Walter

Have you ever felt as if your life wasn’t real? That everything was simply a dream? Well, I have, but not just for a moment. There was never a time when I’ve felt as if I wasn’t dreaming, reality never really seemed to hit me, since I’ve never comprehended it in the first place. By now, you would have assumed I had converted into a serial killer, but I’m very much still sane, even I’m quite surprised. I got married at the age of 22, I’m now 23 and happily married to my wife, Fea, age 22. We first met in a small town in Forest Grove, Oregon in 1931. We were both around 11 years old when we first met, and we’ve never seemed to get along, I soon found myself growing fond of her, throughout our shared time. Surprisingly, she felt the same way. Our relationship became more intense from there on out. As expected, we started dating, that’s how things stayed for the last 6 years. But at the age of 18, we impulsively decided to run away. Looking back, I’ve realized it was stupid of us to run away from our problems, but we were kids, what else could you expect?

Before we set off, I decided to inform my closest friend, Edith, about our plan. He laughed. Which was reasonable enough, at first glance, all you would see is a slim, pale kid who’s too stupid enough to deal with their own problems let alone cause any. At the time, it didn’t upset me that no one tried stopping us. This didn’t annoy me until we received the call.

Fea

 October 15, 1943, at 2:12 am, the call. We woke up to the sound of our phone shaking the house, “brrrreeeeeeeeeeep, brrrreeeeeeeeeeep, brrrreeeeeeeeeeep.” 

“….Hey, honey? Can you get that please?” 

“..Ugh, alright,” as I got up, I put my slippers on, which lay at the edge of our bed. I headed over to the living room. Still shaking from the exhaustion and surprisingly made my way there in the pitch-black room. 

“Hello? Who is this? Do you know what time it is?” I may have come off as rude, but what else do you expect? It was 2 in the morning! After a few seconds, nothing, pure silence, I was about to hang up until a soft brittle voice spoke up. 

“…..Fea? It’s me, Mrs. Grey. I really need you guys to come down here, we’ll be waiting for you. I need you two to get here in two days. I’ll see you then.” She hung up, a wave of cold wind passed right through me. Mrs. Grey? Walter’s mother? Calling us at two in the morning? I stood there, quiet, with the phone still in my hand. 

“…Is everything alright?” my husband asked, it echoed throughout the whole house. I headed back to our room and laid down while still trying to process what just happened. 

“What’s wrong? You look pale, did you see a ghost on the way there?” he chuckled. 

I bit my lip, he knew how much I hate the dark. Still, sitting on the edge of my bed, legs dangling, I said, “…I did.” 

He looked confused. “What do you mean?” 

It took me a while to spit it out. “Your mom called.” As I explained everything to him and spent a good amount of time trying to convince him to head down there, he finally agreed. As we gathered our things, as well as our thoughts, we informed our bosses about our situation. 

We got ready for the trip and booked our plane tickets. We made our way to Forest Grove, Oregon. Our parents sent Gilburt, a friend of theirs, to receive us from the airport. The trip was quiet, no one spoke a word until we started to see familiar grounds. A swing set, surrounded by forest, covered in vines. I smiled as soon as I recognized the shriveled-up blue swing set. It wasn’t always a dark swapped blue but instead a bright blue swing, well from what I could recall.

“What’s with the smile?” Walter asked out of pure curiosity. 

I pointed to the set, “Don’t you remember?” 

His face turned bright pink. He laughed. “How could I not? I still miss them.” He said as he rubbed his cheeks.

“You know, you would have only lost one if you had listened to me.”

He gave me a look, “So it’s my fault? Ha, you’re the one that’s hard to impress, so I just had to do it again. HEY! Do you think my teeth are still there?” 

I snorted, “Oh yeah, we never found them, they probably went flying when you jumped off the set and landed face first.” As we laughed, we realized we’d made a sudden stop. 

“We’re here,” Gilburt announced as he got out of the car. His voice was extraordinarily gruff but suited his figure, broad and tall. We hesitantly got out of the car and stood in front of a green old-fashioned house, for minutes, which felt like hours.

Walter 

It felt like the world stopped here. Nothing has changed, everything kept moving as if we were never there, to begin with. I wasn’t ready, I think Fea felt the same. However, she was always close with her mom, so I couldn’t possibly know how she was feeling right now. As we were lost in thought, we were both startled by the noise of the door opening. Both of our parents stepped out of the house, with looks of regret painted all over them. We stared at each other, awkwardly, until Fea’s mom finally spoke up. 

“Please come in, you don’t want to catch a cold out there.” She’s still caring as ever. We all entered the house. As expected, nothing had changed. 

“Would you like tea?” Fea’s mother asked. 

“No, thank you, we’re fine,” I spoke. “So why did you ask us to come here?” I was taken aback by Fea’s quick change of tone, as if we weren’t laughing a few minutes ago. I was a bit uneasy, I didn’t want the first encounter with our parents after 5 years to be turned into a heated argument.