* J *

Part Fifteen: Chapter 106: Easter Eggs

Joker's POV

What do you think happens to forgotten memories? Do you think there's some gutter in your brain, deep in the center, where the forgotten gets filed? Do you think that the proper stimuli can maybe reach inside and trigger some forgotten memories? Or do you think that certain memories are simply eviscerated with no hope of being recovered? Is it just an electrical charge that gets released into the atmosphere, sort of, that from which it came? If you do somehow get a memory back, how can you be sure if it's actually a memory and not just a thought?

That's the problems I face daily. I have no way of knowing if the images I see are actual events of forgotten memories, thoughts, or dreams. Sometimes they seem to hold no relevance at all, but sometimes the flashes come with emotions that I feel sweep through me. I want to think that that was how I could tell if they were actual memories or not. But then I think, well, what if my emotional slate was blank at the time of that memory? I wouldn't get that emotional reading then. And lets face it, my emotional pot has never been too full, not even as a child. Or at least I'm pretty sure, from what I can remember anyway.

Then I started to think, what if those subconscious forgotten memories come back to you through your dreams? If so, are they all jumpled, and backwards? Do two or three intertwine to make one? I don't know if I can trust that they're reliable. And then again, maybe dreams are only nonsense thoughts. Or perhaps they blossom from real thoughts in your subconscious. But surely if one had locked up memories the subconscious had to be that place where they were, so maybe some of my dreams could be memories?

But then, I think I finally found the key to understanding the forgotten memories from the thoughts and dreams. I think its triggers that unlock the doors to my regressed memory. A smell. A taste. A sound. An image. A familiar feeling And I think that sometimes all of those things can come to you in a dream or trance like state, as well as full consciousness.

I also think deja vu plays a role in my buried memories. That deja vu feeling sometimes triggers something more than a feeling of experiencing that present moment as something you've experienced before. I think, for me anyhow, that a deja vu moment is intended for me to pay very close attention to everything for about thirty seconds. If I do I find, see, think, or feel something that triggers what I think is a memory.

I'm sure you're probably sitting there thinking, "what's your fucking point J? Why are you rambling on about all this regressed memory shit?" Well, I think I'm being haunted by a memory that is trying it's best to resurface. It hasn't just been one little occurence, it's been several, and they all happened in one day. So would you like to stop sighing and speed reading through my thoughts so I can tell you? Yeah, I thought that might get your attention.

I was awakened by a the emotional response of a dream. The emotion that woke me was curiosity. I dreamt that I was a small boy, maybe five or six. I was walking along a sidewalk as a woman held my hand. She had this sort of medium brown colored hair. When the sun hit it I could see strands of copper and gold glint in the light. When she looked down at me I could see her eyes were hazel, similar in color to a tree leaf that's somewhere between green with life, to fallen from the tree a few days ago, browning with death around the edges. Avocado. Split pea soup. Lintils.

Anyhow, she was walking really fast. Not fast as if she was trying to get somewhere on time, fast because she was upset. That was evident by the furrow of her brows and the way her lips pursed. My small feet and short legs had to move in double time, sometimes even a jog, just to keep up with her. Not that I could lag behind, because she was pulling me along with her. I could feel her hand sweating as she held mine.

"Are we almost there?" I ask her, because we had been walking a good distance, before that we had taken the train. I'm not sure for how long because I fell asleep on the train.