The Defect Of Memory

You returned to the flat in spring, when the pussy willows began to poke their furry heads through the gloom of winter. And at first, it was as if nothing had changed. As if from the moment you stepped out your door, the clock stopped inside room 221 and only restarted when you stepped over the unspoken threshold. But then you begin to notice things, small things at first. Like how the record player crackles and slips past measures of Scheherazade or how the roof of the bathroom leaks when it rains too hard. The neighbors don’t say hi as often as before and Mr. H, the baker downstairs, died last year and there is no longer the smell of yeasty bread every Sunday morning. It’s not too hard to shrug it off and keep moving.

So you tell yourself that it doesn’t matter that the light doesn’t fall through the curtains in the same way as it did before and that it is okay for the church bells to be tuned slightly sharp. Everything is just fine until the sound of shattering porcelain wakes you up once again. It’s the tenth mug you’ve broken in two weeks and you begin to see a pattern emerging. There is tea mixed with blood on the floor as you pick up the broken pieces with trembling fingers and wonder if it will ever be the same again.