Four Days

Everyone I know was asking about the children. "The children are fine," I'd tell them, smoking a cigarette to pass the time. "They're wonderful."

A series of beautiful things happened to me while traveling that summer. I'm not interested in going into detail,  and you're not interested in listening. The watery images of buildings floated in the reflection of the sky. I could see Notre Dame from across that same water, the very image of Hugo. How could he have written so many pages? Did he do nothing else? This is perhaps what it was like to be a learned man before the age of television and the internet. But, as you see, I've already forgotten what I was writing you about.

The seminal thing, which they don't always tell you, is to forget. It was the best advice I ever received. It was delivered to me over brunch in a Belgian restaurant downtown. The waiter had a pencil thin mustache and the accent of god only knows where. "It is best to forget," my uncle told me. He was drunk by then, as usual, but I too his words to heart and have not forgotten them since.

"I don't like the look of things," she said, gesturing towards the sky.

"I do," he answered, stepping out into the street.

"And do you expect me to follow you then?" she asked.

"It would show the sort of trust in me that I'd always hoped you'd have."

"But that would be a mistake."

"Probably," he answered as she followed him into the light rain.