Summer

It was 2005, but I didn’t know it was 2005. I knew it was summer. School no longer existed in the world, already deleted from my hippocampus, or neocortex, or amygdala — I don’t know how memory works, but it was gone.

I was lying on the sofa. A warm breeze came in through the windows. The net curtains went gently back and forth. I closed my eyes and felt the breeze wash over me. It felt like summer.

Out of the TV came the Double Dash music that loops at the end of a race. I drifted in and out of reality, while the Gamecube did its thing. Life was warm and dense and full of flavour. Golden hours made each day feel as though it would stretch on forever.