I was walking through the bookstore, discounted purchases in hand, marvelling at the reality that it was actually closing, that my future trips to the city could no longer involve a quiet stroll through the towers of books and music. It's terribly egocentric to say this, but I find it apt that my own decline and dismantling should be mirrored so clearly in the world around me. There was something extremely upsetting about seeing the store in the state it was, the odd book lying tossed on the floor, the once carefully arranged shelves split asunder as the stock was being disposed of, and of course the people. Had any of them so much as whispered a word to me I probably would've started shaking them in fury. I disliked the matter-of-factness their faces suggested, the indifference to what was happening here. I wanted so badly to see some external acknowledgement that this was not right, that the future this was portending is not a place we should be moving towards, but, I saw nothing. I began to wonder if it was right of me to even be there in these end-times. I can't say that I've ever been unhappier purchasing books.

But why are memories of earlier (and invariably happier, through some strange logic) times so important to me, and why do I always pull them to the surface? I surely can't be afraid that I will forget them; that would require a major upheaval in my internal aesthetics. Sometimes I think my use of these objects is a burden of expectation that I place even though full well knowing that no future can relieve it. What do I expect but for these things to eventually give way and move on? And of course I'm well aware of this, but it doesn't seem to matter. There is always this sense of a future hovering unthreateningly in the horizon, while the past is spread out as far as the heart desires, ready to be revisited at any moment one chooses. I suppose I get reminded by otherwise inconsequential events that this is dangerously incorrect. No matter how much I'd like to think otherwise, wheels are turning, clocks are ticking, and what matters is drifting out of reach.