Romance, in hindsight
Today, it felt like a delivery-man knocked on my door, waking me up.
I rolled slowly out of bed, threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and with my hair in its ‘I have clearly just woken up’ phase, opened the door.
The delivery-man gave a cheerful smile, handed me a box, and asked how my day was. Clearly he was a morning person — the sort who by eight, has likely already gone jogging, done the morning crossword, and hung out the laundry. I pegged him as single, mostly due to the moustache. I yawned, and said my day had been fantastic, which we both knew was a lie.
He said he was returning some memories. I scratched my head — I couldn’t remember having given any away — but after looking in the box I couldn’t disagree with the guy. They were my memories alright, just like I remembered them.
Which I guess was to be expected.
He said that unfortunately, they’d plummeted in value, and were now worth less than a quarter of what they were originally. Some professionals had looked them over and discovered that they weren’t actually the memories we’d all thought they were. There was a letter in the box detailing exactly what was skewed and misshapen.
Okay, I said, this all seems pretty much in order. Anything else?
There wasn’t — the delivery-man gave a little bow, and then he left.
I tipped the memories out on the floor and surveyed the mess. It seemed a shame to have them come to nothing after all this time, but on the other hand, it also seemed a shame to just throw them away. I made them into a neat little pile, carefully put them in a folder, and left them in a drawer next to an ugly old scarf I still couldn’t bring myself to part with.
After that i just kind of stood outside for a while, waking up.
Just another day in the life, I figured, but something about that made me smile.
Something about the day felt a little lighter.
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