Maggie Meyers

When my sister announced her pregnancy, my mother was disgusted and my father was horrified. After the pregnancy was announced, I would sit in my bedroom for hours and hear the whispers on the other side of my bedroom door, wondering if Autumn could hear it, too.

When they found Arthur Tremhold, he was sobbing wildly beside his delivery van, covered in blood. He was questioned profusely and kept in captivity for some time, where he was then transferred out of his holding cell and put directly in my care for a time period of one day. In one day’s time, I feel like Arthur and I made many revelations.

“Are… you hungry?” she continues to ask, a small smile forming on the creases of her face. “Is that what it is? You’re hungry?”

The lady introduced herself as somebody who worked at a hospital that was a halfway point between our home and Samantha’s university. Apparently, Samantha had gotten into an accident two days prior to us receiving the phone call.

Have you ever felt like you just don’t… belong?

One day as I ran on the treadmill and washed down a protein drink, I took notice to Mary watching me out of the corner of her eye and I realized that she was everything I ever wanted to be but could never achieve. And so I took to it – I took on the challenge; I became everything through my daughter.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was trapped inside a cell with broken legs, and when the realization became prevalent, I screamed for what felt like ages, begging for someone to come to my aid.

There were dozens and dozens of tapes inside each of the drawers, each labeled with a corresponding number in an order that was easy to pick up on. Mindy had a tape recorder, but all these tapes? When did she find the time?

“You’re one of the very lucky ones,” he whispered, “For you can see what nobody else can see. It’s typical for people to live their lives without ever seeing it for what it is.”

Kelly was crazy.

Every Saturday I would see the wide grin stretched across the face of the dude behind the counter, his hands placed firmly as he bent across the thing and said, “Back again for more?” in that joking manner that would make me stifle a small but nervous laugh.

My wife was always…into the unusual, you could say.

But the problem was, ignoring the problem didn’t make it go away like other problems might.

One Saturday morning only a month after the break-up, my routine was cracked wide open when a police officer knocked at my door.

They told me that memories are a good thing, seeing as I just began to lose mine. It’s a mean old trick that age plays on you as it corrupts other parts of your body along the way.

My therapist mentioned to me one day that my memories would start to come back.

“We’ve all been through things,” he replied, never breaking his smile. “And I get that.”

You’ve probably heard the story before: (Cue the reporter voice) Who wants to pick this lovely fresh-out-of-college ex-degenerate who finally got her life together for a real world, actual, working job??! Yeah…didn’t think so.