gwen hailsham. four. cb. fin.

Flash-bang.

There are gaps in my memory, white-light. Not normal gaps, ones that fade away, ones that aren't important enough to miss. These ones are important. They must be. The doctors say, as they take my temperature and squint at thermometers that my mind is incredible. I can remember everything. Everything that I understand. It's a gift and a curse, read one text-book and have the year's curriculum down-pat. I never forget names, faces. Teach me how to yield a weapon and it's just muscle-memory, instinct in an instant. Everything, everything, it's all in my head, except-

t h e  g a p s.

And it haunts me. Nothing. Nothing, I call it, the spaces in my head with holes. I didn't understand, I don't understand and they scream at me, red ink on paper, a large B on the top-right corner. Bell laughed, my cheeks flared red just like the B, bitch.

Scissors in my hand, snip snip, I never got a B again.

Short hair is practical. Someone told me that, and I never forgot it. I just forgot who said it to me in the first place.

S n i p  s n i p,
there goes my understanding.