TITLE: Ashes and Oatmeal
AUTHOR: Maggie McCain
DISTRIBUTION: Gossamer, Spookies, and Xemplary OK. Everyone 
     else, please ask before forwarding or archiving.
FEEDBACK: It's what my happy dreams are about. Send it to 
     MaggieMac525@aol.com
SPOILERS: "Closure"
RATING: G
CLASSIFICATION: VA
SUMMARY: Stolen memories, pretty lies. How do you hold on 
     to your identity when everything you know is gone?
DISCLAIMER: "The X-Files" and all its characters and 
     situations are owned by CC, 1013, and Fox. No 
     infringement is intended. 
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you to cofax, Maria, and Juliettt for 
     their ever-helpful beta services. You guys are that 
     with which I can't live without.


Ashes and Oatmeal 
By Maggie McCain


I dreamed again last night.

I always dream. Sometimes I remember them, but more often I 
jerk awake with my heart pounding so hard it hurts and my 
body all sticky with sweat, and I can't remember why I feel 
so afraid. Sometimes Aunt Cassie is there when I wake up; 
she says I call out in my sleep, and she shushes me and 
watches over her shoulder as though she's waiting for 
something terrible to come in the door.

Those are the nightmares. 

Sometimes, though, I have happy dreams. I always pray that 
I'll remember them, those dreams of the place I was before. 
The first time I dreamed about it, I told Jeffrey; I didn't 
know any better, then. He said I was making it up, and he 
told Aunt Cassie on me. Then Mr. Spender came again. He 
said that the dreams weren't true, that before I came to 
live with Aunt Cassie I lived with my parents, but that we 
had all had a car wreck and everybody died except for me. 
He said that I was hurt very badly in the accident, and 
that's why I don't remember anything. He said that's why I 
have to go to the Place, and that the doctors there are 
trying to help me get better.  Then he made me go with him 
to the Place, and the doctors did... something. I don't 
know what. But it made my head hurt, and when I got back I 
didn't have the dreams anymore, not for years. When they 
came back at last, I was so happy I cried. I didn't tell 
anyone that they had come back; I didn't want the doctors 
to take them away from me again. They're all I have left 
from before.  

I pretend to believe the things that Mr. Spender tells me, 
but I don't. I know he lies to me. Everybody lies to me. He 
lies about who I am, and Jeffrey lies about snooping in my 
room and messing up my stuff, and Aunt Cassie lies and 
tells me that nothing bad is going to happen, and the 
doctors lie and say that it won't hurt as much, the next 
time.

I lie, too, every day. I lie every time I say "I'm Samantha 
Spender," every time I tell the kids on the base that my 
parents died in a car crash, every time that Jeffrey's 
father asks if I've been dreaming and I tell him no, sir, I 
never remember my dreams anymore. Sometimes I feel like the 
lies and the secrets hang in the air like his cigarette 
smoke; they make my eyes sting and my clothes reek, they 
fill me and choke me and make me want to cough. I want to 
get away from here. I've given up on finding my home from 
before; all I want now is a place where I can live, just 
live like a normal person and be free from the tests and 
the doctors and Aunt Cassie's fear and Jeffrey's sulks and 
Jeffrey's father's stink of cigarettes and pain.

I know the dreams are true, both the good dreams and the 
nightmares. I know, even when I don't remember, that when I 
wake up screaming it's because I'm remembering the Place in 
my sleep. I know the Place is real. That means that the 
dreams about before are real too. 

I think maybe I lived near the beach before. I dream about 
the ocean a lot, about making sandcastles and picking up 
shells and pretty rocks. Sometimes there is a lady with me, 
and she tells me the names of the shells. She never calls 
me by my name. I wish she would. I want to know my name, my 
real name, more than just Samantha. Jeffrey says my real 
name is Spender, like his, but I know that's a lie. My real 
name is something different. I don't quite remember it yet, 
but I have a feeling that maybe it starts with an "r."

There are pages and pages of names in my diary, where I've 
gone through the phone book trying to remember the right 
one, trying to find one that will look right to me. I write 
down the ones that seem familiar, hoping that one of them 
will shake something loose in my head and let me remember 
for real. I look at my lists and I try them out, whispering 
names to myself like a prayer: "Samantha Williams, Samantha 
Porter, Samantha Holden, Samantha Miller..." 

That's my secret diary, the one I keep hidden, the one I 
write in by flashlight under the covers in the middle of 
the night. I have two diaries; I keep the other one under 
the mattress for Jeffrey to find. I know he reads it, the 
rotten little sneak. So I make it easy for him to find that 
one, where I talk about having crushes on the neighbors and 
wanting a new pair of jeans, and I pretend to be mad when 
he reads it. But the whole time I'm laughing at him inside, 
because he doesn't know about my real diary, where I write 
down the precious little bits of memory I've managed to 
hide away from him and Aunt Cassie and Mr. Spender and the 
doctors at the Place.

Sometimes I dream about riding bikes. I'm sitting on the 
crossbar and there's a boy, pedaling us as I hold tight 
around his waist. He is older than me. I think maybe he 
might be my brother. I can hear the seabirds and I taste 
salt in the heavy air as I laugh and cry, "Faster!" I don't 
know his name, but I feel safe with him; I know he won't 
let us fall. I want to turn and see his face. I am frozen, 
though, like you sometimes are in dreams, and I can only 
look ahead into the ocean wind.

No matter how they start, the dreams always end the same 
way. I am sitting on the floor with my brother; we are 
playing a game, and we fight over the television. And then 
there is the awful light, and I am so afraid, and all I can 
hear is my brother screaming my name.

Jeffrey's father is here when I come out to breakfast. He 
is drinking coffee and smoking. Aunt Cassie stands stiff at 
the stove, stirring my oatmeal. I feel sick to my stomach 
when I see him; he only comes to take me to the Place. I 
don't want to go back there. I don't want to go with him 
anymore.

"Good morning, Samantha," he says in his hateful cool 
voice.  

"Good morning, Mr. Spender," I say, politely, and think 
that it wouldn't be a lie if only he would go away and 
never come back, if only he would leave me alone.  If only 
he would let me go back to the place I lived before.

Last night I dreamt of crayons, of coloring. I close my 
eyes, and I can still smell the wax and newsprint. My 
brother is there, at the edges of the dream, not paying 
attention to me. I interrupt him--he was reading-- and ask 
him to guess which color I used on the tree in my picture. 
He humors me, guessing wildly wrong, and I correct him, 
proud in my small victory. He tugs on one of my pigtails; 
the ribbon comes undone. He does it up for me again, in a 
double knot like you use for shoelaces so it won't untie. 
His face is still indistinct, but I see that he has brown 
hair.

My brother has brown hair. I repeat it to myself, so that I 
will be sure to remember until I have a chance to write it 
down in my diary; now I have one more memory to hold on to, 
another small true thing to clear away the lies and let me 
breathe.

"Come here," Jeffrey's father says, and reaches towards me. 
I cross to where he's sitting, and he takes my hand. His 
skin is dry and flaky; there is a yellow stain on his 
finger. I pretend not to hate him, and he pretends not to 
notice. 

"Did you sleep well?" 

I nod.

Did the dream come back? Did you remember again? The 
questions lie just under his too-smooth face. I can see 
them there, even before he asks. "Any dreams?"

I clear my throat. "No, sir." I never tell him about the 
dreams anymore, not since the first time. I smile, and lie, 
and keep that place I was before as a secret just for me. 

He lets go of me, and I take my seat. Under the table, 
where he can't see, I scrub my hand against my skirt, 
wiping his touch off my fingers, his smell off my skin.

Aunt Cassie gives me my oatmeal. It tastes like the ashes 
of Jeffrey's father's cigarette.

My brother had brown hair. He had brown hair, and we fought 
over the television.

I wonder if he ever dreams of me.

END (01/01)