Stream of Unconsciousness

No matter. What matters is that the ridges of sand are lighted by oblique rays of the afternoon sun, and there is that weedy smell of decay. Now there is something for my stream of unconsciousness. One misty morning, at the age of four, in Chatham on Cape Cod, I wandered away down the beach, still in my pajamas. My parents, frantic, called the police. I picked up a dead horseshoe crab black as a banjo scorched in a fire. Taste of salt. Weedy smell of decay. Sound of police-car siren keening at my back. "You must never, ever do that again. Do you understand? Put that down. Let's go home." Are we there yet?

Pizza Hut puts its logo on a Russian spaceship. A spokesperson says the company would have preferred an ad on the moon. Too many black bears in New Jersey and Connecticut. Too few grizzlies in Idaho and Wyoming. The experts are about to appear on TV. Soon we will learn that Al doesn't stand a ghost of a chance against George W., who doesn't have a prayer against Al, and Bill can't help Hill. "I remember what F.D.R. used to say." A shark expert says that when swimming one should not pick a fight with a shark. I used to look forward to summer.

I remember now: it is the things you lost, the things you want back. It is the age you are and the age you're in. It is remembering too little and remembering too much. And Hannibal Lecter's inability to devour the past. And Stephen Hawking on the difference between past and future, illustrated by the teacup that smashes to the floor and then, when the reel runs backward, becomes whole again. Some tools required for reassembly. Are we there yet?

Mothers with tennis racquets strapped to their backs like hunting bows ride bikes home in the red evening. Red right returning. Red sky at night, mothers' delight. "Can Kelly and Kellie come over tonight? Can Tiffany and Kevin have the car?" A Hammacher Schlemmer catalog arrives promoting the only calorie-counting Hula-Hoop. "Won't you try a cosmopolitan?" At dusk I climb a bluff of grassy sand, look down at the anomalous charm of house lights strung out along the shore, then up at the stars strewn like bright pennies. The wind kicks up but is warm. My watch has stopped. Are we there yet? I used to look forward to summer.