Tabula Rasa

This story is by Hrafn Jóhann and was part of our 2023 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

I feel horrible…like I’m being torn up by an unpleasant memory…

But I can’t remember whatever memory is making me feel so awful. I don’t have any memories at all.

My only memories are of what I can see right now.

White clouds outside a window. A lot of grass. Some rocks. My hut sits on a hill that stretches downward. I can’t see the ground beneath the hill, though. A thick, white mist prevents that.

Leaning out, I see the slope also stretches up above my hut. My hut is right next to a mountain. Is it especially foggy today? Because I feel that I can’t see very far up.

But I don’t remember having ever seen any further up than I do now. Do I just lack the memories of having seen something other than clouds? Or is this area where I make my home always, consistently cloudy?

As I wonder that, with the heavy weight in my chest, I turn my head back and study the house. There is a stone hearth in the middle. Beholding it calms me a little. It doesn’t cleanse me of my persisting inner turmoil but it brings a little relief. After all, it is my one source of warmth.

There is nothing other than the hut, the hearth, the table, the chair and the bed.

My eyes flit to the simple bed. A crude assembly of wood, wool and furs.

Above the simple bed hangs the only object in the room that contains any piece of information, evidence of my identity.

It’s a small sign of live edge wood, that has carved into it the word “Sisyphus”.

This must be my name. I know that and yet I don’t know that.

By that I mean that if I truly knew it to be my name, should I not have remembered it before my eyes beheld the small sign? And yet, upon seeing it, I still recognized it as my name and felt in my heart and mind that I had recognized it as my name many times before.

The sign’s significance is such that it provides a little burst of innate knowledge that I didn’t possess a moment ago, yet is now etched foremost in my mind and feels as if it has always been there.

There is a tablet of stone. All at once I remember and know: if I could just find this tablet and touch it…it would cleanse this awful feeling from my mind and heart. I must do that. If I can just have, find this one thing, all will be well.

I am overcome with panic and desperation. How am I to find something without any memory or foreknowledge of where it might be?

Then I feel this unearthly pull towards the door and to the mountain above. Even without any memory, I still know. It is up there.

I must climb the mountain. The tablet, I know it’s up there somewhere. I have to think, to believe that I can find it.

I start to climb. At first it’s not so hard. I’m wearing rugged fur boots and trousers made from animal hide. They reach higher up my body than the tall grass and purple plants do. They do a good job of keeping the cold dew on the grass and plants off my skin.

A little higher now. My fur boots and skin trousers are not as effective as they were before. The purple plants and the grass reach my chest now. This makes moving so much harder. When I first started I could practically run up the hill. I don’t seem to lack for energy and even though I have no memory of it, I seem to be as strong and sure-footed as if I have made this climb countless times before.

At this height I must take every step very carefully. Just moving my leg forward and lowering it is now slow and tense. More often than once my foot falls on what feels like sure, steady ground, but then slips, revealing that what I actually stepped on under all the wet slippery grass was an equally wet, slippery rock that causes my leg to jerk in an effort to prevent me from falling.

But I don’t lose my determination. I don’t give up. The tablet. As soon as I touch it, this will all be worth it and the heavy, unpleasant, ill feelings will be gone.

The fog now stretches below me as well as above. I still can’t see the peak in the fog above, though. And yet, chilled to the bone, wet from my shoulders down and in even colder air, I still know with a certainty I can’t explain, that I’ll reach the top before I collapse from exhaustion or starvation…

And I can have the tablet.

Suddenly I see that I have reached a plateau. A few more steps and I see before me a large stone slab.

My heart leaps up in my chest. It’s the farthest I’ve felt from the innate heavy misery within me. And it’s a glorious feeling. I can’t wait to get more of it..after I lay my fingers on the legendary tablet whose name I can’t remember yet I know should be here…

The tablet isn’t here.

The crushing blow of my hopes crumbling from around and within me is such that for a moment, I fear I won’t be able to go on.

But then, as if from nowhere, my mind receives another spark of innate knowledge, inexplicable certainty. The tablet was here. It has just fallen down. Tumbled down the mountain, to the very bottom.

I turn on my heel and begin to descend back down from whence I climbed. The mountain is steep and now I must constantly hold onto some of the grass and stems that have caused me so much grief so as not to just slip and tumble down the whole mountain.

Through much effort, never letting my cold, wet hands be completely free of the tufts of grass I clutch for steadiness, I avoid slipping and falling right into the ocean of wet grass and stems.

But only for so long. The moment eventually comes when my slow descent into a step atop multiple layers of wet grass reveals itself to be so entirely unsteady that I slip and fall. Fortunately I’m clutching tufts of grass and stems in my fists with an iron grip. If not for that I might have tumbled down to my doom. Instead, my wet, tired body slams into the muddy, cold ground.

As I struggle to pull myself upright again, I start to sob. I can’t help it. I’m not about to give up but my body can only take so much punishment before bringing out my anguish and exhaustion in physical sobs of frustration and pain.

But I persist. It takes a long time, but eventually, I reach my hut where I started from. I want so much to light the hearth inside and warm myself in its bright, warming glow.

But I do not.

Miserable as I am, I couldn’t bear returning back to the house empty handed after all this work. I will only return home once I have it in my grasp.

The way down is long, but largely free of the tall, engulfing grass with its purple plants and entirely free of the fog after I’ve descended a bit further.

The moment I finally see it, the tablet, where it lays on the earthy, muddy floor way down at the bottom…is glorious. The relief and reprieve I imagined the hearth would bring after my trials out here, this feeling must be twice as potent. Twice as lovely. The heavy, dark anguish within me recedes. I’m so close to vanquishing it forever.

In a trance, my gaze fixed on the wonderful, powerful tablet, I crouch down and reach my hand out…

My eyes snap open. Where am I? I sit up. I was lying on a primitive bed of wood and wools. This is a small but cozy room. No, a whole wooden hut. I stand up. The moment I’ve properly risen from my slumber I’m hit with this strong, heavy, dark and awful feeling inside. Why do I feel so bad? I have no memories of anything so bad as to warrant this painful feeling. How can I cleanse myself of it? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I look around the hut, to gather information, to register where I am. Who am I?

My eyes behold the small sign above the bed where I lay.

Now I know my name. But what must I do to stop feeling so dreadful?