Forgetting Everything

Shauna Smith

I woke up this morning as I would any other, hair a mess, morning breath. I wondered into the bathroom, yawned and stretched. I turned and looked in the mirror, and saw a reflection of a face that was not mine. I quickly turned around and clinched my eyes, really tightly. I thought, "This must be a dream. This cannot be reality." I pinched myself, turned back around, and opened my eyes hoping to see myself. Unfortunately, that is not who I saw. I started to scream; then, I covered my mouth; my fiancée was just in the other room. He had never seen me this way.

I had to find a way out of the house before he woke up. But first, I closely examined the person I saw in front of me; we had a few resembling characteristics, but this for sure was not me. I walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom, expecting to see my fiancée asleep on our king size bed, but instead, I found the bed already made, so he was not there. Slowly, as quietly as I could, I crept into the dining room where I found an older man sitting at our table. He was reading a newspaper as if this was his home. I slowly walked over to him, and I asked…
“Uhm, why exactly are you in my home?”

As I spoke I noticed that my voice sounded like an old lady's. Usually, I would have freaked out to see a strange man in my home, what woman would not? But this man, he looked… well nice and calm as if he belonged here.

“Honey, what do you mean? Your home? Is this some sort of joke,” he asked in response to her question.

"Honey," I thought, "why is this man calling me honey?"

“Do I know you?” I said with a tremble in my voice.

“Dear, what is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this, I do not understand.”

“Sir you’re really beginning to scare me. Please tell me who you are!”

“Silvia, I’m your husband of 23 years, what is the matter with you?”

“Married? 23 years? No this can not be there is no way possible, I’m only 27 years old. Please leave my house before I have to call the police.”

The man just put his paper down, pushed back his chair, and stood up. He started to walk toward me, and I backed away.

“What is the matter with you, should I call a doctor? 27? You say you are 27. Have you seen yourself? Although, I must admit you are just as beautiful as you were then, but 22 years have past since you have been 27.”

I slowly crept to the table to sit down; my head was spinning from all of the excitement, I simply did not know what to think.

“Sweetie, come over here and look at these pictures of us and our kids. That should be proof enough; better yet, look at your ring finger.”

I slowly look down and sure enough there was a wedding ring on my left hand.

“Kids? What kids, look man I don’t know what kind of prank your trying to pull, but I have a fiancée. I am 27 years old, and I do not have any children!”

He pulled out a wallet and showed me a picture that I recognize all too clearly. It’s the picture of me and my fiancée on our first date.

“Certainly you remember this.”

“Yes, of course. But how did you get this?”

“You really don’t remember do you? Come sit on the couch with me.”

I walked over and sat down beside this man who claimed to be my husband. He pulled out a photo album that sat under the coffee table and opened it slowly.

“These are our children, all four of them. Samantha, Charlie, Deborah and Jordan.”

“You’re not lying are you? This is my, well our life?”

“Yes and it has been for 23 years.”

I quickly realized that I had lost twenty years of my life, and what a wonderful life it must have been.