It was an odd day. The light was dimming rather more uniformly than usual, like a dimmer on a dining room lamp; perhaps the recent drop in temperature (though still in the eighties) had cleared the air a bit, and made everything more visible, somehow.
Cars were passing through the intersection of Trinity and Meadow, but quite slowly, or was I moving faster than normal? On second glance, the cars were behaving quite mundanely. For some reason I, standing uncertainly on the curb, unable to time my crossing, like a fast-pitch baseball player suddenly at bat in a softball game, I was not perceiving things as usual today.
About that: no, I was not at all: in fact, since this morning I’d been seeing things, not seeing things exactly but seeing people, people I thought I knew but on second thought were complete strangers. For instance, earlier today I’d been walking on the sidewalk in the opposite direction I now walked, and I was confounded to see, at a deli across the street, a woman from my semester in India, calmly munching on bread and listening to her companion ramble on. I actually stopped walking (much to the disgust of the cyclist behind me) and stared for a full ten seconds, it must have been, before I shook myself out of it. Could it have been her? Still I wonder: the woman in question had those eyes, those same eyes as Katrina, large as planets but somehow...sagging, almost, the lower lid drooping more than lids tend to do.
And that was how today had been: me, awestruck at the uncanny resemblance so many around me bore to people I once knew; it was not just a passing resemblance, it was the details, repetitions of those nuances, dimples, snag teeth, freckles, pointy ears, those odd characteristics which, in a friend, you think are unmistakable, unrepeatable stamps of identity! Apparently two bodies can share the same mark of uniqueness.
Other than that, I reflected, today was almost entirely unnoteworthy, although the sheer multitude of double takes I’ve done might brand the day in my memory. When I reflect I often come upon the realization that I will almost certainly not remember a certain day, and what a shame that is. Unless something significant happens on a given day, it will most likely slide around the funnel of my memory, until it finally disappears into the buzz of my personal history, where only themes and generalities exist.
I suppose it’s not entirely bad, though, that not everyday is memorable. For instance, that means I can write something new every single day, and if I am cautious enough to save it, I can go back and read something I don’t remember. Ah! I can surprise myself!
I wonder, if I were to meet myself a year ago, would I be surprised at what I found myself doing?
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