Lullaby

You are about four years old. You lie in bed as a memory is made. Your father sings you to sleep. It is a song in a language you will take the pain to forget years down the line, then take the pain to salvage when sense settles. 

The air is dense, you can barely breathe it in and the nightly summer breeze does nothing to stir the humidity that clings to your skin like a damp cloth.

You realize this will be a memory as it is being made. You do not believe it completely.  Childhood is all you know. It cannot be fleeting. 

A decade and a half will pass before you are brought back here. On the other side of the line, you think about how you were a child just yesterday, being sung to sleep by Dad. Where have the years gone? Far, somewhere unattainable from where you stand. 

There is a narrow tube you can look through, somewhere in the back of your mind, that lets you dream. Dream about becoming a memory. Dream about your memories. 

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