Worse Than Death (EAP 4/8)
A drabble based on the "Ligeia” prompt from the Edgar Allen Poe prompt list, part four of the eight prompts sent to me.
Ligeia: Themes of loss of love, mourning, delusion
For a long time, I believed death was the worst thing that could happen between lovers. It was an impassible barrier that permanently separated two people, at least while one was still alive.
Recently though, I was forced to learn something was far worse than death.
I had been informed through a letter that he had been severely wounded during a conflict, and I should see him as soon as possible. He was asleep when I made it, with the most notable bandage wrapped around his forehead. I sat by the bed and held his hand, waiting for him to wake up.
I was not expecting what happened next at all.
He opened his eyes and turned to face me, but there was no recognition in his eyes. The first words he uttered were “who are you?”
I explained that I was his lover, but he didn’t believe me. He turned over and went back to sleeping. I think I spent the rest of that awful night crying my eyes out in that room.
All of our precious memories together were lost to him, probably forever. If he didn’t remember that we were lovers, how was he supposed to remember that we had a daughter? That his daughter was born aboard this very ship? The more I thought about it, the more it distressed me.
I first informed his first mate and the ship’s doctor that something was wrong with his memory. They told me they would look into the issue and do their best to get him to remember.
It would be months before he would remember anything. And in time, after looking over work papers and love letters, studying his face in the mirror, finding a pocket watch I had given him, and looking over the document in the ship’s log recorded on the day our daughter was born, he would remember. Or at the very least he would understand that was what his life was like before the accident.
Before the completion of recovery, though, my life was made a living hell.
I even found myself truly wondering if it would be better for him to have died rather than forget about our love. I was grieving for the loss of two things; his memories and our relationship. Would it even function if he couldn’t remember vowing to love me forever? Even after he is back to his old self again, it’s a question I think about far too much.
It also makes the memories so much more precious to me, knowing they had been lost once makes a person want to hold onto them tighter. It’s a painful and bitter reminder of how finite and fragile mortality is. I will always treasure our memories together, even if on the chance something were to happen again, I would be the only person left to cherish them.
