René Toldeau gazed at the prompt on the computer screen. He had forgotten his password, a thing he had not changed and had known for a long time. A photographer with a keen recollection, this sudden fog was baffling. He tried and tried again but it felt like he was circling in blankness. How had he forgotten it? Why? Did something happen? he wondered. This was the third day trying to do remember a thing which he had taken for granted. His glassy eyes stared at the screen.

Weeks later he stood under the doorframe of the bedroom without knowing why. He walked backwards and forwards trying to remember. He had packed his camera, but was sure he had forgotten something. He had bought another computer. Occasionally, he would try to enter the password correctly on the old one, but never with success.

Weeks later he was certain the days had fewer hours in them. Suspicions, but no proof. He drew his fingers across a calendar trying to find the date when he had forgotten the password. The numbers remained abstract. He felt an emptiness. He looked down at his fingers. They were his. This was him. And yet not. What else have I forgotten? Normally, he thought, the past is a well-defined land with palpable features, sights and objects that are familiar and easy to find. Now, he felt as though those parts were crumbling into the sea. A cold fear passed through him: that of drowning in a rising ocean. He looked objectively at his life. It was one of habit. Twenty years of the same routine. He took care of his mother, watched films, worked, and ate the same food. He took a holiday at the same time every year. He was healthy, exercised, didn’t drink. What then? he wondered.

Weeks later René was surprised to see it snowing. Wasn’t it autumn? The roof of the Mairie de Saint-Maur had a thin cover of snow over it. Autumn was the best season for photography and its sudden passing depressed him. He kept trying to discover the password, but always failed. 

December arrived with outrageous speed. One Saturday morning, he was sitting at the breakfast table with his old mother. She had a gentle expression though not all there. She recollected her youth. A sharp, vigorous and dark-haired creature then, she told him. Loud and strong, full of energy. Passionate. Indulgent. Funny. But now … 

She stared absently at nothing. René brought the camera to his eyes and adjusted the focus. He didn’t mean to take her picture, but his finger pressed the button. The image was of an old woman so utterly lonely and fragile. His eyes moistened.

Weeks later she asked, ‘what happened to her?’

‘Who, Maman?’ 

‘You know … what’s her name?’

Maybe a friend that used to come round when he was a child, he thought. Soirées with soul and wit they were. But who of her many friends?

‘What do you want for lunch?’ he asked her, changing the subject. She looked at him annoyed. Why go through a long list of people only to forget the anecdote, he thought. Or muddle three people together in a ghastly trinity. 

‘How about Blanquette de Veau?’ he said. It was her favourite.

There was a glint in her eyes. A momentary flash of what used to be. 

They ate in silence and when they had finished, he brought the camera to his eyes and adjusted the focus. He didn’t mean to take her picture, but his finger pressed the button. The image was of an old woman so utterly lonely and fragile. His eyes moistened. He had a feeling of things repeating. He was having that sensation a lot.

The following week, a baffling discovery. He found a bright purple lipstick in one of his drawers. His mother didn’t wear lipstick and he was a bachelor. He allowed for the possibility of an accident. But what kind? Had he picked it up somewhere? Cold sweat broke across his brow. Why pick it up? His mother must have put it there. He went downstairs to his mother who was absently watching TV.

‘Maman, have you seen this before?’

She first shook her head then her eyes brightened. ‘Was it her?’

‘Who?’

‘Oh … her …’

‘Who?’ he said.

‘The cleaning lady?’

‘We don’t have a cleaning lady.’

‘Oh … no, I mean Claudette,’ she said.

‘Auntie Claudette is in Argentina.’

‘Oh …’

‘Did I bring somebody home?’

‘A girl?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘That would be nice.’

The medical tests revealed nothing. Sometime later, earrings appeared. Not his mother’s, she never wore any. He threw the earrings across the room in a rage. Someone was playing tricks on him, even if it was himself. Or his mother. The computer, silently mocked him. He laughed. 

Days passed. At work, he took his model’s photographs listlessly. He had forgotten her name. He felt dizzy and steadied himself and put the camera down. When he had recovered, he began taking pictures again but the model laughed. There was no camera in his hands. He had a sudden pain in the side of his head. He laughed and picked up the camera. When he took the first photograph, the flash momentarily turned the eyes of the model into the opalescent eyes of another. Sweat broke out on his brow and he held his forehead with one hand. The room swayed. The model asked what was wrong. He waved her off, despite the black and purple tessellated patterns in his eyes. His tongue was dry. His breath short. Black eyes flashed again. But whose? The face of the model melted into shadow. He swayed and felt cold. The model’s voice faded. He became deaf. His knees buckled, then blackness.

Days passed. He hadn’t returned to work since blacking out. 

Now he was dreaming. He is riding on the back of a big butterfly among a squadron of smaller butterflies, high above an ancient forest. Wind softly touches his cheeks. The butterfly is like a kindly mother. In this odd and serene freedom, he passes acre and acre beneath the warm sun. But now the butterflies descend. Closer and closer to the treetops they come. They slow down and approach a clearing where a giant butterfly slowly fans herself. The squadron land and he slides off his carrier, and without thinking, approaches the oversize butterfly – a monarch. The breeze feels refreshing. He walks round to the front and sees the butterfly’s eyes, black and shinning. He looks away. But the butterfly’s gentle breeze lulls him. He looks at her and feels the shame of some guilt. Yet she is forgiving. The butterfly gracefully unrolls one of her antennae. In it is a scroll. He opens it and sees writing. The butterfly slowly rises, its colours soon dissolve into the cream of his bedroom ceiling.

He was motionless for some time. 

Then he went straight and turned on the old computer. The prompt for the password appeared. He entered the writing that he had seen on the scroll and the computer accepted the password. He stared at the screen hardly able to believe. When he was sure that he wasn’t still dreaming, he went through his old computer as if an old box of dusty memories. Old notes, old movies, old photos, old paintings, old models. And as he flicked through, one picture made him stop. A picture of an oriental model. She had shiny black hair and eyes, purple lipstick, earrings, a small snubbed nose and thin eyebrows. He shuddered. His insides twisted. He began to sweat. He scanned other photographs of her. Some had her on a beach, some near a tree. He gasped when he found a picture of her resting her head on his shoulder. There was no memory, as if someone else was there in his body. And this ‘other’ looked happy. They looked like lovers. There were more pictures, her on a bike, her in a restaurant, her in a garden, then one of them arm-in-arm. He laughed. Someone was setting him up, it was surely a doctored photo. Yet he knew no one who would. It depressed him that this ‘other’ was happy. The next photograph was of them both smiling by a tree. He was jealous of this other René, this better, superior René who looked so content. He had everything, girl, health, job, memory, meaning, all. 

Who was she? And, who was he? The picture René seemed more real and more alive, while he felt fake.

Days passed. The René in the picture seemed to him a monster of success. He glared with envy at the freakish doppelgänger. There were more pictures, the monster on a bicycle, the monster jumping on the sand, the monster kissing her. Sometimes, he was vicariously happy. But it made him small. One day he was standing in the bathroom holding the computer and suddenly realising he had no idea why he was there or what he was doing. On the screen was the monster. He put the laptop in the sink and fell to his knees. He prayed that something would come to him, some small thread, to guide him out of the dark labyrinth. But the monster, embracing her, remained implacable.

He had been neglecting his mother. He babbled. He let his beard grow, while the monster remained clean shaven. To him the girl was like a fairy. Magic surrounded her. In one picture she had a look, eyes slightly open with pouting lips that charmed him for hours until he didn’t know who he was looking at or why. If it was real, how could there be no memory? If there was no memory, how could it be real?

Days passed. He couldn’t sleep. Dark bags had appeared under his eyes. Thin, listless, isolated, he hated his friends and his mother. However, he was happy for his monstrous double. He was convinced it was another person and wanted to meet him. The key to her, he thought, was him and the key to him was her. He tried to find both. He went to the river that was in one of the photos but it didn’t jog his memory. Another thing bothered him, if he met the monster, how would he shape up? He began to think that the monster wanted to destroy him. He laughed until he realised he was standing in the garden shed, without reason.

Hours passed. Evening – winter dark. The streetlight was orange upon his cheek. He was dreaming again. Flying with the butterflies. But as they ride over the trees, he looks behind. Wide across the sky is an inky blackness, like tar spreading itself. At the head of the thick dark is a face and behind it appears wings stretching wide. It is the monster, eyes red with rage. It soars and is gaining on the ponderous butterflies. René urges the butterflies to go faster. But the monster, eagle like, is racing. He sees its claws as it screeches. The blackness overcomes the sun and turns the sky into twilight. Ahead is the clearing. He instinctively knows they will be safe if they make it. The dark creature closes in. The butterflies descend as the darkness swoops. He looks back to see its talons stretch just out of reach as the butterflies reach the clearing and land behind the large butterfly from before. He stands and sees the monster circle and caw in its own darkness. All would have been totally dark, but the butterflies glow with their phosphorescence. Their bright colours comfort. René inches toward the giant butterfly as she fans her wings calmly. There is a scroll in the opposite antenna from before. Softly she unfolds it and releases a paper into his hand. He opens it, the words glow as colourfully as the butterflies:

     She will never return.

Hours passed. He turned on the computer and selected the files for deletion. One image stopped him. She looked hurt, looking directly into the camera. You want to delete me? I was real, but you don’t believe that, do you? 

He shouted: ‘Only memory is real, not the image.’ 

Didn’t we kiss? Didn’t we make love? she seemed to say. Are these things not real? 

His finger twitched around the delete button. He gasped. 

He didn’t do it. ‘I must find her. I must.’

Hours passed. His mother called out to him strangely. She was standing in the corridor, scared.

‘He’s not coming, is he? That man?’

‘What man?’

‘Oh …’

‘Maman, there’s no man.’

‘Oh … he was angry.’

‘Maman, there is no man. Come on sit down.’

As they sat at the table his mother pulled out a key from her pocket.

‘What’s that key?’ he asked.

‘Mmm?’

He pointed, but she shook her head.

After a long silence he asked: ‘Maman, what is it I can’t remember? Who is she?’ He showed her one of the pictures.

‘Who’s that?’ she said.

‘I don’t know, Maman. I don’t know. God. God.’

‘What is it?’

‘Maman … I’m desperate.’

Minutes passed. He held the ring in his hand. He saw it glistening in the cutlery draw. He had asked his mother, but it wasn’t hers. Someone’s engagement ring. Icy panic spread to his stomach. Could it be? Returned? But why? Were they to be married? Were they married? He paced to the garden window with crippling fear. ‘Where are you?’ he said.

Minutes passed. He held the key and his knees wobbled. Something. He was standing outside in the freezing snow. He shivered. He was sweating. His heart raced. Something. Something.

Seconds passed. Jealousy and rage, the monster had her, was with her still while he had nothing. Stolen and gloating. He was in the laundry room. He panted. His head ached. Fight me, Monster, he thought. A glint out of the corner of his eye. Something shiny. He saw that the door to the cellar had something on it. He looked closer. A padlock. A wave of fear made him breathless. He drooped. He staggered and with trembling hand held onto the handle. He saw stars. He was sick on the floor. Fear choked him. Something was coming. Something like the spreading darkness in his dream. He ran to get the key from his mother. 

‘Help me! Help!’ he said.

Seconds passed. He stood in the cellar. The walls and ceiling, table, floor and chairs were covered with photographs of her and the monster. 

Now. He stared at her shrivelled corpse on the floor. The knife, stained black from old blood, lay next to her. He fell to his knees, almost delirious. And then clarity, like coming out of a fog. Light shone out all the darkness. The monster was gone. He picked up one of the photographs and saw Jasmine. 

Next to her was a man. A man he knew.