* Notes: A short story that examines how you would react if your past happened to knock on the door of your present, in the most unlikely of places.
Life has a nasty habit of throwing you a curve ball. You can never know what form you're curve ball will take or even when it will happen, but take my word for it there's no avoiding it. My particular curve ball came in the form of a face from my long forgotten past. Now no matter what you hear in regards to the past the important thing to remember is that it doesn't always stay buried. Trust me, I speak from experience. My past recently knocked on the door of my present in the most unexpected of places; the local shopping centre.
I say unexpected because if you were to set off with the intention of uncovering your past then your destination would be your local library of council archives, and not a shopping centre. In my experience shopping centres are ideal for disappearing and generally one doesn't go there in the hopes of re-living one's past. I was there supposedly doing the grocery shopping, but if the truth be told I had spent the majority of the morning flitting in and out of book shops.
My wife once introduced me to her work friends as the only man capable of becoming lost in a library. That's not to say I have a lousy sense of direction or anything like that, rather I have a tendency of disappearing into a world of words.
Whenever I visit a library, or a book shop for that matter, it is usually with the intention of stopping for a few minutes but when I emerge I am usually shocked to discover several hours have passed me by. This has resulted in many conversations with my wife over the years on the subject of time management, the resolution of which generally involves a heartfelt apology followed by a pricey gift.
The honest to god truth is that I'm most contented when in the company of words. What I mean by that is simply I find the honesty of the written word almost impossible to replicate. While a person communicates using words, they may mot always mean what they say. Most books, and as with everything there a exceptions to this, provide us with a snapshot of the author's thoughts and feelings at the time of writing. The same is also true of fiction. All fiction, whether it be a novel or short story, are born from an idea. My high school English teacher put it best when she likened the creative process to planting a seed. The seed of course is the idea or inspiration behind the story and over time the writer will tend and nurture it as it grows and develops. Wherever we read a novel we are experiencing the completed thought process of a specific individual, and thus we gain a unique insight into the imagination of that particular person. Put simply books provide us with an opportunity to know someone whom on normal circumstances we wouldn't necessarily have an opportunity to meet.
Now that I've gone and proved my wife's point I'll get back to the story in hand. I saw her before she saw me. Panic overwhelmed me and I ducked into the nearest shop and pretended to check out the specials. This was unfortunate as I had accidentally landed in a lingerie store. Once the coast was clear I emerged, sheepishly returning the bra I'd been studying while waiting for my quarry to wander past. I quickly set off in the opposite direction.
It is an unfortunate part of human nature to run away from the things we have no desire to face, and I'm ashamed to admit I fully embraced this particular emotion but it didn't matter because in the end it transpired that fate had other plans for me I had only gone roughly twenty yards or so when a soft voice stopped me in my tracks.
I turned and found myself face to face with the one person I had been desperate to avoid. She smiled, seemingly oblivious to obvious discomfort.
"Jerry Carter, as I live and breathe. How's things?"
At that exact moment I really wanted to channel the spirit of Bogart and say something cool like "Out of all the shopping centers in all the world, you had to walk into mine." instead I came out with this. "Oh hi Alyssa, it's been a while. Um, I've been good thanks. How's things with you?"
Again she smiled, ironically with the same mouth I used to long ago caress with my own.
"Oh you know, keeping busy."
"Well you have to don't you? Otherwise life has a habit of passing us by."
"Well Quite."
There was obviously more to this conversation, but in the interests of not wanting to bore you to death I'm not going to record it here. Besides it's not important what was being said, rather I want to share with what I was feeling while it was being said. As I outlined above I was terrified of being reunited with this woman, after all we hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms, but during the ten to fifteen minutes we spent in conversation I found myself more and more at ease. I had been afraid that I would inevitably find myself trying to imagine what life with this woman may have been like had things been different, but instead I found myself silently thanking her. You see I was happy with my life and although there had been a few bumps along the way I never once wished things were different. I couldn't say whether she felt the same, and although we established she had moved on and had a family of her own as had I, i got the distinct impression she wasn't exactly happy with her lot.
We parted amicably enough and promised each other we would stay in touch, although I knew very well this would never happen. I glanced back and watched as the pages of my past disappeared amongst the throng of faceless shoppers. I was now glad that I had encountered my ex-lover as I had been reminded how good my life now was, and how I would never want to change it. The reunion had been bitter sweet and ultimately unavoidable.
The past is a road map that shows us the path we have traveled. Time as we know goes in one direction only, and that is forwards. We can't ever go back and do it differently, but occasionally the past finds a way to remind us of the person we once were and we have no choice but to look back fondly and wave, because if it weren't for the person we once were we would never become the person we are now.
END
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