BUTTERCUPS AND MEMORY WAVES

I went for a walk in the park this afternoon. The green grass was sprinkled with bright yellow buttercups, like a carpet of sunshine. I slumped down cross-legged and breathed in the warm Spring air. It was a good moment to reflect.

I think I've let myself get worn-down again. This morning I felt like my head was a balloon that had been slightly over-inflated. My skin was tight and my mouth and eyes and ears felt like they were too far apart. Deep inside, I could hear the sound of a distant drummer, wrapped in cotton wool at the centre of my brain.

No. I was not hungover. In fact, last night I very soberly drove home from the latest barn dance gig and collapsed into bed before the keys had stopped jangling in the doorlock. No alcohol was involved.

Well, unless you count the Bishops Waltham Twinning Association Members Committee rolling pound coins across the floor toward a whisky bottle in the interval. I'd not seen this before, but apparently it's a thing - you roll pound coins across the floor toward a bottle of whisky and whoever is closest gets to take it home. It occurred to me that it might be a thinly veiled metaphor for something.

So not a hangover then - just pure exhaustion working its way through my system. The buttercups agreed as they waved in the sunshine. They were silent and undemanding. Do you remember how we used to hold them under our chins to determine whether or not we liked butter? It never once occurred to me that the sunny reflection might be down to greasier skin. I thought it was magic back then. There was no-one to test me with buttercups today. In any case, I don't think it works if you have a beard.

A cascade of memories came flooding back to me: Sham Castle, behind the golf course on Claverton Down; Roundhill Mount where I'd sit for hours watching the sun sparkle from different spires and rooftops; Prospect Park, just outside the Mansion House, even the little alcove where I'd sit and dream in the sunshine.

What if memories are waves? I thought to myself. What if, each significant event creates ripples in time that stretch across the continuum? Just like stones in ponds. The memory travels through time in all directions until some day, for no apparent reason, it simply catches up with us in the present, washes over us with all its original emotion and then fades again? What if I'm moving faster than my memories can catch me, creating and diffracting new memories all the time? What if one day they all bunch up and overwhelm me, all at once?

What if memory waves interfere? What if the patterns overlap and merge and form new patterns and the memory you have, mixes in with the memory I have, to create something new?

The drummer in my head started to pound again. I need to give him a break I think.