Memory is not linear. Memory is not reliable. Not all memory is memory. Memory is imagination. A deep breath, readying for a major decision. Do I get up? A warm bed beckons, seared chilly by proper rebuke. Can I even get up? I do not want to know the answer. Falling through a hedge is easy - even twice. Smile. Stay put. Lay off the brakes and steer into the skid. It has been a happy day - a peculiarly brief innings, leading the mammoth run chase. First ball pitched on leg and clipped sonorously over midwicket for six. Happy. Second ball, repeat the stroke. Miss it. Bowled. Done. Drink. People unseen for years. Warm memories bathed in unquestioning inaccuracy. Now. Prostrate. Accuracy intrudes. They despise me. A fool tolerated. Maybe. Hope not.
Another sport, my ever refuge. Violent, inherited poetry. Once were warriors. That last ever tackle, measured, executed, and the immediate decision to retire. I miss it every day but (unusually) good sense prevails. Ponder sleep. Perchance. Risk it. Sleep.
Memory is not linear. There has, for me, never been a retreat to the womb. Earliest image is of the quiet waters of the boating lake. I am in the charge of an older boy, a stranger given sixpence by my watching grandfather as the fare to share his pedal boat. I am barely two and that morning my little brother has been born. I cherish that memory. I bear his name. I loved my own father (who never fell through hedges) and he loved his. Happy lineage. My faults are my own.
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