Memories

I've been discovering my hometown the way I've been discovering a lot of new cities in the past seven years. Except that this is familiar but forgotten. Some things are new but most things carry forgotten memories and unlock buried moments. You can still see the occasional red Opel Vectra on the streets. I sat next to someone I loved ten years ago in one of those cars. I sat on the passenger’s seat and ate tangerines. Later I waited for him to go pee outside, where he drew bunnies in the snow with his pee. Another time I watched him drive off in his car as he waved at me in his rearview mirror. When these memories caught up with me today, I was sitting in a warm comfortable bus, looking out the window at the old and new buildings, the cars passing by, some of them red. Buses were rarely warm and comfortable ten years ago. Then I reached for my cell phone in my pocket and decided to see if I still remember his phone number. I did. I typed it in; if I had just hit the green button I could be speaking to him in a few seconds. I smiled a sad smile, then deleted it.

Maybe a part of me did secretly hold some kind of romantic hope for something undefined but beautiful. But then I imagined how we would get bored of each other and grow apart, after years, no, decades of eventful adventures, desperate lies and the comfortable silence of memories and longing.

I shouldn't go there. Not on my computer, not on my phone, not on my mind.