The Forgotten Order of Things (from BENEDICTIONS, an unpublished novel)

This is what I remember.

But someone else could say, “I know that place, and you’ve got the names all wrong.”

I’d have to tell them that they’re mistaken. In any case, I don’t remember them being there.

They might answer, “The doorway was on the left. That woman was a blonde.”

I’d have to remind them that they were standing at a different angle, and the lighting was not as good.

This all happened before mobsters replaced cowboys at the movies, and long before government Indians and stock market brokers took over the business of gambling. I was a nobody then, the same as I am now, only then I was a nobody with promise. The unsecured credit of my youth opened doors which have since been securely locked. Reflecting on that time now, I am aware of the forgotten order of things. We all tend to place remembered matters in a sequence of importance determined by the lives we are presently living, and too easily forget the value we once held so dear. We judge our past selves by the logic of the present, as if we might have foreseen the unfolding of things we could not possibly have known.

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