Rachel van dommelen forgottenit was a bitter cold saturday

1. Rachel Van Dommelen
Forgotten
It was a bitter cold Saturday night, and the rain was
drizzling outside which caused minuscule streams to flow across
the dark window like veins. Half-way covering the only
window in that room were long, burgundy-colored curtains that
were starting to fray at the ends and had a mysterious stain on
the bottom right of one of them. A smell of must and several
years’ worth of layered on Febreze encased the sagging fabric.
These curtains were a house-warming gift from my parents. It
was at least slightly thoughtful, I tried to convince myself since
these were handed down from them. The living room was only
dimly lit by the television that was turned on to a sports
channel. I didn’t enjoy sports and I never played them growing
up, but I wanted to try something new and watch something that
a normal guy at my age of 27 would.
Door number 365, on the 5th floor, was my tiny apartment
blending in with the hundreds of others. It only had one
bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen that was barely wide enough
to open the oven door, a dining room attached to the kitchen
that could fit only two people, and a living room in which I was
lounging on my stained linen couch. That night was dull and
grey with thick layers of overhanging clouds over the city in
which I lived. The city was fairly large and was littered with
skyscrapers and thousands of faceless, dull figures speed-
walking to their jobs and yelling at traffic. Almost every day
was cloudy and I rarely ever saw the sun; that’s probably why
I’m so pale. It’s also probably because I stayed inside my
apartment for most of the day other than for work due to my
lack of social life. I often found it difficult to make friends
because of the deficit in friendliness in that city.
Watching sports was becoming too boring for me and my

2. stomach was beginning to growl. Due to my laziness that night,
I decided to order pizza. I began to call a pizza restaurant that I
had never tried before because it was relatively cheap. The
ringing continued for about half a minute before a deep, grungy
voice picked up. I was a little uncomfortable as I pictured this
man working at a pizza place: tall, dark-haired, tattoos on every
corner of his body, bulging muscles, and piercings on both his
lip and eyebrow. Nevertheless, I still gave him my order and he
abruptly hung up after I said my full name. That was strange.
Soon I realized that he forgot to ask me for my address. I hoped
he didn’t assume I would drive there to pick up the pizza, for I
was already in my black drawstring sweatpants, fuzzy slippers,
and an old T-shirt with Cheeto stains on the bottom. The
address for the pizza place wasn’t even on their website. I
contemplated calling back but felt uneasy about hearing that
gravelly voice once more and possibly starting a conflict. So I
leaned back into the sunken couch cushion, hoping that I would
get my pizza sometime tonight, and I changed the channel to a
documentary that I liked better.
A couple of hours had passed when I finally glanced at the
clock after being sucked into the filmed lives of sea turtles on
my television. It was 8 o'clock and I was starting to get
ravenous. I picked up my phone and was about to call the pizza
place again when suddenly a loud, obnoxious knocking
thundered on my thin front door and rattled the interior of my
apartment. The noise startled me so much that I jumped up
from my couch at the speed of light. My heart was racing as I
imagined what type of character could be standing behind that
door so urgently wanting to get in. My slender body and 5’8
frame pranced like a cat over to the peephole in my door and
peered through. What stood on the other side was a tall man
dressed in all black with the hood of his sweatshirt covering
most of his face. In his hands was a pizza box carrier in which
I assumed was my delicious pizza. As I hesitantly unlocked and
opened my door, the man briskly took the pizza box out and
handed it to me.

3. “Don’t worry about it.” his deep voice was insistent through the
shadows under his hood when I attempted to hand him cash. I
glanced at the pizza box in my hand but in the next second, the
man had vanished. I slyly peeked around the corner into the
hallway and realized that he was nowhere to be found. I
shrugged my shoulders and locked the door again.
Free pizza was relatively suspicious but free pizza that was
delivered was another thing. I was skeptical of opening the
pizza box after I set it on my coffee table. The box had no
printing on it other than a plain outline of a pizza slice directly
on the front. This must be a new business that just started up
which could explain why I’ve never heard of it before. A fresh
smell of melted mozzarella cheese and juicy pepperoni struck
my nose as I lifted the lid. The pizza looked perfectly fine to
me and all at once I couldn’t contain my hunger any longer.
A dim flashing light pierced my eyes open and I bolted upright.
It was 3 a.m., my eyelids were heavy, and the television was on
a strange medical documentary that auto-played. I must have
fallen asleep with a full stomach while listening to the soft
winds howl outside my small window. The pizza box was still
open on the coffee table with only four slices remaining inside.
At a closer look, I noticed a scrap of paper attached to the
inside of the box. My eyes were still adjusting to the light but I
could faintly read the crude handwriting on it: “don’t go back.”
I was thoroughly bewildered, but my exhausted brain could not
process what I had just found. I reluctantly decided that it was
a stupid prank that I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with,
so I lugged my tired body into bed.
My life was pretty ordinary and mundane. Nothing really
exciting happened to me anymore, especially since I moved
away from my family. I moved out a few years ago into that
dingy little apartment and my parents decided to move to
Florida with my younger sister. I didn’t expect to be living in
this city by myself, but my parents were rich and they decided
to get away from the dreariness of it. My parents never seemed
to want to stay in contact with me after they moved, which

4. surprised me. I assumed they cared about me but as I looked
back on my childhood years I could recall the numerous times
they would seem to forget about me. They would forget to
make my lunch for school or even forget my birthday. I
pondered if somehow my parents were trying to reach me
possibly even through that note. But why would they say that;
don’t they want me to come back to them?
A few days passed after that incident and I was getting ready to
go to work on another gloomy day. The dark, heavy clouds
seemed to touch the tops of the skyscrapers and the thick air
made this world seem slower than usual that morning. My life
at work consisted of sitting in an office chair in my small
cubicle at a garden tools company. Nine to five felt like the
longest hours of my life trapped in an enclosed space doing
office work with only a partial view of a tall window on one
side of the floor overlooking the grey city. I dreaded stepping
out my apartment door that morning just as much as dreaded
driving through eight o’clock traffic on a Tuesday. A surprise
came to me when I reached my metallic blue Toyota Camry in
the parking garage with two cars on either side of it sitting too
close for my comfort. Another note from a ripped-off piece of
paper was under my windshield wiper. I prepared myself to
read some type of ticket or fine for doing nothing wrong from
the parking police who liked to do this for fun. But no, instead,
what was written on the note was another message from an
anonymous person. This time it read, “Don’t leave, I am here.”
Whatever that meant. As I stood there in the cold, windy
parking garage, I questioned if this was truly happening to me
and why it would be me.
The week slowly dragged on as I put the mysterious events
aside and focused on work. As best I could, I tried to ignore the
thoughts and feelings pulling me towards curiosity and
hopefulness. Day after day I told myself that no one would
want to reach out to me unless they wanted to harm me, or they
were my parents. I longed for the latter to be true. During a
shift that seemed to be lingering long past five, a co-worker had

5. brought in a small curly-haired white dog. After I pushed my
jealousy aside, a smile crept its way onto my face like it did on
very rare occasions. That dog reminded me a lot of one that I
grew up with; one that was my older brother’s. My brother,
whom I haven’t seen in several years since he left home, was
one person that I looked up to throughout my childhood. He
and my parents never got along because they were always at
ends with each other. Josiah, my brother’s name, rebelled
against nearly everything and he was very outspoken.
Sometimes I wished that I could stand up for myself like he did
because our parents weren’t always fair, but now he’s long gone
and nobody has heard of him since. I realized that I missed
him.
My phone was ringing persistently from the armrest of the
couch in my living room. The sky was pitch black outside my
window with no cloud in sight, but the faint light of the city
down below drove out any shining stars that night. Stumbling
over many used clothes that I’ve owned for years and
disorganized shoes scattered across the hallway, I eventually
made it to the couch and hastily picked up the phone.
“Hello?” There was no answer, so I decided to ask again.
Faintly in the background were sounds of feet stomping on
wooden floorboards. This was too strange for my liking so I
hung up immediately. I wouldn’t dare answer it if it rang
again. Suddenly, a voicemail popped up on my phone causing it
to vibrate in my hand and startle me. My heart pounded as I
stared at it with a blank expression. I stood there frozen for a
long minute before I hesitantly opened it. What I heard next
made me hold my breath as the whole room seemed
progressively darker and colder around me. The same voice
that took my order last weekend spoke through the voicemail.
“Gavin, don’t look back. Don’t leave.” The same stomping
came through the background and the line crackled sharply as
the message ended. My thoughts were racing when I wondered
how this frightful man knew my name. I couldn’t ignore that no
matter how hard I tried; the question kept running through my

6. mind: am I safe?
The weekend was on the horizon as I was driving home from
work the next evening watching the pedestrians bustle their way
through the crowded streets that were lit up by dim yellow
street lamps. The sidewalks were still covered in puddles from
the rain that morning and they gleamed with the bright, colorful
lights from the store-front signs. My destination was home, and
I made sure of that. I had no desire to spend any extra time
away from my apartment than I had to, especially with the
ongoing thought that my life could be in danger. My eyes
focused on the gleaming street ahead of me. When I arrived at
my apartment, I unlocked the door and to my surprise, there was
a third note laying on my floor from somebody sliding it under
the door. This one was more like a letter. It was neatly folded
and on the side that I opened, there was a symbol printed in jet
black ink. This symbol looked like it was for a secret group or
organization. The words inside the letter were neatly typed and
all they read was an address and a time. This seemed like an
elaborate scheme to try and get me out of the safety of my
apartment. On further inspection, there was one word at the
bottom of the page that I missed. Family. As perplexed as I
was at that moment, my curiosity and hopefulness got the better
of me. I wanted to see my family again. However, reality
suddenly set in when I realized that I could not go to that
location. It was way too dangerous. If these anonymous people
knew my name and address then surely they might try to abduct
me from my apartment. Thinking a little too irrationally out of
fear, I decided to leave town.
I couldn't trust the fate of what event would play out at the
address that was sent to me the day prior, so I packed a few
bags with essentials and hopped in my car. It was only for a
few days, I told myself. Just until I could get things sorted out.
I had no clue where I was going, but I had to find someplace to
stay. Maybe my aunt and uncle who lived a few towns north
would let me stay with them, but did they even remember me?
The thoughts circled my head like a vortex of perpetuating fear

7. and anxiety, until suddenly a screeching alarm broke through
the silence. It was coming from one of the stores up ahead. In
the next moment, a jet black car pulled up in front of me
blocking the path of the narrow road and causing me to slam my
foot on the brakes. Another black car pulled up behind me as I
saw a young man running out of a broken window on the
storefront and dashing around the corner into an alleyway
between that tall store building and another. Two men wearing
all black bolted out of their cars that sandwiched me and chased
down the theft into the alley. I contemplated making a run for
it but soon I saw another man dressed the same way enter the
alley from further down the sidewalk, but he was not running. I
could not sit there and wait any longer. I needed to know what
was going on and who these men were, but at the same time, I
wanted to escape and avoid risking my life. The notes,
messages, and voicemails flashed back in my mind and
determination came over me to make it out of that situation.
Stepping out of my car, I tried to run past the entrance of the
alleyway, but a chorus of yelling, fighting, and boots stomping
coming from the darkness halted me. I realized I wasn’t going
to get far without a car and my curiosity suddenly got the better
of me. I rounded the corner and saw these men in black
surrounding another young man. He was holding something in
his hand and one of the men violently grabbed it from him. The
young man’s face was red and fearful, and the object he had
been holding looked like it was an expensive package of some
sort. One of the men in black proceeded to hold the young thief
up the cold, hard brick wall. Only a few intangible words we
said between the two before the thief was let loose.
The men in black quickly turned once they spotted me. My
heart raced and I knew I had to run. My legs went as fast as
they could and everything around me turned into a blur. I
didn’t know where I was going when abruptly, a deep voice
penetrated the frigid air.
“Gavin!” My mind and body were shaken up when I heard my
name. My legs gave out and my elbows slammed into the

8. pavement. The ice-cold ground pressed up against my face until
it barely had any feeling. Forcefully, I made myself get up and
I wiped away the blood and sweat dripping down my forehead.
My eyes regained focus and saw a tall figure standing directly
in front of me. He lifted his hood off and I could see the damp
strands of dark brown hair sweeping across his light-skinned
face. Those bright blue eyes glistened under the dim light of
the streetlamps and my heart finally softened. It was my
brother. I was so speechless, I couldn’t get my mouth to form
words. Before I knew how to react, Josiah extended his arms
and hugged me warmly.
“I finally found you, Gavin.” he stepped back and took a good
look at me. It was probably ten years since I last saw Josiah;
his wrists and face had small cuts and blemishes and I could
vaguely make out a sleeve of colorful tattoos emerging from
under the cuff of his jacket.
“Our parents are not coming back; I left them for a reason.” his
deep voice calmed my exhausted heart. “I know you aren’t
happy here. Trust me when I say that there is nothing for you
here. Mom or Dad would have reached out by now if they truly
cared.” my heart began to sink deeper and deeper. Hope felt
lost. “Don’t let the past take over your life, Gavin, and don’t
let the pressure our parents put on you stop you from living
your life.” his harsh words resonated in my mind with how my
life had been up until that point. Josiah went on to explain how
he ran off ten years ago and joined a secret agency that focused
on catching criminals, protecting people, hijacking weapons,
and traveling across the country. It seemed bizarre to me, but
he made it clear that it was what he loved to do. He became his
true self who lived his own life.
“Why did you send those notes and messages?” I was
thoroughly curious.
“I had to protect my identity and I felt the need to see and talk
to you after I found out you still lived in the city.” he explained
that they made up that pizza restaurant as a cover-up for their
agency and that he was the one who delivered my pizza that

9. night.
As I thought about it more, I realized that all my parents ever
wanted me to be was ordinary. Nevertheless, my brother always
stuck up for me and took a hold of his own life. He inspired me
to be more like him.
Tim Oyler
This story is actually true. Well, there is one lie, but maybe I’ll
come back to that later. You might wish the story wasn’t true.
We don’t like hard things. We want rainbows and heroes and
unicorns. Ok, sometimes we want car chases and buildings
blown up, but only if the good guys survive. In this story, the
bad guy wins.
I hate those stories, and I hate this one. But, it's the story I’m
telling today.
I went to a small liberal arts college in Anderson, Indiana. This
was when it was a college, not a university, like it is now. This
was back when everyone was amazed that one of the guys on my
dorm floor had a computer on his desk. His name was Simon,
but it doesn’t matter to this story. He was from some Asian
country, but that doesn’t matter either. And why would you
want a computer?
My experience with computers at that point was the Radio
Shack TRS 80. Imagine an old timey black and white TV with a
keyboard. It’s memory was actually on a tape cassette. My
mother brought it home from the school where she taught. She
was a mathematician who was relegated to teaching junior high
math at the archrival school across the county. Do you
remember Ryan White? She was his teacher before he was
diagnosed with AIDS. And after. Ryan was a hemophiliac who
contracted AIDS during a blood transfusion and was prone to
nosebleeds. Mom was prone to helping clean him up his blood

10. and tears at the water fountain.
After his diagnosis, and after America realized that people with
AIDS were to be hated and feared, Ryan wasn’t allowed back at
school. Mom would videotape her classes and drop by his
house everyday to pick and drop off the daily tape along with
his homework. It wasn’t a big deal at first, but then the
protestors started showing up. They didn’t just want Ryan out
of school, they wanted him out of the neighborhood. Out of
town. They had signs with messages from God, and there were
signs about Ryan being a fag on his way to hell. But mom drove
through them every day. She ignored the jeers and the yelling
because he was her student. She was his teacher.
So, that TRS 80. Mom taught me some basic coding, and after a
couple of hours, I was able to get the computer to calculate that
2+2=4. So why would anyone want one on their desk? That was
back when computers were only as smart as we made them.
Now I feel like they roll their eyes at me when I Google how to
spell “calendar” for the 214th time because for some reason I
can never remember. They probably all talk about us behind our
backs while we sleep. But this made Simon popular and
everyone wanted to be his friend. I didn’t. But none of that
matters.
Before mom taught me that basic coding, and while she was
working on her mathematics degree, she was working part time
at the university hospital. She did post mortem x-rays for the
coroner. Was that a job that was advertised? Who would
respond to that? I don’t know. But one day, she and her
coworkers watched out the back door as a tornado ripped
through the city. They watched it destroy a factory just a few
hundred yards away. The hospital, now without power, soon
filled with victims. Mom was grabbed by a nurse and whisked
into a storage room. The storage room was now for all of the
people that were dead on arrival or died shortly after arriving. A
lot of people for mom to x-ray later on, I guess.
But also in this room was a baby, alive, inside her mother, who
was not. A doctor arrived to cut the mother open, and mom was

11. asked to hold the candle over the mom’s stomach to help
illuminate the doctor’s way in and the baby’s way out. Five
years later that same doctor brought me into the world. I was
afforded the luxury of a room with lights and living people.
It took an hour before they took that mother to the makeshift
morgue, a refrigerated truck donated by Wilson’s dairy. In that
hour before they took her, mom sat with her, stroked her hair,
and sang her lullabies. I guess when you are young and you
hear stories like that about your parents, you don’t know what
to think.
I still don’t.
I guess I always knew my mom was pretty tough. When I was
young, before kindergarten, I had a sandbox about the size of a
football field. Best I can remember it was a good mile’s
journey from the back of the house. The sandbox was my
kingdom. Upon those dunes, cowboys and Indians fought
against WW2 army men. There were dinosaurs and jets, and
one extra large Tonka truck. One day, while overseeing the
advancement of my troops in a battle against the bad guys, I felt
a presence behind me. When I turned my head and looked,
there was a cow staring back at me. Not being one to let this
kind of brazen incursion go unpunished, I raced to the garage
and grabbed a croquet mallet. The one with yellow stripes, but
that hardly matters. I returned and raised the weapon over my
head. I realized then the cow was not alone, that the herd that
had broken through the neighbor’s fence was advancing,
flanking my troops from behind. A surprise attack. I raised that
yellow striped croquet mallet over my head, but something
inside of me was smart enough to cause me to drop it and run
for my life.
What happened next, isn’t clear. All I can remember is that I
was in the house, under the sofa, lifting up the sofa skirt,
staring out the back double door. My mother had the croquet
mallet with the yellow stripes, and she was driving the herd
back through the fence. The invading rogue bovine army didn’t
stand a chance. They didn’t seem to question her authority.

12. Maybe it was the mallet. Maybe it was just my mom.
I told you that my mom was a mathematician, not just a math
teacher. Every summer the governor sent a limo for her and
took her away to Indianapolis for a week. “Math stuff”, was
about the most she ever said when asked what she did down
there. Years later, when she was retired, she continued to do
that math stuff. She also taught my son how to play chess. She
taught him in the 4th grade, and when he was in the 6th grade,
he finished 45th in the expert division of the High School
national championship
tournament in Dallas. I asked him about the tournament when he
got back. He just wanted to talk about how great the pancakes
were at the hotel.
One day, one of his friends called and asked for him. I told him
that Eli, my son, was in the bath. “Well tell him I moved queen
to rook 5.” So I went back to the bathroom and knocked on the
door and said “Gordon moved his queen to rook 5.” There was
a bit of a silence behind the door, and just as I was about to
repeat the move, I heard him say “tell him knight to queen’s
bishop 3.” Gordon heard it too, groaned and hung up.
I asked my mom why she didn’t teach me chess. She said she
did. It just didn’t stick. Oh well.
One of my math professors asked me one day if I was related to
Elizabeth Oyler. I guess she was at these secret governor’s math
meetings, also. I said yes. Their facial expression all at once
acknowledged their excitement to make that connection, while
simultaneously recognizing that I didn’t inherit my mother’s
math genes.
Eli ended up at Anderson, now Anderson University years later.
Eli the chess player, also Eli the soccer player. You could see
how his training in chess manifested itself on the soccer field.
He wasn’t where the crowd was, he was where the ball was
going to be next. He was thinking several moves ahead. It was
at one of these soccer matches that our story finally comes to
rest.

13. My parents came to almost every one of my children’s soccer
matches. They traipsed the state, doing the same for my nieces
in Goshen and Terre Haute. Somehow, they made them all. But
we had graduated now, out of the folding chairs at the YMCA
matches to the cold metal bleachers of the university field.
On this particular day, the opposing team was late. And my
parents were always early. So, after sitting in the bleachers for
quite some time, my mom headed for the restroom and then to
the van to get a jacket. It had cooled down while waiting for
the other team. Maybe if the team were on time, she wouldn’t
have needed that jacket. Maybe if the team were on time, I
wouldn’t be telling you this story.
As she went up the stairs, and got close to where we were all
seated, she tripped. She didn’t miss by much, but her right toe
just didn’t quite make it over the edge of the last step. She
went down hard, and her head brushed the side of one of the
metal bleacher seats, slicing across her brow line.
If you were a fan of professional wrestling, which I am not, you
would know that back in the olden days, this is exactly where
the wrestlers would cut each other, or themselves, for quite
dramatic effect. Their faces would be covered in blood almost
instantly, but they would close up quite quickly.
My mother’s face, too, was covered in blood almost
immediately. But her wound didn’t close up quickly at all. It
was too deep. And she was on a blood thinner. If you are
squeamish at all, it’s time to turn away.
Holly, the mother of one of Eli’s teammates, jumped into
action. “I’m a nurse,” she said. “I will take care of you.”
My mother remained where she fell, wedged between the stairs
and the seats, not moving, just bleeding. “Don’t touch me,”
mom said.
Napkins and towels and anything absorbent quickly came from
the surrounding crowd. Holly tried again, but she got the same
response.
“Don’t touch me.”
Now, I knew that my mom was tough. But none of us

14. understood her resistance. She had ingrained in me that unless a
bone was sticking out of your skin somewhere, you toughed it
out and kept going. But this was a 70-year-old woman. And a
bone was sticking out. It was her collarbone. And something
just below the shoulder as well, but we couldn’t see it at the
time. So, this seemed to be a good time to let go and let
someone help.
In the coming weeks her entire left arm, shoulder and
collarbone were replaced with metal parts, ironically made in
Goshen at the company where my brother-in-law is the CFO.
Before her surgery, she asked if she got a family discount or if
maybe they could get parts from a clearance bin.
There was a crowd now, silent, but with one mother quietly
praying nearby. Everyone was focused on the fountain of blood
and my mother’s fierce resistance.
Holly tried again. “Please Betty. Please let me help you.”
“Don’t touch me,” mom said.
“Betty, please.”
“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch my blood.”
“But we have to make it stop.”
“Don’t touch my blood,” my mother said, now in tears.
“I have AIDS.”
It was as if the referee was waiting for that dramatic line to be
uttered to start the match. Because as soon as she said it, he
blew his whistle. That was good for a laugh a few months later.
It was also as if the EMT on hand waited for that moment to
break through the crowd to help. I’m sure it wasn’t what he
was expecting to find. Holly whispered to him, and in addition
to the gloves he was wearing, he dug into his kit to pull out a
mask and a protective yellow medical gown.
My mother lived for a couple of decades with this deadly virus.
My dad knew. Her doctor did, but no one else outside of the
medical facility.
Despite her recovering from the subsequent surgeries, that
bleacher confession seemed to take the light out of her. It was
like air slowly leaking from a bike tire over the winter in your

15. garage. I told you that the bad guy won. Except, it wasn’t
really a bad guy, just a bad virus. Six months after falling, six
months of light slowly leaking, she quietly slipped away.
She should be here, now, enjoying the wave of endless great
grandbabies that are happening in Goshen and Terre Haute, and
now for Eli and his brother here in Anderson.
This woman, who braved tornados, held a candle over a dead
woman to help life come out, who sang to that dead woman,
who drove back an army of cows, who ignored the chants of
protestors so one student wouldn’t be excluded or forgotten,
was actually felled simply by helping that young man, wiping
away his blood and tears, before the diagnosis, when maybe a
small cut on her hand was enough to let the intruder in. Who
knows.
There’s no moral here, no lesson to be learned.
Like I said. You might not like how this story ends. Neither do
I. I miss my mom.