I met my brother at Gloucester Road. Stone dinosaurs peered out as I ascended into a world he knew the map of, and which, years later, is still unknown to me. He knew the way; in awe I followed. Ever since we played and fought together in our shared room, he has always been further [...]
Autobiographical Memories
Here are some autobiographical pieces I worked on between 2006 and 2008. Each of them is 100 words long, and each describes a single memory, dwelling on a particular instance from my life and conveying my subjective recollection of it.
For more of the background, see What is an autobiographical memory?
We got there early, and had “a perfect day”. I recall sprawling in a garden, reading a linguistics book, evading a cat that shared the space. We went out on the sea, and a photograph jogs my memory of sitting by the beach. Our happiness is something we’ve narrated and charged into pictures, so I [...]
Already that moment has been cast in narrative, packed with meanings I spouted spontaneously. I walked a straight road from Crystal Palace to Beckenham, tasting the rain and wondering why I drink anything else. Each car seemed to hesitate as it passed, considering offering rescue. But I refused even the rescue offered by telephone, denying [...]
That first time, I was not drunk, but did not want to ruin the story we were telling ourselves. We had visited a death camp, where I performed my trauma, as was expected. That evening, I sipped my beer and tasted adulthood (I did not like it), then acted strangely on the way home, as [...]
The hens are in the courtyard, the air cool but not harsh, exactly like the first time we came here and stuffed the place with hopes for the future. But these are not the same hens, and the air has been transformed by countless organisms, I realise as I notice that the magazine mark where [...]