“I got a bad stomach. I really ought to quit smoking, too,” he said, fiddling with his cigarettes. He had that look that people with stomach troubles get when they talk about their stomach. “Anyway, like I was saying myself, for the same reason as you, I remember absolutely every last detail about the old days. It’s weird, I tell you. Because believe me, some things I’d like to forget. But the more I try to wipe them away, the more they pop into my mind. You know what it’s like when you’re trying to fall asleep and it only makes you more wide awake? It’s the same thing. I can’t figure it out. I remember things I couldn’t possibly have known. Sometimes it worries me, remembering the past in so much detail—how am I supposed to have room for what’s to come? My memory’s so sharp, it’s a nuisance.”

I set my book facedown on the table and sipped my coffee.

“Everything is vivid. The weather that day, the temperature, the smells. Just like now. It gets confusing, like where am I? Makes me wonder if things are only memories. Ever get that feeling?”

I shook my head absently.

“I remember you very well. I was walking by and saw you through the glass and I knew you right away. Did I bother you coming in here like this?”

“No,” I said. “Still, you have to forgive me. I really don’t remember you.”

“Nothing to forgive. I’m the one who barged in on you. If the time comes to remember, you’ll remember. That’s how it goes. Memory works in different ways for everybody. Different capacities, different directions, too. Sometimes memory helps you think, sometimes it impedes. Doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. Probably means it’s no big deal.”

“Do you suppose you could tell me your name? It’s simply not coming to me, and if I don’t remember it’s going to drive me crazy,” I said.

“What’s a name, really?” he answered. “So if it comes, okay; if it doesn’t, that’s okay, too. Either way, no big deal, like I said. But if not remembering my name bugs you that much, pretend we’ve just met for the first time. No mental block that way.”

His coffee arrived and he drank it slowly. I couldn’t get a handle at all on anything he was saying.

“A lot of water has gone under the bridge. That phrase was in our high-school English textbook. Remember?”

High school? Did I know this guy in high school?

“I’m sure that’s how it went. The other day, I was standing on a bridge looking down, and suddenly that English phrase popped into my head. Clear as a bell. Like, sure, here’s how time passes.”