My name is Henry, and I remember everything.

I was born with eidetic memory, which means I remember sights, as well as sounds, thoughts, tastes, and feelings. When I tell others about this, they always say, “Oh, I’ve always wanted a photographic memory!” Yeah, me too.

I should take it as a gift, getting to remember everything, but I take it as a very helpful curse. There are many things that I would want to erase from my memory, like my birth, one of the most traumatizing moments of my life. I can still remember my first breath of oxygen, the pain in my lungs as they stretched wider than they ever had before, and the screams of my mother from the pain I was causing her.

I also wouldn’t mind forgetting my first broken leg, or my second broken arm, or, the one that takes the cake, my circumcision. But I can’t. There is no cure for this curse unless I get half my brain removed, which, obviously, is out of the question. So I have to live with it, and endure the pain this gift brings me.

I carefully pull the letter addressed to my parents/guardians open. It is from my school, inside is my report card. I whip my eyes back and forth, scanning the ink on the pages like a hawk. Straight As, just like last time. And the last time. And the last time.

I have gotten straight A's in school since kindergarten. A 100 percent average in every class, every time. I drop the letter onto my chestnut colored desk and run out of my room, down the stairs, I take a left out of the hallway, making sure to maneuver myself around the weights that have sat in the doorway, underneath the pull up bar attached to the doorframe, for over a year, since my dad died. The paint on the door has been chipping since the day the pull up bar was clumsily installed, March 28th, 2011, by my dad, and little flakes of white paint have yet to be cleaned up.

I step onto the vermillion colored carpet of the living room and over the pile of mail that had been dropped on the floor by me two minutes and 48 seconds ago. My mother lays on the worn out russet colored couch, the old cable remote clutched in her chubby hand, watching a rerun of The Office, episode one of season two, called “The Dundies”. I quickly say, “I got all A’s again,” turn from the room, and walk into the kitchen. The dishes have been sitting in the sink for three days, the clean dishes are in the dishwasher. There are no dishes in the cabinets. The cabinets haven’t been opened in four and a half months. I open the dishwasher and get a plate and set it on the ivory countertop.
I am about to get two slices of bread from the top of the dish-covered stove top, when I hear my mother say, “Henry?” Her voice is raspy, and it always cracks on every fourth word she speaks. “Could you help me out of my chair?”
“We’ve never had a chair in the living room,” I say. “Do you mean the couch?”
I hear a gravelly groan, “Yes.”
“Alright.” I walk back into the living room and grab my mother’s hands with mine. Her bottom is sunken into the indent that has been growing since the day we got it, October 15th, 1999. I pull as hard as I can and my mother is slowly lifted out of the couch. She groans again and bends her knees, struggling to stand herself. “I’m making a sandwich, would you like one?” I don’t bother waiting for a reply because she always says yes. I don’t ask her what type she wants because she never asks for anything other than peanut butter and fluff.
I rummage through the pantry for the fluff, there are two and I pick the one on the right because the other has had mold growing in it for eight days. The peanut butter is behind the couch because my mother dropped it there when she passed out eating it out of the jar with a spoon two days ago. I get five knives from the dishwasher, one for fluff on my sandwich, one for fluff on her sandwich, one for peanut butter on my sandwich, one for peanut butter on her sandwich, and one to cut the crust of of hers because she won’t eat it with crust.
When the sandwiches are ready, I clear the counter by pushing all the trash and rotten food into an old pizza box, not the trash can because nobody has taken the trash out in ten days. My mother slowly drags her feet across the dirt covered floor, further ruining her socks. She sits down on the stool in front of the counter and wolfs down her sandwich while I eat mine quietly.
My mother falls asleep, her face flat on the countertop, after finishing her meal. I place my dish on top of the Leaning Tower of Dishes before heading back up to my room.
I know that it is 9:00 without looking at my alarm clock because it was 6:54 the last time I checked a clock and it has been two hours and six minutes since then. The night sky is catalina blue, little drops of water fall from the clouds and pop against the window, and I spend a few minutes looking at Ursa Minor before I lay down on my bed and fall asleep.

When my alarm goes off at 7:00 AM and I press the “off” button twice or else it will buzz again. I get up from my bed and get dressed for school. I carefully step over the squeaky floorboard under the periwinkle carpeting of my room. I close my eyes before opening door because the windows let too much light into the hall in the morning. I go downstairs and eat breakfast quickly. I go outside to fetch the paper, wearing rainboots because of the rain last night. The grass squishes underneath my feet as I walk back to the house.
I spend the rest of my time reading the paper, and I finish before the bus arrives.
On the bus, I meet my friend, Ryan, waiting for me when I sit down. Ryan has sandy brown hair, a hard-set face, a long neck, a babyface, and is five foot four. His shoe size used to be five, but he recently got a new pair of size eights even though his feet still haven’t grown at all. A small scar resides in the middle of his forehead, but it’s not noticeable unless you look for it. He got it playing baseball with his father, who threw it too high so it hit him square in the face, instantly scarring him forever. His eyes are moss green and crinkle when he smiles. His ears are small, but not too small. They stick out a bit but that’s only because— “Henry?” Ryan has a twinge of annoyance in his voice. He had said something to me, but I wasn’t paying attention.
“What?” I say.
“I have a joke for you,” He says. Before I say anything, he begins, “A blonde had some goldfish,” Now, what do I give them to drink? “And she did not know how to feed them.” Now, what do I give them to drink? “So she called her brunette friend, and she showed her how.” Now, what do I give them to drink? “Once they were done feeding them, the blonde said, ''Now, what do I give them to drink?'' Ryan started cracking up. I pretended to.
The bus ride took 25 minutes, two minutes longer than usual.

In school, I have English first.
My English teacher, Ms. Souza never calls on me. She places me in the back and encourages me to “give the other kids a chance at answering questions.” So I’m quiet for the entirety of the 91 minute class. It’s the same with the rest of my classes and I spend the entire school day silent.

I start packing 15 seconds before the final bell rings, I am in history. “Henry?” Mr. Silverman calls on me as I shove my notebooks into my backpack.

“Yes?” I don’t stop packing my stuff.

“Please stop packing while I’m teaching.” He wears a smile on his face but he has no hint of happiness in his voice.

“The bell is going to ring in two seconds,” I say as the bell rings. Mr. Shuman frowns and watches me as I get up to leave. He stops me and lets everyone else walk out the door.

When the room is empty, Mr. Shuman says, “Henry, please don’t disrespect me in front of the class. It’s embarrassing for the both of us.”

I laugh when he says that, “If you’re worried about being embarrassed, Mr. Shuman, I can assure you that you already have been.” This was a mistake. He says nothing, so I keep talking. “Like five months ago, in November, you came in late because you were building a snowman,” I had seen him in his front yard, rolling the bottom part in the snow, on my way to school.

“How—?”

“Two weeks ago you gave the class extra work so you could check the winning lottery numbers online.” He is about to say something before I interrupt, “ And four days ago you wore sunglasses to class, claiming you got a concussion and your eyes were sensitive to light, but even I could smell the vomited-up alcohol on your breath from the back row. And—”

“That’s enough!” Mr. Shuman’s yell echoes against the tile floor and back into my ears.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Shuman, but I’m going to miss the bus.” I take more steps than I normally do to get to the door and head towards my bus.


When I get home, I head directly to my room. My mother will wake up in 72 minutes, so I have this time to do what I want undisturbed. I start my homework and finish in ten minutes. I come out of my room and make myself another sandwich. As I’m eating it, I hear the front door open. I whip around in my swivel stool and quickly run to the foyer.
My father is in the doorway.
I am dumbfounded. My eyes water with confusion and pain and heartbreak and happiness and sadness and everything else. My father smiles at me and says, “Hey champ. How’d your day go.” He has a briefcase that he sets to the side. “How was your weekend with Mom?” Everything goes blurry as my father touches my shoulder, “Hey, is everything okay, buddy?” I feel like vomiting. “Henry?” I am on fire, I am falling. “Henry!” I feel my father’s arms wrap around my chest and he catches me before I split my head open on the tile floor.

I can’t stop blinking. With every blink I see my father dead in a casket. I am at his wake, and my mother is crying over his empty body. I remember it so vividly. There was one light flickering at the entrance of the funeral home. It smelled of formaldehyde and perfume. I remember it made me sick. But I know what I saw. And my father had died one year ago. He did. He did. I remember. He did.

“Hey, buddy.” My eyes open, I am on my bed and my father is leaning over me, holding a damp cloth to my forehead. He looks like me: brown hair, brown eyes. Long lips and a perfectly sized nose.
“I thought you...” My voice fades.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“No. I remembered you dead.”
Confusion spreads across my father’s face like a virus, “What do you mean?”
“I remember going to your funeral and your wake!” I’m breathing heavily now. “I remember crying for weeks because I didn’t have a father anymore! Why—how can I remember this if it never happened?” I am yelling, my father tries to calm me down but I can’t stop, “I remember everything! But why do I remember this? Is every memory of mine fake?” I press my hands to my temples and tightly close my eyes.
“Henry, I’m okay.” He rubs his hand along my back. “I’m here. Henry, look at me.” I am looking at him. In a casket. His arms crossed along his chest. He was buried with his 9 karat wedding ring on, he had powdery foundation on his face to make him look alive. I shake my head. This isn’t right. I don’t understand. “Henry, I’ve only been gone for a few days. Henry?” He was lowered into the ground slowly. It took four minutes and thirteen seconds for the lowering mechanism to stop. My mother was dressed in black and sitting in a white chair. The first shovel-full of dirt was dropped at...I don’t remember the time.
“Why can’t I remember the time?” I rocked back and forth and try. I try but I can’t. I can’t. I try. I can’t. And then
7:00 AM. I was in bed. The first shovel of dirt was dropped at 7:00 in my bed. In my bed. I woke up. In my bed. At 7:00 AM. My dad wasn’t dead. It was a dream.