Memories and the workings of the mind are both amazing and terrible things.

I was driving through a part of town I’d not travelled in for a couple of decades. Somehow, due to the time of day, the combination of landmarks, and the music playing in the background over the truck speakers, a younger, chipper version of myself popped up in my head, like a legendary djinn.

“O hi!”, he chirped, “I see we’ve passed THAT STORE. When will you get THAT THING shipped home?” (“THAT STORE” being a mental image of the furniture shop we’d just passed, and “THAT THING” being a mental image of some item my wife-at-the-time and I had talked about purchasing)

My present, older and somewhat grizzled self grunted, “What are you going on about? I don’t remember that.”

“What? You both loved it and wanted to put it OVER THERE.” (“OVER THERE” being a mental image of the arrangement in the long-gone house, with a blinky image-spot where THAT THING would go)

“Hm.” Grunted the older self. “Didn’t work out.”

The younger self, now becoming aware of his mental surroundings, started poking around the storeroom of current events.

“And where’s THIS THING and why didn’t THAT HAPPEN and when did THAT get broken? And what’s THIS THING?” (A dizzying series of images flashed with alarming frequency)

“What”, the younger self stopped and turned abruptly, “have you been doing with me all this time?”

My current, experienced, and less chipper self took a slight breath before responding.

“C’mon”, he sighed as he draped a heavy arm on the other’s shoulders, “we need to talk.”

So the two of them left and went into a private, back storage area in our collective mind to debrief.

They did so leaving another, somewhat confused self steering this ship of memories across an unpredictable sea.