yesterday

Coming up from the beach in the morning. I crossed paths with a couple going down to the sea. He said, Don’t you know how the world started?

She made a noncommittal noise that suggested I know in the sense I could explain it to myself, but not so I could explain it in the way you would challenge me to, if I were to say, Yes.

He said, There was a Big Bang and then there were all these atoms. And the atoms became stars.

I thought, that’s not really explaining it. There was, and there were. That’s not really knowing how the world started, at all.

Later, on the bus. A boy behind me said to his friend, I always wash ‘em, but I don’t always put ‘em away. And they got off the bus.

I dreamt of a man who came to visit me in the night and we ate chips together in the dark. When I woke up, I knew for a full minute that it had really happened.