There is something embarrassing about admitting this because it sounds ridiculous the moment it is spoken aloud.
It does not happen during important moments.
It does not happen when I am deliberately thinking about him.
It happens when it should not happen at all.
This morning, for example.
Before I had even opened my eyes.
That strange moment when you are still partially inside a dream and not entirely certain who you are yet.
For a second I noticed the corner of a curtain moving in the air.
Nothing more.
And yet it appeared.
Not exactly him.
The idea.
The sensation that I had forgotten something important.
Something connected to him.
Something I was supposed to remember.
I spent several minutes trying to discover what it was.
I found nothing.
But the feeling remained.
And that was enough.
Later I was making coffee.
I watched a small bubble form on the surface and take several seconds to burst.
I watched it far longer than necessary.
Far longer than anyone should.
And suddenly I remembered something he had said months ago.
It was not an important sentence.
Not brilliant.
Not especially profound.
It simply appeared.
As if it had been hiding behind a coffee bubble waiting for an opportunity.
The strangest thing is that this no longer surprises me.
A few days ago I saw a stranger walking down the street.
He was carrying a blue shopping bag.
One corner of the bag was torn.
That was all.
Nothing else.
And yet I spent the rest of the walk thinking about him.
Not the stranger.
The Master.
Trying to understand why a torn shopping bag had opened a mental door I did not want opened.
I found no connection.
I never find a connection.
But the connection happens anyway.
One evening I found myself watching a video about restoring antique watches.
I am not even particularly interested in watches.
The video showed a hand cleaning a microscopic metal component.
That was all.
A tiny piece.
A hand.
Silence.
And suddenly that strange sadness appeared.
Although I am no longer certain sadness is the correct word.
I used to call certain things sadness.
This feels different.
Sadness seemed to have a reason.
This does not.
Sadness seemed to point somewhere.
This simply occupies space.
The more I think about it, the less I can describe it.
And the less I can describe it, the more space it occupies.
It is not nostalgia.
It is not desire.
It is not happiness.
It is not grief.
It is something else.
Something that remains.
Something that seems to observe me from inside completely insignificant activities.
While choosing a shirt.
While waiting for a page to load.
While watching a woman walk past talking to herself through an earpiece.
While staring at a spoon forgotten beside a sink.
While counting coins.
While waiting at a traffic light.
While looking at an empty cup for far too long.
Especially empty cups.
I do not know why.
There is something unsettling about empty cups.
Sometimes I think about the Marquis de Sade.
Not his excesses.
Not his theories.
I think about persistence.
The ability of an idea to continue existing long after it should have exhausted itself.
And then I remember that circular mark.
The last one.
It has almost disappeared now.
Only a faint shadow remains.
An imperfect edge.
A physical memory that will soon no longer exist.
And perhaps that is precisely what unsettles me.
Because the mark disappears.
But something else remains.
Something that does not seem to live on the skin.
Something that continues appearing while I buy fruit.
While searching for my keys.
While watching meaningless videos that have absolutely nothing to do with anything.
Time does not reduce it.
Time seems to reorganize it.
Move it.
Hide it.
Distribute it into new places.
I used to think forgetting meant losing information.
Now I suspect forgetting means running out of places to keep storing it.
And I keep finding places.
Far too many places.
I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
