“How cruel it is that this memory should surface in a winter storm so long after she is dead. How cruel to have this fleeting, fragmented vision, seen through an ice-crusted window, then to wonder if it is real, or if it is the perturbation of a brain undone by alcohol. He has reassembled the memory like a shattered relic, and it is finally whole; and still he has doubts. He will never see her more clearly than that night at 529 Maple. When he recalls it in later years, he will wonder if he is distorting it, embellishing it, because each time he consciously recalls her, that forms a new memory, a new imprint to be stacked on top of the previous one. He fears that too much handling will make it crumble.”

“When he recalls it in later years, he will wonder if he is distorting it, embellishing it, because each time he consciously recalls her, that forms a new memory, a new imprint to be stacked on top of the previous one. He fears that too much handling will make it crumble.”

“He thinks about her, at this moment, in her house, a few thin walls away, packing her life into boxes and bags and he wonders what memories she is rediscovering, what thoughts are catching in her mouth like the dust blown from unused textbooks. He wonders if she has buried any traces of herself under her floorboards. He wonders what those traces would be if she had. And he wonders again why he thinks about her so much when he knows so little to think about.”

“There is no one, no matter how wise he is, who has not in his youth saidthings or done things that are so unpleasant to recall in later life thathe would expunge them entirely from his memory if that were possible.”

“He doesn’t know to want for more because nothing in his life has been as much as this...on that night he thinks that no one has ever had so much and only later will he know he should have asked for more.”

“He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe. And... he's wonderful. - Tim Latimer”