Nostalgia

How does a moment pass us by, its swift step reducing mountains to rubble and raising

cities in their place. Infinite pieces of time, insurmountable on their own, collecting

together as the grains of sand fall, creating infinity out of nothing. How does one cope with

this fact, raising their eye to the effervescent Universe, knowing that even its omnipresent

self will eventually be extinguished. Not even death is excused, for its wide embrace will

eventually be swallowed whole by the shroud that comes with time, dissolving into a million

pieces itself.

      I remember events that happened so long ago as if they were now, and you shall never

comprehend the terror that accompanies that thought. It, once so small and unburdened,

realizes its own frailty, grows larger and more lined with every passing second, such as an

old man, pitiful, and weak, who, but a moment ago, was as spry and dapper as a sapling

growing. I look in the mirror and do not recognize my own face, seeing only that which I

have grown accustomed to, no longer the features that I had once known. Friends, whom I

had once held in the deepest recesses of my heart, fade into obscurity as new people take

their place, and endless cycle of coming and going.

        I can no longer distinguish now from then and then from future, nor do I think I ever have

been able to, or ever will. I know not how much the universe may splinter, the cycles of

humanity, or occurrences that repeat, forever lost to the shortness of our collective

memories. Originality is repetition, for time is infinite, having only our faith in it to keep itself

together. Truly, how many moments are in a second, and how many more in each one

respectively? The breaking of our lifespans is shrouded in one another’s presence,

simultaneously experiencing everything and nothing, all at once and never. The stars in the

sky with the bright lights shining through, dappling dark shroud with pinpricks of light, long

dead, only their shadows remaining. The sun that burns bright, floating in a cold, empty

universe, surrounded by its own waning heat. I take pity in the works of a bard as much as I

take solace in them, their works crumbling and ideas lost, only to be born anew in the mind

of some pitiful scholar, never to know it’s origin, their negligence radiating throughout time

and space.

I see the works of art that paper the walls of these homes and galleries that have been

defiantly created in order to preserve some semblance of permanence. Relics, ancient to

our eye and yet nothing more than a blip in all of what has been and what will come,

suspended indefinitely in the infinite and the nonexistent. Where do we fall? Are we

immortal or have we no sense, no place in this vast sea of nothingness. The infinity that

holds our memories, and the impermanence that changes them on whims suffocating the

truth. Yet what is the truth? Merely an agreement, held collectively in our minds as we

navigate this sludge of history and future, a coalition of the two becoming what we call now.

    I remember now, I remember the occurrences and the people, I remember the smell of the

air and acrid taste of smoke on my mouth. I see the dust that circulated the air of the

schoolyard, permeated by the rings of small children and the whiz of cars going by. See the

chalky ground with my own eyes, and I look into those of my best friend, one whom I have

not seen in the years that have since followed. Trees grow, presiding over the place with

their longevity and stature, roots expanding and growing, their gnarly appearance

increasing and connected to the ground upon which we stand.

 Neon plastic with paint ever so slightly chipping despite its newness, tired from the grubby hands that so often play on it. Wire fence that wraps around the rectangular yard, on each

side with desks and boards and power points, with a personality only known by those who

have presided in it. Adults walk around, their heads brushing the sky at a height that I have

now far surpassed, hair drifting in a slight breeze that accompanied joyous screams. I

remember this place and I experience it now. Pieces of dust and plastic embedding

themselves in my hand after a recess full of handball or handstands, loops around the

track in which we so adored, now torn up and replaced for new, fresher, one, the only

existence of the truth held in the recesses of my mind. A kind voice with a shirt that I never

did understand the style of, and a crocheted snowflake passed through the hands of those

who have not reached double digits. Explanations and laughter, choreographed singing, and assemblies, all with the excitement that accompanied them permeating the air. Wads

of wet paper that have glued themselves to the ceiling that is far too high, an office that I

have only ever glimpsed. The music and movement that warms my bones and

eradicated the chill from my body, morning, exercise a daily occurrence, accompanied by

songs that echo through my brain, establishing their own ruts and staying there, never fully

returning, but ever present.

There is so much more that I have long since forgotten, echoes of people gone or changed

beyond recognition. Vinegar turns to honey with the sweetness of memory, and nostalgia

never truly leaves nor enters, simply growing as the march goes on, and on. These words

will be lost, their meaning that only I have ever really known too. Or perhaps they already

have been eradicated the second that they ceased to occur. I remember so much and yet

so little, and I know that that will never change, not for as long as I live, the memories still

having happened, despite the expiration of all that I have ever known. I am scared, I will not

deny it. I am calm, and I am sad and I long for the moments which have passed me by.

Fleeted Happenings by Andrew Lyman