I have been writing in a journal on an almost-daily basis since I was 17 years old. This is a record of me going through each entry from the beginning, and commenting on the me from fifteen years ago.

“I want to hear it again.” I said, and he played it for me once more. A thousand times it played over and over and over. “I want to hear it again,” I said. My friend answered, “No.” A tear in my eye, I pleaded, “I want to hear it again.”

“No. You’ve listened to it thousands of times, this answering machine tape is about to break and so are you. I won’t let you hurt yourself so.”

“I want to hear it again,” I said.

“I won’t play it again.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want you to play it again, it is torture played like my ears do bleed. I beg you, don’t play it again. I want to hear it again, now that she’s gone. I want to hear it again.”

I tapped my head with closed eyes and tears running down my face. The game was finally over and my friend did understand.

With his hand upon my shoulder, he cried a tear for me and said, “You can’t hear her anymore, but you can still speak to her.”

“But all that answers me is regret,” I sobbed before collapsing into the madness which I knew was impending. “I tire of hearing that bastard’s hoarse voice taunting me with every word. All I want is to hear it again. I want to hear it again.”

It’s a little bit overdramatic, but in all this isn’t too bad of a short story. I don’t really do stuff like this in my journal, neither now or back then, so it’s interesting for me to see it attempted. I like it, and I’d like to say I’ll start doing it more, but I know the truth.