**Diary Entry**
Raising our triplets was like tending to three petals of the same floweridentical in every way, until the day one of them began speaking of things he shouldnt have known. When a child starts recounting memories no one else shares, it forces a family to question reality itself.
We used to joke that we needed coloured ribbons just to tell our little ones apart. At first, it was just a silly habit, but then it became something more. Each boy had the same delicate smile, the same tiny hands. Thats how we knew them: Oliver with his blue ribbon, Henry with red, and Alfie with green. Their words often tangled together, one picking up where the other left off, as if three voices belonged to a single mind.
Raising them felt like nurturing one soul split into three bodies.
Then, the harmony cracked. Alfie began waking up cryingnot from nightmares, but from memories none of us could claim.
*Remember the house with the red shutters?*
Wed never lived in such a place.
*Wheres Mrs. Whitmore? She always had peppermint sweets.*
No one by that name had ever been part of our lives.
*Dads car the green one with the broken boot?*
My chest tightened. Wed never owned a car like that.
At first, we laughed it off, chalking it up to a childs imagination. Little ones invent monsters, kingdoms, and friends from thin air. But Alfies words carried an eerie weight. He filled sketchbooks with drawings of that mysterious houseivy climbing brick walls, tulips neatly lined, a bold red door. Oliver and Henry ignored it, but Alfie seemed tethered to the vision, as if it had gripped his heart.
One morning, I found him rummaging through the garage, dust rising from old boxes.
*Im looking for my glove.*
*You dont play cricket,* I whispered.
*I did before I fell.*
His hand touched the back of his necka memory of pain, not a dream.
We sought answers. Dr. Harris, his paediatrician, referred us to a specialist in unusual memory patterns. Dr. Eleanor Reed welcomed him gently.
*What hes describing some would call it the memory of a past life.*
I was hesitant to believe, but I began researching. Story after story emerged of children speaking languages theyd never learned or recalling places theyd never been. One name kept reappearing: Dr. Margaret Lane.
During a quiet moment, Alfie murmured about a boyTommywho had lived in Manchester and died young from a fall. Weeks later, records confirmed: Thomas Carter, age seven, Manchester, 1979. A photograph surfaced, and the resemblance was uncanny.
We didnt share our fear with Alfie. Instead, we held him close, silently wrestling with wonder and grief. That night, as the house slept, Claire and I lay awake, whispering about what it all meant. By morning, Alfie murmured,
*I think Ive remembered enough.*
After that, the drawings stopped. The strange memories faded, replaced by games, laughter, and stories only a child could invent. Months later, an unexplained letter arrivedinside, a photograph of a house with a red door, signed *Mrs. Whitmore.* Alfie studied it with a faint smile:
*Thats where I left my ball.*
Now, at fifteen, Alfie is quiet and thoughtful. He rarely speaks of the boy he once described, but weve learned something unshakable: some children arrive with stories already written. Our duty is to listen, to love, and to accept what cannot be explained. Alfie showed us that even the strangest memories can bring peace.
