Charlie's Circle... (Forgotten Dreams) A Twenty Four Hour Short Story Entry

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Charlie Jr. knew he shouldn't be here. This was grandpa's special room, the room that no one was supposed to litter. But apart from the curious pull of his tender mind, he could also see that the door was slightly open, and no one was here now. No one who cared anyway.

He inched the door open slowly, and peered into the supposedly sacred space. Then he inched it open a little more, and a little more still, and soon he was standing just inside the room with surprise written all over his face.

Charlie was confused. No one was supposed to litter this room? Well, litter what exactly? he thought. The room was completely empty; no furniture, no clothes or books, nothing at all. There was only one object he could see; a strange small box which stood alone in the center of the empty room. As conspicuous in it's solitary presence as the absence of any other thing.

Forgetting the supposed sanctity of the place, along with any previous fears he may have had about littering it, Charlie Jr. walked towards the box and stooped down to examine it. With small delicate hands, he felt around for an opening. But after feeling 360 degrees around it, he found none. It was only then that he paid attention to the small inscriptions on the surface of the box.

With the lip and finger movement reminiscent of children, he made out the words and figures slowly. It was just some dates and names, some of the names which he had recognized as members of their rather large family. He couldn't care less about the dates.

Charlie Jr. stood up and started to leave. The room and it's solitary box was rather uninteresting. He wondered again why grandpa always made a fuss about the place, or why his parents even encouraged it. They needn't worry about him littering the room, he thought to himself. He probably wouldn't even come in here if he was begged to. It was a boring place.

He reached out to close the door on his way out, but as he did so, he noticed a switch on the wall. Being the child he was, he nonchalantly reached out to flip it. Flipping switches was more fun than sneaking into the sacred room he reasoned, as his fingers made contact with the plastic.

Then all of a sudden Charlie Jr. spun around, his eyes wide with shock and amazement...

...

That was the last he had remembered of the whole event of that day, and for the past twenty years it had felt more like a dream which he had had, but had forgotten the details. A dream which had lingered on in the recesses of his memory, forgotten... but not totally lost.

Because today Charlie Jr. had remembered it all, every single detail of that day...

...

He had walked back into grandpa Charlie's sacred room, back to the now illuminated box, and curiously placed his hands on the inscription that read "Charlie, 2007".
And he had remembered being transported back in time to his grandfather's youthful days...

Of all he had seen that day, there were two events which had stood out.
First, when grandpa Charlie had met grandma Martha. He never knew her, never saw her; she had died before he was born. Or so he had been told and believed at the time.

Theirs was a love story befitting of it's own tale. A love which even through his childhood eyes, had carried a special shine to it, and in a strange way, he had felt in some way connected to it.
But it was the joy and happiness which revolved around this first event, which had made the sad nature of the second all too contrasting.

Later that year, Grandpa Charlie had been denied Martha's hand by her father for certain reasons his young mind had not understood. And in a heated argument between the two, tragedy had struck...

...

Charlie Jr. stood over the dead man's body as the last bits of the long forgotten memory returned. He knew now why grandpa Charlie had made a fuss about the sacred room, and why he himself had buried the memory of that day deep in his mind where it wouldn't be found.

But time was a mysterious phenomenon. And it had brought it back to him with the events of the present day.

Martha's lovely face flashed through his eyes again as the last piece of forgotten memory completed the circle which had been forming in his head.

The box that day had not read "Charlie 2007"...

It had read "Charlie Jr. 2070".

And today, Charlie has just killed a man...

THE END

#SladenSpeaks

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Written for @mctiller's Twenty four hour short story contest

Seems like of recent, I have been down with a dual case of bad network, and toying with deadlines. Phew!

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