Short Story: An Afternoon Walk

I stepped outside to go for a walk. The weather is agreeable and there is little else to do with my afternoon. I considered staying in for the night. Then I would likely finish the book I’m reading. The walk had won my afternoon largely due to it being overcast.

I walk down my driveway, taking a right onto the sidewalk. The left dead ends sooner and straight ahead would require crossing the street. That decision took less time to make than the last. There is little of interest around my house. Mostly just similar looking houses, presumably with different contents. Luckily I’m only a matter of blocks away from the city. Soon enough I find myself downtown where the suits walk and the cars stop moving. Not today though. The city streets are empty. Only a few people can be seen from any one spot and a car would be a disturbance.

Just across the street is an old cemetery. It has always amused me that it’s in the center of such a busy area. As if it's there as a reminder for people living the fast city life. I’m sure the planners that put it there had no morbid intentions. When it was built that location must have seemed impossibly far from where the city was. The city just grew into it and then right on past it.

The cemetery has an impressive gateway over the entrance. It is a large stone arch that creates a steep bridge over the foot path. I can only imagine all the people that have walked under it. It is likely that at least a few that have are now buried inside the city block it guards. It is challenging to process that all the headstones represent a person who no longer exists. Without them in the present, they can only be thoughts in our heads. You can only ever exist in the present. After that you’re just a thought. In ten years I might be a future version of myself from my current perspective but when that time arrives I will still only be me. It will feel like the same me that is going for a walk now. The present is me. The past and future are just thoughts the present can have.

Across the street I see what looks to be a family. An aging grandfather, an anxious father, and a curious boy. I can tell the child wanted to roam around the graveyard. Children tend to be good at making what they want obvious, even for someone on the other side of the street. Dad had no interest and made the decision to go right past it. The grandfather also seemed interested in walking around it but not enough to try to sway the dad. Just a glance over his shoulder as they passed. Seeing a family’s interactions makes walks like this more enjoyable.

Further down the road I see a young woman walking a dog. The dog bounces from one smell to the next, similar to the way the boy explores his surroundings. The dog seems less attached to any of it, though. Gladly moving on once it has its nose out of the smell. There are less people out than I expected. It is fairly early in the afternoon, workers filling this part of the city is usual at this hour. I can hardly say I am disappointed. With the family and women near I get the benefits of both people watching and the empty sidewalks.

Soon enough, I outpace the family and the woman and her dog pass me. After a moment I hear the shouting of the boy who. Apparently, he has found a dog. Rather conspicuously, I stop and turn to watch the interaction. The boy runs up to the dog but comes just shy as the father scoops him in his arms. The father apologies to the women and continues, now carrying the child. As I turn to continue myself I see the grandfather grin and sneak in a pat on the dog's head.

While I kid about the graveyard being a reminder - the shoe certainly fits. Myself, as I stand now, and myself, as I lie on my deathbed, will only be made different by thoughts and place. I could very well die in the same place I am now so the real difference is just thoughts. I’m not confident that the memories even distinguish me from my so-called future self. Sure I might then have, in a way, more memories than I do now. As the present me slides across time I will pick up new thoughts and ideas and call them memories. But these aren’t chapters added to a book I can reread at my leisure. Most will fade. Many will be forgotten.

It is not clear to me that the grandfather has more memories than the boy’s father. It is certainly intuitive. But clear? For me, it is not. The elderly man has lived through more but that does not mean the same as having more memories. Say I was out on the town with a friend one night. Say I were drunk and my friend were sober. We could live the same night, both remembering it, but I would have much less memory of it. In our old age we might recount that night and we both could claim to have a memory of it. My friend’s account, however, is much more full. How can I claim to match him one-for-one on this memory? Clearly I cannot and would have to admit my one memory has less than his one memory. If memories can vary in quality and if you can assume time, like intoxication, can hollow them then perhaps the older man has a breadth of memories but few with depth. The father could then fall short in quantity but not in quality.

It might be assumed that the grandfather has more memories when compared one-to-one and it is in this way we can say that the grandfather has more memories. Yet, it could very well be the case that he can recall the idea of an event but not actually have much of a memory of the event itself. Many of his memories are likely just memories of himself telling the story of the original memory. Memories of memories. Even at that, I don’t know if you can rightfully assume that the grandfather can out number the father in comparing memories one-to-one. Memories seem to me to be approaching infinite in number. Any memory the grandfather shares will remind the father of two memories of his own. I believe the reverse to be true as well. If this is true, or nearly true, then how can the claim that the older you are the more memories you have be justified? It’s not as simple as you having more memories as you age. There might even be a similar number of memories but they have changed with time. Not unlike the father and the women, the memories of me now and me on my deathbed will be different. I suspect with more overlap than the father and the women but less than I find comforting.

My thoughts must have distracted me as I nearly walked into a moving car at a crossroad. I was surprised to see a car if nothing else. Almost impressive that I didn’t hear it coming. I have just about wandered to the other side of the city. A few blocks ahead is the highway that slices off the edge of the town. The noise from it are not very pleasant up close so I turn around and take the same side of the road home.

This time I see no one. The few people that were out must have headed home themselves. I can hear the bricks under my feet rattle. The sidewalk is old, the only thing keeping the brinks in place is routine. I always liked this area for that reason. Between the noisy bricks and the worn down buildings I get the sense it has a purpose. The brinks rattle for a reason. If they did not they would not still be here.

I come up on the cemetery once again. This time no one else is around to divert my attention. Now I can see the front of the arch at the entrance. In wide lowercase letters it reads memento mori. The planners might just have known all along. The you in the phrase finds me in a way it has not before. Remember that you will die. I’ve always put the emphasis on the will but now the you is all I can hear now. It is no longer an abstract idea of a person I will become. It is the singular, present me. It will be me with different thoughts but it will be as me as I am now. The will cannot hide the fact it is me. It might as well be the present tense as that is the only way you can die.

I can only guess what my final thoughts will be. Perhaps I’ll be scared of becoming no one and I will hope “someone must remember me. I don’t want to be forgotten.” I could have the opposite worry too, “I can’t bear the responsibility of being someone. Let me die as no one.” Maybe even now I am too pessimistic. My last thoughts could be with honor as I scream out that “it all has been worth it.” There is no reason I cannot be the one in control either. “Everything is going well, tonight has been the best in memory. All your life is kept in the last few moments, I will choose those moments to ensure they are great.” But no matter what, those thoughts are just going to be me. It will be the present me saying them just as I say them now. What would I say now?

I turn left into my home. There may still be time to finish my book.