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It Happened

I never told you did I? I didn’t even tell myself. It took a while you know to come to terms with all that happened and even now, thinking about it and actually daring to share it seems like a betrayal somehow – but I know that I have to speak and the time to do it is now. How could I allow myself to doubt that it happened? How could I think that making the link between then and now was totally unconnected when the very fibre of my being shouted, screamed, the pain was real, and not a figment of my imagination, but a nightmare stealing surreptitiously into my dreams, locking every door, tossing the master key into a river, rolling relentlessly into a sea of despair.

I’m not ashamed you know. I do not blame myself. I don’t expect you to understand. You didn’t understand then, so why would you understand, years later, when the passing of time has minimised it, diminished it, so that the ogre that it was, looming large, fearfully fierce, is reduced to nothing more than ashes in a dusty corner of your memory. Ashes which you refuse to sweep away. To acknowledge them would suggest you played a part so they lay largely undisturbed, the specks becoming spectators at their own show.

So here I stand, and I know it’s inconvenient for you. Why couldn’t I have chosen a better time? Well I’m afraid that with the passing of time, I grew. I choose this time and it belongs to me. I claim and reclaim all that was lost. I’m telling you now that it happened.

That master key tossed so carelessly on to the ocean bed glints gleefully in the sunlight, sparkling on the shore, assures me that my memory serves me well.

~Marie Williams – 2017