What sticks to your Brain?

When I was 8 years old, I was sick and my mom sends one of my sisters to buy some children’s Cafenol to reduce my fever. When she didn’t return after a while, my mom sends my other sister to look for her. When she didn’t return either, she left me alone and went in search of them.

I lay on the bed with the door wide open. We lived in a huge tenement yard. Staring outside, I saw a tall headless man walking up the steps towards our room, carrying a large brown grip (today they call it a suitcase). I dragged myself off the bed and went outside to meet him.

At 8 years old, what was I to be afraid of? He was dressed in gray pants, a white shirt, and a red and white tie and sporting a pair of black men’s shoes. He walked towards me, stopped in front of me, his shoulders turned down as if to look at me, then he just disappeared. When my mother returned with my sisters I told her what I saw.

She said his name was Dr. Stockhausen, and Auntie Dean, one of the tenants who lived upstairs, would wash his clothes. Which he would take to her in a brown grip every Monday morning. He was headless because he fell off a building in Half Way Tree and broke his neck three months before we moved in. He was dead. Today was Monday!

That was more than 40 years ago, and it stayed with me as if it happened a few hours ago. What memories stick to your brain and refuse to let go?

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.