Ancient Light

I guard my memories of my lost one jealously, keep them securely under wraps, like a folio of delicate watercolours that must be protected from the harsh light of day.

These things that were between us, these and a myriad others, a myriad myriad, these remain of her, but what will become of them when I am gone, I who am their repository and sole preserver?

Yes, another April; in a way, in this story, it is always April.

Sleep is uncanny, I have always found it so, a nightly dress-rehearsal for being dead.

Imágenes del pasado remoto se agolpan en mi cabeza, y la mitad de las veces soy incapaz de distinguir si son recuerdos o invenciones. Tampoco es que haya mucha diferencia, si es que hay alguna. Hay quien afirma que, sin darnos cuenta, nos lo vamos inventando todo, adornándolo y embelleciéndolo, y me inclino a creerlo, pues Madame Memoria es una gran y sutil fingidora. Los pecios que elijo salvar del naufragio general —¿y qué es la vida, sino un naufragio gradual?— a veces asumen un aspecto de inevitabilidad cuando los exhibo en sus vitrinas, pero son azarosos; quizá representativos, quizá de manera convincente, pero sin embargo azarosos.

Remember what April was like when we were young, that sense of liquid rushing and the wind taking blue scoops out of the air and the birds beside themselves in the budding trees?

Yet even without saying, each knew what the other was thinking, and, more acutely, what the other was feeling -- this is a further effect of our shared sorrow, this empathy, this mournful telepathy.

Whom now would I love, and who would love me?

of her blood. Oh, I do not say these are

What did I brood on, sitting there in the classic pose with my elbows on my knees and my chin on my hands? We do not need to go to the Greeks, our tragic predicament is written out on rolls of lavatory paper.