Going to the Mall

Going to the Mall

As Janet and Ted drove up the street, Ted jolted awake when Janet stopped suddenly.

“Are we here?” he asked. Then looking around, knew they weren’t. They were in a neighborhood, not at the Mall. Janet didn’t answer.

“Why did you stop here? Are we lost?”

“No,” Janet said. “I took a side street to avoid the freeway and it brought us down this street.”

“And?...”

“It started looking familiar.”

“Oh, have you been here before?”

"I used to live here."

“When? I thought you always lived in Canton.”

“Yes and no. Since I was little, before kindergarten, but we had lived somewhere else before we moved there. I just never remembered it, probably because I was so young.”

“And now?”

“This street looked so familiar when I turned onto it, and then I saw this house.”

The house was small, gray, snuggled in between two other houses. It had a for sale sign on the small lawn.

“You lived there?” he asked.

“Yes, it all came back to me when I saw the house. I remembered so many things I had to stop.”

“Good things or bad things?”

“Good things. I think I wiped out the memory because it was so hard for me to leave. My best friend Sally lived next door. The last time I saw her we both cried so much, I think I cried all the way to the new house.”

Suddenly a woman came out of the next house. “Are you interested in this house?” she asked, “I can show it to you!”

As she got to the car, Janet stared, then said, “Are you Sally?”

“Ah, yes? Do I know you?” Then looking closer, she immediately said, “Janet?”

Ted and Janet never made it to the Mall. They did buy the house though.