The Dark Side of the Tracks by Alison E. Johnson
I watched in horror as a familiar haunt fell victim to dismantling; flattened into a boot-black blanket. The filling in of disused pits and the tearing up of the disused train tracks felt too unbearable to behold. Yet, I couldn’t prise my snotty nostrils from off the cold pane that barricaded the televised world from its last living witness. The movie of a life hit the cutting-room floor as a new series featuring unknown actors screened their own horror show. I wanted to break free and put an end to the carnage. I wanted to be the hero of my yester-era, but it wasn’t to be. My small stature prevented me from reaching the door latch; my babysitter acted out her duty of me in her care with meticulous attention.
Imagine viewing industrial machinery brutally trampling over a cherished memory in your only existing childhood photograph album—the land itself. Each one getting beaten and crushed. The victorious bulldozers screeched manically as the feeble coal beds wheezed their last breaths. It never occurred to me to slide a reel into the memory box that rested on the sideboard, and seize a second of the battlefield in its morbid glory. I simply stood by like the helpless coward I am.
My town had altered vastly during the century I had known; I felt each memory stolen by a new building until only three rows of original buildings remained. I don’t even remember what school I used to attend let alone where it once stood. I imagine it had a huge bell crowning the black slates of tiled hair that fringed the stone. I have no recollection of the building where a murder took place. I have no recollection of when the townhouses grew into ugly contemporary, flat-roof properties. I only have two short memories of the Victorian house I used to live in. Yet, I had not travelled anywhere. I should have remembered every minute detail, but my cerebral capacity had reached its capacity.
Each night, my original parents kept me company when I found it impossible to sleep. I slept in the next room to my new parents, but I never told them until I reached adulthood that I allowed night visitors to frequent; my retelling met with bemused disbelief. I have an abundance of affection for my new parents, and oddly found my original parents cold. Caring, but cold. I grew into my new life with accepting awkwardness, feeling it anomalous I should have two sets of parents vying for my attention. I knew one would have to go so I sacrificed my original parents. One night, I ordered them to leave and to never return. They obeyed, and my secret remained a secret. I never saw them again during my childhood. I dared not to allow any memory of them to occupy my thoughts in case I conjured their return. Yet, my modest memories of the other side of town, where I once lived, stayed as attached as a limb. My original parents did request I go with them, and it gives me the chills to wonder what would have happened if I had re-returned.
More time passed. . .
I attended another school, itself shrouded in the secrets of a bygone era. I attended a senior school. I grew into an adult. I got married. I became a parent. My new memories slowly engulfed my old until I had barely any recollection of my old life. A huge housing estate now occupies the land of the graveyard mine, and I came to realise the once-colossal coal hill weighed less in volume than my memories. I even became confused between what I actually did remember to be fact. It came to fruition when I retold my account of the passing of the majestic locomotives on the now-demolished bridge; my new parents said I spoke nonsense as they revealed the line had closed its operations many years before I entered the world.
I want to remember more, I really do. I find it impossible. I willingly traded my old life. I realise I can't have the best of both worlds. Instead, I am forced to walk the very route where the old steam trains once ran in hope I enter a non-terminal portal that carries me back. I visit the regenerated landscape early in the morning so as not to cause alarm. I summon my original parents. I feel it is the only place we can safely meet. It took some convincing; at first they felt reluctant to see me. They must not have recognised the new me at first, but my few scraps of memories, exclusive to us, allowed me to conquer their trust. Also, they have their own true descendants who would surely dismiss the idea of my connection to their bloodline as anything but preposterous. So, when we meet up we have to do so in secret. If any dog walkers or cyclists happen to pass by, my original parents hide away. I’m sure that no one would notice anyway.
I still listen to the music I listened to back then; they are not tunes of the imagination, but exist timelessly on music apps, films, and commercials. Often, when I’m flicking through public photographs of the bygone era, I play my original childhood music and lament my yester-self, but the only memories I consciously attach to emotion are of the old train line and coal pits. My original parents remain out of the frame on both accounts. And do I care for what the landscape looked like before it was up-turfed for coal? No, of course I don’t. It would be dishonest to claim I lived in an era where the original creation of the landscape matches the contemporary. I like the in between, not the now and not the before. I’ve yet to meet anyone who is willing to challenge me that the before-and-now supersedes my then. Besides, I doubt there is any returner amongst us who possesses such true and vivid recollections. And any regression sessions, performed by the money-grabbing quacks, plant false memories of exotic countries or lifestyles into gullible minds, where the hopeful patients believe they were a member of aristocracy or was some famous, historical hero. It’s laughable. Whoever claims, during their hypnotic spell, they lived as a poor, unknown child in a run-down area they are reborn into? Yet, I do.
I wish I felt as regretful for losing touch with my original parents as I do for the original layout of the town and its bustling and revolutionary industry, but, to be honest, I much prefer my new family. I have enjoyed many years with them, and have not only memories but photographs to prove who I am. I only have a handful of memories with my original parents and I’m sure any photographs that may exist of me with my original family will display a face that isn’t mine.