2066

"What I want to know is where I might happen to know him from.  And Stella.  That name is almost too familiar.  Carl knew her?" "Well, more than twenty years ago when they were both renting out their wares in Amsterdam." "And she's here now.  Right?" "Wait, it's coming back to me now."  We have both just sat down  on a log by the side of the trail, surrounded by cedar trees.  "I was driving us down to the new house in New West.  Intersection of Kingsway and Victoria, there she was.  She climbed into the car.  We went to New West, did a tour of the house, but how come I remember it as not having a stick of furniture when I know that they already bought and had it moved  there?  I still, in some parallel memory, have this image of a couch, some chairs, a rug. a coffee table, a kitchen table and chairs but now it is all bare again." "That piece of paper François put on the fridge door today, held up by my fridge magnet  When we get back we should have a look at it." "Wasn't that a grocery list?" "It was something altogether different, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what it was.  So anyway, you were all at the mental health team." "Yes, Trevor, my new worker.  But he kind of came and now he's gone again.  He did stop for coffee with us at the café across the street from the mental health team, but all that is blurry and very strange." "Strange how?" I am not sure how to answer him, because even I have no corresponding image in my memory.  "It's all a blur.  And then you came in with Amaris, your friend from the island." "She works with us in the store, but spends a week with her parents in Richmond once a month."   "And when you two showed up, all of them, Caspar, Stella, and Trevor, were gone..."