Writing Class Assignment - Personal Memories (Original Draft)

A myriad of coloured reflections ripple, their image stretched and luminescent against the deep muddy river they cover. Alone on a worn bricked bridge, an older woman watches the mirrored lights, solemn and deep in thought as memories surface inside her mind. Her withered fingers wrap around a lock of her brittle hair, almost as if she is pulling it to assure that she is awake, but her eyes flicker to a vision across the other end of the bridge. She is no longer alone, and a tightness grows in her chest as she stares at the stranger with intensity. Something about his form isn't stable, like a fuzzy doodle drawn by an innocent child, yet the figure's colouring isn't made of bright pastels. There's a darkness to the design, more shadow than image. The figment points towards a narrow entrance between the rows of buildings that line the nearby streets, and the woman struggles to take in the suggestion of the gesture before the figure glides away. It heads for the destination, disappearing from sight, but the woman attempts to race after it, her body unwilling to move at the pace desired.

With each step towards the alley, something loosens. Legs no longer creak. Aches numb. Heart beats with ease. She reaches the narrow entrance and notes that her aged body might find difficulty squeezing through such a gap, yet autonomously, she pushes through. The walls at first feel tight, suffocatingly closing in. She wonders if the figment led her into a trap, purposely sticking her in a place where she might never be found, but slowly, the walls around her ease and her frail hands appear stronger. Once the scruffle is over she finds herself facing the figment once again, but something is different. She is different, younger somehow. Even the world around her looks somewhat brighter, filled with an array of vibrant hues. There's a slight nod of approval from the figment before he continues leading the journey, as if he knows that the woman has accepted the consequences from her actions.

They walk along familiar disjointed roads, almost hovering in a plain of nothingness. The woman doesn't pay much attention to the strangeness of her current world though, as gleeful voices take command beside her. Flickers of figures appear. Small and far more complete than the one guiding her. The lively creatures screech with joy in the midst of their game, feet pattering along the cobbled ground as they chase after an object that has ran down the same path that they are taking. As the woman gets closer, the form of the object takes proper shape, transforming into a panicked black cat, afraid of the two loud children. She watches as they try their best to gain the cat's trust, the young girl having more luck than the boy. A voice sounds behind her.

"I would have been able to pick him up if you hadn't scared him!"

The woman turns, expecting the comment to come from the young girl figment that she saw with the cat, but it was a different figment, same as the previous girl, yet older. Familiar. The older girl is joined by the boy, also older than his pervious form.

"He was more scared of you than me."

Their bickering continued, aging out of their youth and into adulthood, and as they did so, their temperament changed, becoming closer, more affectionate. Something about them made it impossible for the woman to look away, as if she was looking at a time forgotten. It wasn't just that the girl was growing into a stature similar to her own. No, it was the boy she was fascinated with. The more she saw of him, studied him, the less her guiding figment blurred, taking on a clearer form.

His pace slowed to a halt, hand reaching for her own. Without hesitation, she took it, certain of who he really was as a forgotten name entered her mind. Like the children before, they gazed at each other once again, reunited in a lost place of memories. The place they had stopped at had once been her home, gone in her own time along with her husband, but she had left that reality behind the moment she followed the figment. She was back in her memories, at the happiest moment of her life, and she didn't care to return.