John sits on the bleachers in the park, the ones that surround the far baseball diamond that nobody ever needs to use. Today, the nearer one isn’t being used either—the park’s empty except for a plain mother and a child in a faded coat, and they’re too far into the distance to be seen. The day is crisp, but the picture is still blurry.
It’s too cold for baseball, but it’s not so cold that John wouldn’t smile and wave, his bare fingers chapped but lively, to one of his old friends from the neighbourhood if he saw them walking down the footpath by the trees. It’s not so cold that he can’t find the scent of himself from years ago, when he might have ran or rolled in the grass right here by the far bleachers, even though he hasn’t done that in a long time.
John has returned to his old neighbourhood with a pen and a notebook, and he’s thinking about how he might tell a story of himself from years ago. He’s thinking about the voice that would tell that story—the voice of himself, now—and how distant that voice would sound. Truthfully, he isn’t really sure if he ever ran, or rolled, in the grass by the far diamond. Maybe, he always just gazed at it from the nearer one, anticipating the John that would sit there telling a story of himself years later, but since he can’t remember himself from years ago, it seems unfair to tell that story.
John knows that, years ago, a boy lived in this neighbourhood whom the other kids called John, and who would come to the park in a faded coat with his plain mother on crisp days, but the picture’s still blurry. John from years ago might have ran and rolled in the grass here—or maybe he didn’t. He doesn’t really know, because the voice that tells his story is strange and not really of this world, and sometimes it’s hard to understand what it means.
But this much is clear: a story is being told. John, years ago, came to the park in a faded coat with his plain mother on crisp days. And one time he ran and rolled in the grass by the far baseball diamond’s bleachers. Years later, John is writing all of this in the notebook.
But when John writes, he doesn’t think it’s fair to say something like “I ran and rolled in the grass by the far bleachers,” because when he looks at it, he sees it’s just ink and paper. And besides, he’s not even sure if he really did it, or if it was really him. Because what is he, anyway? He—from years ago—was a boy named John. Years later, he’s named John, and maybe he’s still named John now, as he writes this, but it isn’t clear what that boy was doing there, in the park in his old neighbourhood, or whom he really was, so it only seems fair to tell the story in this strange voice, a voice that’s not really of this world. It wouldn’t be fair to say something like “I was sitting on the far bleachers, thinking about how I might tell a story of myself from years ago.”
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