Blue-fronted Parrot

Often I think of those people who leave their houses to buy cigarettes, and between one step and another forget who they are and everything they have ever done, and later turn up muddy and scared in a police station in Trenton, New Jersey, or aren’t found until years later, working the night shift at a Rainbow Bread bakery in Tempe, Arizona. Often when I leave the house, I have to ask myself whether I turned off the coffee maker. Three out of five times, I have to go back to check (once I drove from Lexington, KY, to Atlanta, and called my neighbor, who found it still on). Then I have to go back to make sure the door latch caught (I’ve turned the key, driven off, and come back to find the door standing open). But when I turned around to check the coffee maker or door, which foot did I pivot on? I don’t know. And what was my fourth thought after I woke up this morning? No idea. What was I doing at 3:37 pm yesterday? Stop: I keep reminding myself I’m normal. So what if I forget other people’s names. I can always tell you mine.

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Increases Without Bound

Nosing among old petri dishes, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. I root in the drawer for a hammer and find the instructions for the CD player. Trying to get from his wheelchair into his bed, Stephen Hawking realized that light rays in the event horizon of a black hole move parallel to each other. I forget the nails and buy light bulbs, 75 watt rather than 40. Rummaging in the newly-bright closet for last week’s letter from Illinois, I find a postcard sent years ago from Philadelphia. What are you doing? It’s still too early to tell.