Recollection. Part 3

My mother’s funeral happened on a Saturday morning. She’d requested for her funeral proceedings to be small and self-contained. By her request, only the immediate family were allowed to attend. I’d met my brother Nathan that day after two years apart. He’d gone to another country to play soccer for a prestigious club. Jack was nowhere to be found; he’d abandoned contact with us the minute he moved out of the house. We were afraid he was off doing something dangerous. As we moved my mother into the crematorium, I could see my father. He was a shell of his former self, he had no sign of fortitude or happiness. I knew it was hard for him.

“How are you holding up, David?” Nathan asked me.

I did not reply. I ostensibly was at the lowest point in my life. Before my mother’s death, I had been in a terrible argument with Hitomi and King via messages. I hadn’t messaged her back since, and I wanted to apologize, but then my mother’s passing came by. If I recall, Hitomi said she and King got into a serious altercation in real-life. I messaged them in the game, yelling at them for fighting one another even though they were best friends. I found it difficult to calm myself, and I messaged Hitomi telling her to fix her relationship with King or else I wouldn’t come back online again. It was over a month since I’d spoken to or played videogames with Hitomi and King. My only friends in the entire world. Hitomi taught me Japanese, sending me notes on how to practice pronunciations and how to write Kanji. We learnt everything about each other, from our likes, to dislikes, to aspirations.

I was in love with her.

And because of one simple fight, I’d abandoned everything.

The only activity that kept me sane was Rugby, if my mother had not forced me to play a sport, I would have had nothing in my life at the moment. No friends, barely able to speak to my family, a video-game addict with a weird watch hobby. I was a loser, a nobody.

“Let’s go home.” My father said as the cremation ceremony ended.

Nathan drove us back to the house. It was quiet, rainy, dreary. I could hear my father sob to himself as we drove.

“Do you still play games, David?” Nathan asked to break the silence.

“No.” I replied.

“Good, mom never liked you playing those games, anyway.”

“And she didn’t like you going overseas for some stupid soccer club. She was sick, and you left the country.”

“Soccer is my job.” He responded.

“You play for a second-rate team.”

“Say anything else about my life and I will kill you.”

I didn’t care about what I said, I was right. He abandoned my mother when she was on her last.

“Dad and I were the only ones at home beside her, when she passed away.” I stated.

“I was out of the country!” Nathan yelled.

“You and Jack abandoned mom!” I screamed.

“You two, please…stop.” My father requested.

If my father had not put himself between us, I was afraid of what I might had done to my brother. We went inside the hollow house. It was surreal, coming home and not smelling my mother’s cooking, or her tv shows on blast. My father carried himself slowly to his room, closing the door behind him without saying another word. Nathan escaped into his old room, and slammed the door shut. I did not want to go into my room, so I sat by the kitchen table. I wanted to be lost in my thoughts, but I drew blanks, white noise ruffling my brain.

‘My online and personal life is absolute garbage.’ I thought to myself.

I noticed a package that sat atop the table. Unmarked, small in size. On the package was the name ‘Lawrence.’ I opened the package without a second to hesitate. Inside was a pocket watch, and a white note atop it. I inspected the pocket watch; it was of a brand I’d never seen before. It was silver, with a missing number twelve on the clock. The hands of the clock did not move either, I thought it was damaged during the courier process.

I decided to open the note, reading it:

“To Lawrence/David.” IT BEGAN.

“I’ve made you and King…Misako…a pair of pocket watches. Don’t worry, I made myself one too! I know that you both love watches, so I took the time to make these for my best friends. You will notice that they don’t work. That’s because I hoped one day, we could complete the watches together. You don’t live in Japan, but maybe one day we can meet up. And finish it together. The number twelve represents the age where we finally became real friends. I know that its tacky, but you and Misako are such special people to me. I’m sorry about the fight we had. I hope we can make up. Because…

I love you.

Uwaaaa~ it’s so embarrassing writing this out. I can feel myself getting redder and redder…

Let’s meet one day, in Tokyo. All of us together.

-From Blue Hitomi.”

I put the note back in the box. Inspecting the pocket watch one again. I could feel tears swell from my eyes.

“I’m sorry, Hitomi. I love you.” I said.

I rushed to my computer, opening my E-mail and sending a message straight back to Hitomi. I wanted to talk to her again. But the days that followed was not what I wanted to happen. I never received an E-Mail back from Hitomi. On my video games, Hitomi and Misako were both offline for the foreseeable days. I waited and waited and waited and waited.

And they never returned.

I decided to try and get into rugby full-time - looking for a scholarship to get me into the big leagues. We prepared for a match that would determine us winning or losing the national title. I was nervous. I needed to win it, I needed to impress my mother, I needed to show that I was not a failure of a person…

And then…

I was in hospital for the next two months after that day. My memories were gone. I couldn’t even remember my mother, myself, my brothers, my father. My friends. Everything from my past, everything was gone.