at 4am. I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s late or early. The sun hasn\u2019t started to rise, but the stars aren\u2019t quite visible anymore. The crickets have stopped chirping, but no birds are awake to sing yet. Do you ever wonder whether you\u2019re reaching the end of your life or the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20006],"tags":[20007],"class_list":["post-137912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-35-spring-2020","tag-the-colored-lens-35-spring-2020","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=137912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137913,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137912\/revisions\/137913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=137912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=137912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=137912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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