just meeting and saying hi, wandering through an otherwise empty city, through unlit antique shops and down into sprawling basements. but then out of the corner of my dream-eye i see someone else, someone i haven't seen since high school and haven't thought of for a second since our graduation more than a quarter century ago. his face, immediately recalled; his name, too.
this is what i find so frustrating about wanting to remember certain things, but having the details remain frustratingly dark. here was someone i shared a few classes with in four years of high school, who i wasn't unfriendly with but who i barely spoke to, emerging after so many years, his name immediately on my lips. and meanwhile i can't remember anything else about the two worst nights of my life, the details fixed and unchanging, like a photograph. what came before, and what happened after, locked up just beyond my grasp.