FIFTEEN YEARS FROM NOW

A cool and almost wet Saturday morning. Rare lately. Appreciated now. A respite from the sun and sweat. A rotating fan blows on my neck. An empty Pink Lemonade Snapple bottle sits beside the computer. It has been awhile since I've tasted a Snapple, and it tastes good, tastes real, even with all its artificial, sweetened glory. I can see and feel all of these things, and for some strange reason this makes me feel good, as if I'm appreciating that which is usually neglected, as if the little things have somehow become big things in my mind, achieved a weight that they deserve but aren't usually allowed. I think of all the things that have been crammed into my head, useless things, irrelevant things, facts and dates and names and scents from my past, my high school, my classroom in Japan, thousands of raw, inert facts, learned and glimpsed once, then stuffed away, forgotten. It can be overwhelming, if dwelled upon, but then I remember to focus on this fan right here and right now, and the wind from the fan, and the lack of heat, and the taste of Snapple still on my lips, and for some reason I can't quite explain I hope that I won't forget this moment, that it will come back to me on a cold winter night fifteen years from now, when I am forty-four, in Canada, awake, listening to a winter storm, that it will give me a strange sort of comfort, a remembrance of youth, if nothing else, before I sink back into sleep.