Losing the Thread

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain" - Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer) in Bladerunner

It's a problem with trying to capture one's personal history that it continues to happen, sometimes far faster than the pen can keep pace with. It reminds me of that unsettling movie effect where a hallway seems to elongate before you. Our world keeps changing; my personal world along with it (and sometimes against it). I started out wanting to tell the story of two awkward kids who became friends and spent their days creating their own world together rather than trying to fit into the one that didn't seem all that interested in having them. I wanted to tell the story of my friend Steven, and I feel that thread slipping through my fingers.

Those moments are getting lost in time. Riding together to Blue Bell Day Camp in the back of a packed car, listening as "That's All" by Genesis or "Always Something There to Remind Me" by Naked Eyes came on the radio while we laughed at our driver's dirty jokes. Sitting on log benches and listening to Burt the science counselor tell spooky stories and somehow transcended his nerdiness to become "cool" for just as long as his tales lasted. Watching Blade Runner, The Thing, Eddie and the Cruisers, and Buckaroo Banzai again and again and again.

I can feel those things slipping by and past me, like photos being plucked form an album by the wind from the deck of a boat and coming to land for a moment on the surface of the water before drifting down into the depths.

Procuring matching key chain switchblades (the blades being all of an inch long) from the back of a voodoo shop together on South Street after browsing through the assortment of punk rock tee shirts at Zipperheads and grabbing a cheese steak from Inky's. Playing computer and first generation Nintendo games until our eyes were dried out and bloodshot. Reading Tolkein riddles and comic books. 

There's more. I'm almost there, but I need to keep hold of the loose thread, before it unravels entirely, taking that part of me along with it. I know I can't quite reach that point in my past anymore than an asymptote can ever connect with the line it leans infinitely towards, but I can keep getting closer to it. That thread, that story of who I was, is also the story of how I got to be who I am now. As it is for all of us. 

Stick with me, and I'll pull it all together soon, I promise. A picture is even now emerging from the scattered puzzle pieces, and I'll get us to that mystery at the heart of things, before it's all washed away.

Like tears in rain.