Daily Prompt:   What is your earliest memory? Describe it in detail, and tell us why you think that experience was the one to stick with you.

I’ve sat here for a good hour, debating: Should I keep this post light and funny  or should I expose the darkness of what I presume to be my first memory?

Pulling back the curtain not only makes me vulnerable but it also sheds a bad light on other family members; and it’s for this reason I’ve wrestled with whether to write fluff or whether to write truth.

Let me begin with this.  I truly don’t remember most of my childhood.  I sit as a stranger, listening to  family members say, “Remember the time…” and then they continue with a memory that’s utterly foreign to me.  Of course, I go along, and pretend their recollections are mine as well, and I prepare my chuckle for the ending that’s always accompanied with guffaws and side splitting belly rolls.  I sit amidst the laughter and  think “Who the hell are these people and where the hell did I come from?”  Then it hits me…”These are my people and they are telling my stories.”  It never fails, no matter how many times this scenario plays out, I’m always surprised, and I always wonder why they can remember, when I can not.

Well, now that I’m fifty I’ve learned through the years that it’s easier to accept this, condition of mine, as reality and assure myself, that for some reason, my inner child wants these memories to herself, and that she has a damn good reason.

With that said, I will pull back the curtain for a glimpse of my earliest memory.  Don’t blink…you’ll miss it…for it truly is only a “glimpse.”

The house is dark.  A child, of perhaps three, is sitting on a couch, the only piece of furniture in the dark room.  She’s so small her feet barely touch the edge of her seat.  The child hears a loud voice and the voice there in the room with her.  She may be alone with the voice, but something tells her she’s not…maybe her sister is there too…the child is uncertain.  The child hangs her head and silent tears stream a trail over her cheeks, drip from a trembling chin to dampen her shirt.  She sits perfectly still, almost as if she’s overtaken with paralysis.  The voice doesn’t stop, neither does it fade.  The voice always makes her cry.

The girl, the room and the voice dwindle into oblivion.