‘It’s time we acknowledge it: people are not very good at remembering things the way they really happened. If an experience is an article of clothing, then memory is the garment after it’s been washed, not according to the instructions, over and over again: the colours fade, the size shrinks, the original, nostalgic scent has long since become the artificial orchid smell of fabric softener. Giyora Shiro, may he rest in peace, was thinking all this while standing in line to get into the next world …”
That’s quite the opener for a story, isn’t it? The apt but just slightly ridiculous metaphor, which is then revealed as not an authorial pronouncement but a character’s ruminations. And then we meet the character – excellently specific name – and we find out he’s dead, and, in that drolly formulaic aside “may he rest in peace”, we meet the author too.
