Black Sheep

by Rachel Harrison

The glittering sky rested like a crown on the horizon. So many jewels—stars burning, burning, so desperate to be seen, seeking attention over light-years. Easy to forget stars are mortal; they’re born, and they die. They shine for legacy.

Seems I’m the type to pick at a scab until it bleeds, then peel back the skin to see what’s underneath. The kind of curious that invites self-destruction.

Sometimes I would imagine a ledger inside myself, floating in my skull. An ancient-looking scroll where, with quill and ink, I’d tally up the incidents that subsidized my cynicism, my lack of faith in humanity. I had no idea where the visual came from, or what purpose it served. It was goofy. Sometimes it’d make me feel better, other times not so much.

It scared me that some things I might have lost for good. There was a difference between choosing not to remember and forgetting.

There’s so little empathy and understanding when it comes to family, the cornerstone of society, the root of existence.

Some people need conspiracies, finding the simple horror of the truth too brutal.

Strange how within all of us is a compulsion to run both away from and toward danger. Survival instinct and self-destruction. Curiosity, deviousness, boredom, desire . . . They can all override evolution. What did those cavemen run for, anyway? What was the point?

Nothing terrified me more than this. The notion that without a choice we inherit parts of us that we cannot change. Cannot cut out.

It occurred to me then, mouth full of chocolate chip banana mush, that our past is not the truth. It’s warped by time and emotion, inevitably muddied by love and resentment, joy and shame, hope and regret. I couldn’t trust my own memories. Good or bad.

I imagined us as two flies drowning in honey, and while I struggled to get free, she was content, thinking, Isn’t it sweet?

It’s a cruelty of life that we can never protect our own innocence. We can only watch ourselves lose it in retrospect. Scream at memories.

How could I have known then? How can anyone know when ruin wears the disguise of love?