(Friend 1 and Friend 2 are sitting on beach chairs in the local park, watching the lake and occasional passers-by as the autumn leaves fall gently around them)
Friend 1: (Wearing summer clothes and sunglasses) You think the trees missed the memo that there’s no fall season on this planet anymore?
Friend 2: Probably – I’m just waiting for winter to get completely phased out, but I think that’s got a few more polar vortexes in it before then.
Friend 1: Huh…. Vortexes or vortices?
Friend 2: No idea.
(They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes)
Friend 1: You know, I think the last real, authentic autumn chill we had – that school’s-starting-summer’s-over-no-more-fun chill – was back when we went to that concert five years ago.
Friend 2: You mean the Manly Men one?
Friend 1: Yeppers.
Friend 2: That was seven years ago.
Friend 1: No it wasn’t, it was… hmmmmm…. (Stares unseeingly into the distance while mentally stretching back across the years)
Friend 2: 2013.
Friend 1: (Shaking head) Nooooo….
Friend 2: (Nodding head) Yesssss….
Friend 1: It wasn’t seven years, that’s the length of a TV series! I remember it as if it were last year, but I’m being generous and saying five.
Friend 2: (Works on a phone) Then chunks of years must’ve fallen out your ears – look. (Hands over the phone showing photos from the concert and points at the date) See that? Time-stamped August 15, 2013.
Friend 1: (Hands back the phone) Lies.
Friend 2: Whatever makes you happy. (Puts the phone away and settles back in the beach chair to relax)
Friend 1: OK then –
Friend 2: [Sigh] Yes?
Friend 1: How about when you had your appendix taken out?
Friend 2: That’ll be a year in December.
Friend 1: Ha! Wrong! I clearly remember it being 90° that day, so it must have been July 2019, which makes it a year and a half in December!
Friend 2: I think I’d know the date when I’ve had one of my internal organs removed. And it’s been 90° in December for quite some time now.
Friend 1: Oh. Are you sure North America just hasn’t slid down into the Southern Hemisphere, and no one wants to tell us?
Friend 2: We’d probably have a lot more problems going on if that’d happened.
Friend 1: Gotcha. (Ponders for a few moments) What about when I was having my job crisis meltdown a while back? Was that five years ago?
Friend 2: (Thinks for a bit) Yes – it was a little before the latest round of Astral Skirmishes movies had come out.
Friend 1: (Laughs) Oh yeah. Oh wow, it feels like that whole hullabaloo just started, and now it’s already over and the first movie was released half a decade ago.
Friend 2: Mm-hm. Before you know it, the 20th anniversary edition’ll be out and the special effects’ll be upgraded to whatever 3D-V.R.-A.I.-A.R.-whatever is out at that point.
Friend 1: Yeah… oh.
Friend 2: What?
Friend 1: By the time the 20th anniversary edition comes out, we’ll be in our 50s.
Friend 2: (Calculates the years) Oh yeah – that’s funny.
Friend 1: That’s darned depressing, is what that is.
Friend 2: Oh come on, we’ve been doing the same stuff for nearly a decade now, you think our lives are really going to be that much different just because we’re middle-aged? By then, 50’ll probably be the new 10!
Friend 1: I guess, but at that point I’ll have to start wasting more time in doctors’ offices getting more and more tests, and fighting against my own failing stamina, and yelling at insurance companies for prescriptions I’d rather not have to take but need to or I’ll die, and going to more funerals than weddings, and –Friend 2: I feel like I’ve lost 10 years just having this conversation.
Friend 1: Fine; we’ll go back to enjoying the unseasonable day, then. (They watch several ducks paddle by on the lake) Think we’ll even remember this conversation in 10 years?
Friend 2:
Knowing my luck, this will be the last memory I ever forget.
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