Peter, Bug Eyed Peter's ex had commented, in a conversation she’d obviously thought of little transcendental importance, that she had been surprised that his musical tastes hadn’t changed in the years since they had last said goodbye and, why on earth hadn’t he moved with the times?
She, pulling his leg a bit, accused him of suffering from a heavy dose of rather unhealthy nostalgia.
He took it as a stab in the back. A real dig.
Now, he hadn’t predicted that kind of turn in the conversation, which, up until that point, had been a laugh a minute. Nor had he picked up on the humorous tone.
One reply, one idea that, of course, never reached Peter’s vocal chords, was that a conversation with an ex he hadn’t had any contact with in years was only interesting for what shared memories could be brought back to life, but he'd put his foot in it, took it all the wrong way and got all sour, grumpy and verbally aggressive. The evening degenerated into a battle.
So Peter spent the night alone, which was definitely not his original idea, sweating profusely, tossing and turning in the rumpled sheets, unable to sleep, thinking of all the intelligent things he should have said, involuntarily remembering the previous evening, and the bits he remembered just got worse and worse. The sweat got more and more sour smelling.
After all, he might have said, if the idea had illuminated his head when it should have, “remembering” consists of living a version of the past in the present, so he had never been at all happy with the term “nostalgia”. Nostalgia is too cosy, too self satisfied, too sad. Sentimentality for a lost past. Nostalgia goes with a certain degree of lamentation, lamenting that the details are fading, lamenting that it won’t be happening again tomorrow, which it could, actually, he knew, if you just changed the terminology a bit. Or if he’d just bitten his lip.
So, add another person with their version and the entertainment is guaranteed. That is, until Bug Eyed Peter rediscovered that other remembering. The remembering you’d rather forget.
Did you ever play that children’s game? Whispering a story round the group? Remembering is in a world of its own. You never remember exactly what happened originally, but only remember the last time you remembered what happened. The more times you remember, the less reliable the memory becomes, but, not for that, is it any less enjoyable.
Mix into the equation a certain amount of exaggeration, of which sin Pete will happily admit to, and the past is living and growing in the here and now. The memory is created in the present, like this short story of Peter’s night out with his ex and its results, victory for Victoria. Yet again.
