Oh, that twinkle in his eye.

That's when you knew Uncle Roy was busting to tell you a groaner of a joke. The instant you finished talking, he would put down his cigar, stroke the stubble on his cheeks, and say, "That reminds me of the time..." And he would tell you an anecdote from his day, ending with a corny punchline and a deep-down guffaw (his) and a snort (his also).

Uncle Roy was larger than life to this kid. Even when he wasn't around, he came to mind when I heard a trite joke.

But as I grew older, I saw Uncle Roy and his family less and less. I had my own family and told my own crummy jokes, but without his signature ending. That part stayed with me, but the rest of his image had faded from memory.

When Uncle Roy passed, I went to his funeral and briefly recalled those stubbled cheeks, the stogie, the punchlines, the laughing at his own jokes. But when I left the sendoff, the faint red light from his cigar ceased to glow. And soon, every shard of Uncle Roy was gone.

Even the snort.

True death is when you are the last one to remember,

To remember the people before you, the people around you,

And you yourself.

When people can only see you for your age,

In which you are dwindling away,

They cannot attribute you to all the things you did in your finer days.

Laughter,

Young and full of your youth,

Nights out on the town,

Breaking laws,

Telling untruths.

Whittling away your years until the tiredness sets in.

You are only remembered as much as those around you who sit in your company.

For when you are near your point,

only to be dead and gone later.

You come to realize,

You are merely old company.

We are constant

in forgetting

the way

cats shed

and we brush

lint that once

was

integral fabric

from our pantleg

we move on

walking,

and remember

Death before bed:

"The old guard's dying out,"

says the patriarch

under his breath

wondering who

will take up

the carving knife

next,

he can't name

the grandchildren yet

and the cloud

across his face

reminds us

his son has flown away

for untold seasons

and he wants

to forget

03.11.2025

Isabel Allende challenge @dctezcan

These days, I feel like a puzzle – a collection of pieces that don’t always seem to fit together, and half of the pieces are missing. I know my name, and most days, I know the names and faces of my children. When I hear music, I remember that I love to play the piano and sing, but I wouldn’t know what to do with my fingers if I tried to play, and I could never remember the words to my favorite songs.

I've heard them utter the word "dementia," and it sounds like a death sentence. I can never remember where I am. I know I am safe; the people around me are kind, and they call me by name like they know me, though I don’t know them. But my room is tiny, and I feel trapped in this space that isn’t mine. I remember my home – a dark green carpet and marble-topped tables that belonged to my mother in the living room, a piano in the corner. But that’s gone now. I know I can’t go back, but I’m not sure why.

I stare at the pictures that decorate my little room. I look at their smiling faces, and the tiniest voice in the back of my head tells me that they love me, but if they loved me, wouldn't they visit me? Wouldn't they take me away from this place? But they don't, and I'm left to wonder if there's anyone left who cares about me, who needs me, who even remembers me.

So, now I wander this tiny space with one short hallway like a lost ghost, unsure of who I am. I eat, I bathe, I take my medication; all of these things tell me that my body is alive. But some days I wonder – if even I have forgotten who I am, am I really alive?

When my brother died, the Oxford University flew its flag at half-mast. My ex-wife refused to visit the chapel of rest, not for a cruel reason, but because she held her last memory of him, as a beautiful image of us: shirtless and smiling, after a long day of working in the sun.

The day before he was found, he’d been to a house party. Going by the trace amounts of narcotics they found in the autopsy report, I imagine it was a banger. At his funeral, a young girl told me how they met that night.

As she was leaving the party, he was leaving too. There was a heavy rain, and she stood under the porch, hoping to wait it out. One eccentricity of his was that he tried to always carry an umbrella with him. Honestly, I think he wanted a cane but needed a practical reason to justify having one; thus, umbrella.

The girl told me he asked her which way she was heading, and told her he was going that way, so they could share the umbrella, and keep dry. She said he was kind, funny, and a complete gentleman. He left the umbrella with her at her gate, watched her until she was indoors, and to her surprise, he walked back the way they came.

At the funeral, I told her he lived on the other side of town. She didn’t say a word or cry; she touched my arm and smiled. Every year, his friends hold a free music and poetry festival, and they all have stories like this. They all laugh and smile when they talk about him. They all have these stories that speak of his character.

While they remember him this way, my own memories are less perfect. Our childhood was difficult, and I wasn’t the best of brothers. I wish I had been. I tried harder in adulthood but still fell short of the mark. He was smarter than me. He was a better man than me, and it pains me to be the one who survived instead of him.

But it warms me that people still hold these memories of him. I believe that this life is it. It’s all we get. So, I am thankful that they each keep these fond memories of him. That they keep his memory alive and well in this fleeting world of ours is all I can ask.

Gone, but not forgotten.

There is no death; so my father said,

So I do not weep when I see them on their beds,

Their bodies aching, longing for Death,

And when they give their final breath...

I hold them in my heart for as long as I can,

For they cannot be forgotten for as long as I am,

Living, breathing, whatever keeps me existing,

"People die only when we forget them,"

Believe it, and stop resisting.

The most somber note of Vortex's crime against him was reduced to simply a foot note in the news story and even the files for the Star Shrine heroic federation.

Alex would never get all his memories back. Of the patchwork Frederick Weiss had made of his head, pieces were missing leaving hollows where wind passed coldly and hanging seams.

His Mother-- who was either a disengaged and cold caregiver or his singular parent who worked to provide the relative safety of wealth and in equal measures loved Alex for the mess he could be-- had been decidedly angry of the whole ordeal, and in her anger had exiled him from her (their) house.

He didn't remember where or what his favorite place for Asian food was.

That boy Caine-- that boy who was his singular friend who knew about his bully hunting-- had had to tell him.

Alex hadn't even known he hated his school principal, of which Santori had tried to take advantage of so shamelessly that it made Alex angry and therefore get another suspension.

Not that he'd be in that school long enough for it to matter.

Alex admittedly felt somewhat guilty.

Even if the vast view of glimmering city lights like a coffer of jewels spread out before him in a somehow starry night sky.

He wasn't allowed on the roof.

He especially wasn't allowed out on the roof by himself.

The juggernaut of Althea in the Northern states was mostly green powered, no smog to blot the sky like black ink forced to canvas, but the swathes reserved for biofuel and wind operated twenty-four hours a day which included watch lights and the blare of processing machines or inspection trucks.

And of course, the light pollution of backup batteries powering the high rise and glitzy skyscrapers of the rich and elite.

In fall weather a chill in Althea felt like the icy caress of a drowned man's hand.

Alex was allowed out by himself for a singular reason.

He'd managed to prove to a psychiatrist that he wasn't either a flight risk to the heroes in the dorm complex or-- more importantly, everyone would say-- a risk to himself.

Alex's favorite was the news. Every so often a member of the rich and elite was caught-- getting arrested when they embezzled funds, if they misused and abused their workers or their wives or their husbands, kids, family. They were abusive and it was disgusting. And it would be on the TV like nothing.

Drug lords and hitmen were processed from the continent. They were tried in court, and more often than not left the building either fully restrained for attempted violence or simply handcuffed. Disgraced. Depowered. Accountable.

Alex never quite wrapped his head around that part.

His arms were in goosebumps from leaning them on the glass balcony, deciding to place his head in them, hiding away from the light, the glamour, and even the stars.

It was funny, how easy it seemed that the stars could wink out of existence. That he focused on the sleek, but dark coats of the cars below the street and the rush of vertigo associated with the chiding warning-- to not fall.

Alex may have been content to just sleep on the roof that night.

He didn't feel like going inside.

He'd been given an isolated, out of the way corridor where a room had been repurposed and a wall knocked down--

Alex flinched, remembering how snide Torbin had sounded when speaking of the guardsman in a pranking mood who had almost covered Alex's designated room (his prison) in unicorn decals and a coat of pink polka dots for the walls.

Never seeing the man even once and all too quickly his existence had been erased from the house.

Whether Alex would never know if he'd died hadn't scared him-- much as when he realized, while scrambling to keep his own memories from flowing away like water-- that the man was as good as dead. Because he'd been forgotten.

And many of the Weiss Brothers' men had no life outside the manor.

A jolt stunned Alex out of his reverie.

And he closely watched the form of The Seer: Belinda Thurgood make her languid, almost hovering off the ground way toward him.

Alex had carved the way her eyes were too wide into his memory.

Similar to how he'd carved the stars and the lights and the smell of clean Althea air into his memory.