It’s (Only) In Your Head

Inquiries about the essence of memory, both real and hypothetical, are answered like the giving of a gift: cautiously, wrapped in opaque paper. Past informs present with necessary discrepancies maintaining timbre and illusion, inspiring tone and trajectory. A smell, as such carried by the wind, unfolding like a sheet from the mountain over the plane. Or the sound of ice heaving in cold, dry air — like the cracking of a bone. Cold Snap they say.

Rebecca holds the memory of the winters past as lovingly as memories of her mother and father reading folk tales, crouched beside her childhood bed. As fondly as the memory of catching salamanders in the creek beside her house, cradling them in her palms: their world reduced to a pool only a few centimeters deep. How they propelled themselves to the bottom at a near-vertical angle after she lowered them gently and spread her cupped fingers wide beneath the surface of the water. Tenderly held as the memory of an unexpected kiss from her first love. Tall girl, short bench. State Park empty of summer tourists. Duality in the absence of noise: not silence, just a symphony of unfamiliar sounds. First love on the school track, stretching her leg on the chain-link fence, cheesing for a photo snapped on Rebecca’s phone. A phone call at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, letting Rebecca know that First Love had passed suddenly. An email forwarded from First Love’s mother, detailing…