Bad Memory

I'm relying on my memory less and less these days, but I think this all started about three years ago. I had gone to some guy's 25th birthday party at the James Chicago Hotel with my friend Fiona and her boyfriend Johnny. It was in the penthouse and I'd never been to a party like that before, everybody was trashed. The way that I remember it, I had a Developmental Psych final the next morning, so I wasn't drinking. Maybe that's wrong. I guess when I think about it, I can't imagine being there and not having at least one drink.

A guy named Lewis, whom I'd gone on a couple of dates with when I first moved to Chicago, saw me and we started talking, just catching up a bit. The penthouse had roof access, so we went up there to escape some of the noise from the suite revelers. The only thing that I remember from that is us talking for maybe ten minutes. Lewis had just gotten some admin job at one of the colleges and was gushing about the benefits. Oh, and he had grabbed a bottle of champagne from the party, so yeah, I might have had part of a drink with him then. But it wasn't long at all before I said goodbye and went back to the penthouse to find Johnny or Fiona so that we could leave.

I didn't see Lewis again until recently, just a couple of months ago at Tippling Hall. I was there with some girlfriends from work. Lewis approached me and pulled me aside. I was beginning to get annoyed that I was going to have to catch up with this guy every two or three years for the rest of my life, but then he asked me if I remembered seeing something on the roof at the penthouse party, some sort of UFO.

I thought he was joking, but then he seemed to think that I was joking about not seeing it. When he realized I wasn't, his tone shifted to very serious and he demanded that I tell him what I remembered from the roof. I told him, that we'd had a drink and chatted for a few minutes, and then he seemed to get unreasonably agitated. I still thought he was just being an ass, so I shrugged and went back to my friends. I didn't see Lewis again that night.

A week after that, Fiona (Johnny was out of the picture by this point) told me that Lewis had been trying to contact her, asking her why I was lying about not having seen the UFO. I found Lewis on Facebook and IM'd him to leave my friends alone. He IM'd me back almost immediately to ask me why I was lying about what happened on the roof. He begged for me to meet up with him again to discuss it further in person, but I told him that wasn't going to happen. I wasn't worried about Brandon, my boyfriend for over a year by then, finding out - and it was obvious that Lewis was getting weird and obsessive - but I used Brandon as an excuse anyway. I wish I hadn't.

I became a bit paranoid after that and thought that I saw Lewis everywhere. Commuting to work or out to dinner with Brandon, there Lewis would be - watching and waiting for me to tell him what he wanted to hear. I also started dreaming about the UFO. In these nightmares, I'd be walking alone at night and a enormous spacecraft would suddenly appear over me, blocking out the night sky. The realization of its impossible size would knock the wind out of me. Then Lewis would appear beside me, grabbing my hand and mouthing words I couldn't hear. The only noise that got through to me were the slippery, hypnotic voices coming from inside the alien ship, calling my name in both my language and theirs. Alena...

I began to get in trouble at work. I had dropped out of UIC's nursing program and switched to a business degree, which led to a decent job. However after the dreams started, I began making mistakes at my company, memory-related mistakes. Before long, these little coworker jokes about my needing a vacation turned into tense, structured conversations about my performance. My supervisor asked if I would consider counseling, but I knew it had to be a more serious medical problem, some mental dysfunction I wasn't ready to face.

The following Friday, Brandon sent me a text asking me to meet him that night at a hotel restaurant downtown. I wasn't much in the mood at first, but I found myself getting more and more excited that maybe he wanted to propose. Or at least ask me to move in together. I didn't need a ring, but I was sure that Brandon was the man I wanted to be with. A ring would be something though.

I arrived at the restaurant and scanned the dining room for Brandon. However, it was Lewis's voice that grabbed my attention, suddenly standing beside me as he had in so many dreams. Unlike the dream, I could hear him quite clearly. He said that Brandon was fine, but that I needed to come to the roof with him. My memory really had faded because it took me until that moment to realized what hotel I was standing in. Welcome back to the James Chicago, Alena.

On the elevator ride up, I asked Lewis what he'd done with Brandon. He looked confused for a second and then, embarrassed, admitted that he'd used a phone hack to send the text message. Brandon didn't even know it had happened. I could have killed him then, I was certainly ready to go back home that minute. But the look on his face when I had accused him of abducting Brandon told me he was probably harmless. Beside, I thought maybe this could be the solution to my nightmare problems, as well as the restlessness that I was starting to feel creep into my waking hours. From the top floor, a stairway took us to the roof.

Once we were up there, nothing looked familiar to me. I thought there were several structural tiers and a view of Lake Michigan, but really the hotel's roof was flat with a couple of entrances and a view of several other tall buildings. It didn't scare me completely, after all it had been ten minutes three years ago, but it was disorienting.

Then Lewis began to set the scene and almost immediately began getting a bunch of details wrong. For one, he thought that it was Johnny's birthday party, that Fiona had rented the penthouse and we had all drank until very late. I told him about my UIC final, but he said that I had dropped out of nursing school much earlier than that. I told him the details weren't important, but he stressed that they were.

He then described the arrival of the UFO. Its structure and size seemed to match my nightmares. Apparently, it had hovered above us on that night, aiming a soft, hazy light upon us as we stood mesmerized for several minutes. I had then wordlessly left Lewis there alone to return to the party.

He pleaded for me to remember. There were tears in his eyes. This whole time, I had really thought Lewis was just unhappy in his life, that maybe his job at the college hadn't worked out and this alien thing was an escape from some other void. But after seeing the look in his eyes up on the rooftop, I was afraid for him. He really believed it happened and desperately needed someone to confirm his story, even if it was with a lie. So, that's what I did. I told him that I did remember the UFO, that I'd been to afraid to admit it, but he was right. A moment passed, then he quietly thanked me and I left him there alone.

I called Fiona the next morning to tell her about the whole thing, but she stopped me soon after I got to the part on the roof. She told me that she had, in fact, rented the penthouse three years ago for Johnny's birthday. She told me that I wasn't in nursing school at the time and that I'd been drinking pretty heavily that night, especially after I had returned from the roof with a mesmerized look in my eyes. She had thought that I had kissed Lewis up there, but all I would tell her was that I wanted to forget something. That's when I got scared.

I can't say that things are much better now that Lewis has left my life again, though I'm glad he's gone. I did end up losing my job, but Brandon insisted that he'd help out until I find something else. I hope that it's soon, because I know it's a strain on our relationship. I try not to look up at the night sky anymore, although if feels like I've been subconsciously avoiding it for years now. Also, I'm trying to pay closer attention to details and write more things down, out of fear of my bad memory.