De-Construction

     Pain shot through John's head as if he'd collided with a concrete wall. The radio sputtered into a fit of chaos with half-drowned words about tomorrow. The pain subsided, leaving only an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

    His wife watched him from over the brim of her coffee cup. "What's wrong?"

    "I think I'm forgetting something." Pain seemed to always accompany the memories hiding just out of reach.

    "Something important?"

    "Maybe." Would he have forgotten otherwise?

    Two little monsters—otherwise known as his children—raced into the kitchen, running around the table a couple of times.

    Patricia grabbed the nearest child. "No running!"

    Monster number 1, who’d been captured, pointed at his twin sister. "She stole my dwagon!"

    "I did not!" Monster number 2 shouted, clearly hiding a dragon behind her back.

    Little J broke free from Patricia and tried to reach the stuffed toy, but failed. On the second try, Ellie pushed him. Patricia held each child by the wrist and dragged them away from the table.

    Shouldn’t there be tears? Pain stabbed at John’s head. Maybe the tears were supposed to be his.

    A plastic cup fell to the floor, startling him. Patricia picked up the cup. Ellie was still holding the dragon behind her back, but Little J simply stared at his father with wide eyes, the same dark blue as his mother’s. His little mouth opened and closed, like a fish out of water. A second later, he started bawling.

    "Now what?" Patricia muttered.

    John grabbed the lunch she’d packed for him earlier and kissed his wife and the protesting little monsters. "Good luck.”

    On his way to the construction site, his mind teased him with the familiarity of events. Every step felt repetitive, but then wasn’t his every day the same? Wake up, go to work, come home, go to sleep…

    He climbed up the scaffold to the construction site mechanically, even that was no different from the day before. He focused on work, a roundabout way of trying to get his mind to find what it had misplaced.

    Brick by brick, the wall came together, enviably more organized than his crappy memories.

    When he sat down for lunch, the incessant cacophony of traffic below was intermittently carried toward him by the breeze. A car blared its horn, unleashing a discordant symphony.

    The haze in his thoughts threatened to clear. Was it something to do with a car?

    John leaned over the edge to have a look. As he did, a shout from above came a second too late as a brick slammed against his shoulder.

He faltered for one slow-moving second before toppling over, flailing through the air like a plastic bag.

    Shit. So that’s what he forgot.

    Maybe if he stole another hour or two, a day at most. The ground caught up with him too soon. His world darkened and burst into pain, but still he found voices. He latched onto them amidst the cars blaring their horns, a protest to his interrupting their transit.

​

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      Pain shot through John’s brain. Within the static, a voice on the radio sang something about tomorrow.

      "What’s wrong?" Patricia asked.

      "I think I'm forgetting something..."

      "Something important?"

      He opened his mouth to say maybe, but shut it immediately. It was a bad sign that even that felt familiar.

      Ellie ran into the kitchen, hugging a plush dragon. Little J, who’d been chasing her, stopped at the sight of his parents, those dark blue eyes of his mother open wide.

      "Oh, we'll pass by the construction site around one, on the way to my mom's," Patricia said.

      "I probably won't be able to see you."

      “I'll point upwards to some random worker and say it's their daddy. They'll be satisfied.”

      “You—”

      “What? I always pick the best-looking one."

      "And what am I?"

      Little J started bawling. The sense of repetition returned—unhelpful as always.

      Maybe he could find clues at work. He’d rather not go in today, but he couldn’t afford not to. He clenched his fists as he grabbed his lunch, mechanically kissing Patricia.

      If not for his poor memory, would he need this stupid job? He could be rich, living like a prince. If he hadn’t overused his mind early on, playing back irrelevant events, maybe he wouldn’t be in this state, unable to recall a single day.

      He hesitantly climbed up the scaffold.

      Brick by brick, the wall came together, haphazardly.

      The wall looked familiar, but how many of those had he put up? How many scaffolds had he dangled from?

      It didn’t help that his days were all the same, even down to the fight about the dragon... Wait, when was that?

      Car horns reached him from below, triggering another bout of familiarity. He leaned over. There were cars somewhere in that unattainable void where a memory should be.

      A shout. Something hit him from above, sending him soaring through the air like a bird.

      Horns blared, a protest to his interrupting their Saturday.

​

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      A voice on the radio floated amidst the static, something about tomorrow being another day. Was that a joke? John pressed a hand against his temple, waiting for the pain to go away.

      “What’s wrong?”

      He blinked at Patricia. Hadn’t he already answered that question?

      Ellie came sauntering into the kitchen with a plush dragon, pretending it was flying. Or was it falling?

      “Where’s Monster number 1?” he asked. Weren’t there tears?

      “Being very quiet this morning. Must be planning to conquer the world.”

      Little J suddenly appeared, shoving a drawing on top of John’s plate. John mechanically grabbed it before it plastered onto his eggs. Dark blue eyes watched John—unblinking.

      Crooked lines of black and brown reached toward the sky. A stick figure was hovering in the air beside it...

      No, not hovering...

      Falling…

      Tears flowed freely from the little boy’s eyes. Those eyes—so much like his mother’s—had clearly inherited his father’s sight.