Rewind
He walked down the street hands stuffed in his pockets, slouched, with eyes firmly focused on his shoes as they traded places below him. The world slid past as he obliviously considered the importance of what she had said last night. He would listen to her words and then the screeching and chirping of the audible rewind as he returned to the beginning to listen once again. She reminded him of a poorly dubbed Japanese b-movie as the scene continued to repeat word after sentence after word in his mind. He imagined a note pad into the scene on which he began to furiously take notes. As he glanced up she was now reclined on a sofa, mouth still just out of synch with the words that poured forth. Wanting nothing more than to change the subject he would drift into thinking about some thing or another only to find it too would lead back to her and the words that wouldn’t go away.
The options were obvious: she was right, he was right, neither one of them knew the answer, or maybe it had nothing to do with being right to begin with. He couldn’t remember anymore - there were too many words. Looking back at his note pad he found scribbles of arguments, ideas, things he had learned growing up, things she said before, and things he wished she would say. There were too many lists and commas. Too many arrows pointing from one idea to another. He kept walking one foot in front of the other past houses, through puddles, around another corner.
Pushing the rewind button one more time he decided to go searching for the beginning. It was hard to find the place between whatever had already happened and the thing they had just begun. Rewind, stop, play, fast-forward, stop, play - he was playing hide and seek with the answer he had been looking for when he remembered. It was as simple as day. She stood before him and he remembered the reason this all began. He wanted to share a dream, a hope, some mystery.