First Memory

As I’m running through my mind for the first recollection of my existence, I can’t help but feel like the images that go by are not skewed by the media that blankets the world that surrounds me. Many of the instances that my mind captures feel… stereotypical, as if my memories were images made for a Quentin Tarantino movie. I would guess that some of my earlier memories have been squished together with images I found fascinating and over the years and they have become my own. I have memories of my mother and I walking through aisles of slot machines when we lived in Arizona, but I can’t tell whether the picture in mind is real or if I had picked it up later on in life. My brain categorizes memories by what I can relate them too. Like the person you brings a completely unrelated topic into a conversation, my mind connects events with thoughts and feelings that would not always be considered, related. To not leave the reader confused on my meaning of this; one example I can remember is that the smell of onion ring chips reminds me of playing baseball.

Since I could contemplate one what my first memory was for days, I’m going to pick one that I feel I can personally vouch for as a genuine memory. I was around the age of three and my family lived in a little duplex in Laurel Montana, a small community outside of Billings. My Uncle, the oldest of my dad’s brothers, and Aunt had come over to visit and were set to sleep on the pull out bed from within the couch. I really don’t remember any of the events that had transpired throughout that day, but when I fell asleep that night I had a dream that is still one of the most vivid dreams in my memory.

I opened my eyes and realized that my arms and legs had been stretched to the four corners of a mount, similar to one that would hold the head of an animal. From the accented corners of this mount were hands that protruded out holding me by my wrists and ankles. I saw that I was positioned above my parent’s bed looking out across the room. From inside the room and looking out the door in front of me I could see the house was flooded with water coming two feet up the walls. I could hear screaming coming down hall, but at this point the sources were unknown to me. Then a voice, much like the narrator of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” began to speak from no particular point in the room. I have forgotten that exact words that the voice said, but in brief he told me that I was in here and my parents and family were out in the living room which was out the door and across the little hall. I began to see red floating on the surface of the water in through the bedroom door which was followed by a large crocodile.

I remember waking, shaking my arms and legs as if to free myself from the hands that bound my wrists and ankles. After I regained my senses I quickly ran to my parent’s room and awoke them. After their failure to calm my mind, my father walked with my out to the living room were my relatives were sleeping and he turned on the TV and we watched what looked like an eighties cop drama till I fell back asleep.