My name is Jack, and I live in an old house on the outskirts of Seattle.
It happened last Friday. That day, I came home from work, opened the door as usual, took off my coat, and walked into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. Then, I suddenly froze.
I couldn’t remember how I’d driven home from work.
It wasn’t that fuzzy feeling you get when you zone out and forget the route—it was a complete blank. It was as if someone had taken an eraser and forcibly wiped out the memories from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. from my mind.
I stood in the kitchen, my palms starting to sweat. I tried to recall: Where were my car keys? Oh, in my pocket. Did I hit any red lights on the way home? I didn’t know. Did I listen to the radio? I had absolutely no recollection.
What unsettled me even more were my shoes.
I looked down and saw I was wearing a pair of hiking boots caked in red mud. But I hadn’t been to the mountains at all this week, and I clearly remembered leaving the house this morning in my dress shoes.
I rushed into the entryway, and sure enough, my dress shoes were neatly arranged on the shoe rack.
I took off my boots and found a small piece of ragged cloth wedged in the sole, stained with a dark red smudge and smelling of rust.
I reached inside the boot and felt something hard. When I pulled it out, it was a rusty folding shovel.
I slumped onto the couch, my heart pounding. Just then, my phone rang.
It was an unknown number. My hands trembling, I pressed the answer button.
“Jack,” a hoarse female voice said on the other end, “Did you clean it up?”
I opened my mouth but couldn’t make a sound.
“Don’t play dumb,” the voice continued. “You promised me yourself while you were digging that hole in the woods. You said that as long as you buried her, you’d forget all of this.”
The call ended.
I glanced sharply at the wall clock. It was exactly 7:00 p.m.
I suddenly realized that the memory I’d erased wasn’t an accident at all.
I had deleted it myself, with my own hands.
