Is This How it Happens

Is This How it Happens?

He drove down to the Tobacconist to buy her some cigs.

There was someone new there today.

Yes? he was asked.

That’s when it happened.

20, 20 …..It’ll come to me in a minute.

But it didn’t.

He had forgotten the mantra. The words that come one after the other. He had forgotten the first word. If he knew that, the rest would come.

He had to drive back home and ask.

What an idiot, he thought.

It wasn’t as bad as forgetting the groceries in the shopping trolley then driving off without them.

That was ten years ago.

But it wasn’t good.

She told him.

Then he drove back and said it: 20 Classic Gold Signature, thanks, Red.

It felt good like rattling off a formula for the chemistry teacher in Year 12.  Or a soliloquy from Hamlet.

He was on top of things again.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Elephants

 

While on the subject of elephants , I had a friend once we all called ‘2 ply’ because he was thick-skinned; he didn’t feel like the rest of us; things had to be intense to get through that extra layer but when they did, he felt and gave out generously. Some found him a little distant.

 

My mother had a saying, “I can forgive but not forget.” She was good at grudges. My uncle, who was the recipient on more than one occasion, said she carried a chip on her shoulder big as a butcher’s block.

 

My other uncle had elephantiasis. He was always adjusting himself in the groin area. It looked like he was playing with himself in public. He and auntie never had children. Some nights in adolescence I would lie awake and think about uncle and his swollen scrotum. I had a ghoulish fascination with enlarged body parts. Doesn’t everyone?

What Happened Out There, Out in the Garden?

 

Stephanie was out in the garden, chasing chooks out of the vegetable patch. She was some way from us, out on the back porch, so I was surprised that she responded to something I said.

“Yes. I remember when …” and then her voice seemed to get swallowed up.

”What’s that?” I said.

But she stood there helplessly waving her hands as if signalling to us to disregard what she had to say and to carry on our conversation. We did and when my friend left, Stephanie came over and sat beside me.

“What happened out there?” I asked. “Out in the garden?”

“What I was about to say got swallowed up,” she said.

“Like in a sinkhole?” I said. They had been in the news lately.

“Like in a sinkhole.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Tell me when you remember.”