I Never Forgot(Author Unknoahn) You would think we would forget. I stared solemnly at the charcoal-black gravestone like a statue. Two hours 43 minutes; I had counted. The thin fabric in the knees of my pants growing more threadbare every day. At the third hour I slowly rose. I continued to stare at the headstone, the letters carved into the stone were also carved into my mind. I looked up into the dull grey sky. “She was only thirty-three.” The whisper echoed through my mind.

On the walk home I kept thinking; I always do, but this time it was different. Three years old, we dug in the dirt together looking for bugs, played on the beach and splashed in the waves. When we were thirteen we went to school together. I got so used to seeing her. When I think about it I think I might have gotten a little bit too used to
seeing her. If you get too attached to something you won't be ready for when it leaves. Twenty-three, the first date. She never did seem to like Italian food. I moved in with her; we were happy.

It doesn't always seem to workout but, we worked it out. We were both born on the same day. our thirtieth birthday was the one we both remembered, her third heart attack was her last; she was only thirty-three. She moved on, but I never forgot her. I visited every third day. You would think we would forget; I never forgot Jessica. I don’t think she ever forgot me either. Rather than turning at the fourth corner I turned left at the third corner; a short cut. I stopped halfway down, a cold chill of fear ran down my back, or the wind perhaps coming to sweep me off to a better place than the dirty grey earth we have been imprisoned on.

“Don’t turn around old man,” the deep voice whispered into my nearly deaf 63 year old ears. The metal barrel of the gun felt cold on the back of my head.

“One,” a pause. “Two.” a pause. It was fear I felt run through me this time; the last pause was long so I finished, “Three.”

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