Memores Acti Prudentes Futuri

I tried to focus my eyes, but I could only see white at first. I blinked a few times and squinted, and I could start to make out some objects. They started out gray and fuzzy, but they slowly took color and form. Computer monitors, filing cabinets, desks that hardly reached above my knees. Beige walls, a ceiling, and a floor appeared, enclosing me within and blocking out the white bright light. Rays of white light shone through until the very last crevices in the walls were filled in with missing details.

A huge office desk sat at the north wall. A white board spanned the west. Filing cabinets and bookshelves huddled by the south. At the east—why the hell did I even know these cardinal directions—two manila folders hung stapled to the walls. They peered over a row of computers. Each manila folder was labeled with red sharpie, but the text was still blurry. I approached the manila folders, trying to read the text, but it still remained blurry even with my nose an inch away. Giving up, I turned around, only to see islands of desks and their seats filled with little kids. I recognized them.

I was in the fourth grade. We were all nine years old.

Kirsten. Dirty blonde curly hair tired back, tiny circular metal framed glasses. She wore a plaid skirt with a white polo. Her name was pronounced keer-sten, like cure-sten. Not Kersten or Kristan.

Franklin. Dark skin, plump body. White polo and black pants. Some of the guys, including me, made jokes about him behind his back, calling him gay and not really considering what that meant in the fourth grade. But he actually did turn out gay. I had seen him at Fuz a couple of times.

Darina. She wore a navy blue skirt and a white polo. Clean face, no make-up. Flat-chested. This was before she became a big ho in high school.

I looked back at the manila folders, and the red text was now clear: “Golden Rule” read one folder, and “Respect” read the other. Any time a student got out of line, the teacher would make him copy a poem out of one of the folders during recess. I never had to do this.

I held my hand to my face, and I was a little confused. My hands were huge, blottered with permanent calluses from working out all throughout high school and college. My arms were long, and built, and I stood two feet taller than every one else. I was wearing black basketball shorts and my black Old Navy zip-up hoodie—all things I bought in college. This made no sense. Where were my white polo and khaki short shorts? I was in my fourth grade class; everyone was nine, and I should’ve been too. But no, I was twenty.

Then it hit me. I was dreaming.

“Hello Brian.”

I turned around. There in front of me stood my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Roberts. He maintained a formidable, but respectable demeanor. He stood tall, with a sturdy build. He was wearing what he always wore: some kind of striped fleece sweater and dress pants. His hair was graying, but it still shined with youthful radiance. He kinda looked like a gruffer version of Elvis, and in fact, he was known for his Elvis impressions.

I didn’t know what to say to him, so I said the first thing that came to mind: “You’re dead.”

“Yes, I am,” he said. Mr. Roberts died at age fifty during my first year in high school.

“Then...” I ran my hand through my hair and stopped halfway down the side of my face, “then why are you here?”

“You’re dreaming aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I paused to collect myself. “Then why am I dreaming about this? The fourth grade? Why am I dreaming so vividly?”

“You tell me Brian. I know that in the fourth grade, you had a lot of memories, memories that you’ve repressed, long forgotten.”

“I think I remember everything I need to remember from the fourth grade,” I snapped back.

“Do you? Tell me, why do you know what’s north, south, west, and east in this room?”

I glanced around the room. Office desk, north; whiteboard, west; bookshelves, south; poems, east. I opened my mouth to talk, but the force of the memory pushed me back against the side of a desk.

“I uh... We were going over cardinal directions as a part of a history unit. We played a game where we all stood up—” All the kids, who had been sitting silently in their seats this whole time, pushed back in their chairs. I watched as they stood up and waited. “—You’d give us a direction, such as south—” Most kids jumped in their spots to face the bookshelves. Some ended up facing the poems, or the whiteboard, or the desk. “—And we’d all have to race to face that direction. Those who were too slow or faced the wrong direction—” The kids who weren’t turned toward the bookshelves returned to their seats. “—They were eliminated. We practiced this game all week until we had a ‘final tournament’ for some extra credit on Friday. It was pretty intense, and the last two remaining were—” One by one, the kids sat down in their seats. I tried to look for the nine-year-old me, but I couldn’t find him. Then I realized I was standing at his seat. There was only one other person standing in the room, a nine-year-old Seth. “—The final two were me and my best friend Seth.”

“And who won, Brian?”

“You named off the directions really fast, like south! -north! -north! -east! -south! -west! -west! until...” Dejected, I took my place in my seat as Seth remained standing. Everybody put their hands together to clap and opened their mouths to cheer, but I couldn’t hear any of the sounds. I sat in my seat, brooding and watching Seth bow. But gradually, they all disappeared.

“What else do you remember Brian?”

“Nothing.”

“Why don’t you spell ‘yield’ for me?”

I sighed. I knew what Mr. Roberts was getting at. “Do you want me to spell it the way I did at the spelling bee, or the correct way?”

“Whichever way you want.”

“Y, a stupid I, a stupid E, L, and D. You know what, I had never heard of that word before in the fourth grade. My older brother always sat in the front seat so it’s not like I ever saw the word on traffic signs.”

“So who won that spelling bee?”

“Not Seth thank god. What a dumbass though. It was just him and some sixth grade chick, and he couldn’t spell ‘announcement.’ He lost track of his n’s. I fucking knew how to spell it. I could’ve won. But whatever. He didn’t win. I was happy with that.”

“Were you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what happened when you and Seth came back to class.”

I sighed again. Mr. Roberts couldn’t stop prying. “As Seth walked through the door and to his desk, all the students were pounding the tables and chanting, ‘Seth! Seth! Seth! Seth! I trailed in silently behind him.”

Mr. Roberts nodded.

“Are we done yet? Can I wake the fuck up already?”

“Excuse me? Do you want to copy your first ‘Golden Rule’ poem?”

“Sorry. Can I wake up already?”

“Not yet, let’s go outside, shall we?”

“No—” I blinked once and suddenly found myself outside on the black top. My eyes didn’t even have time to adjust to the sunlight when I felt something smash against my shin. I fell to the asphalt. A bunch of kids stepped over me as they ran past me, and looking up, I saw a red rubber ball bouncing away.

I stood up, brushed the dirt off myself, and turned my head to see my classmates crowding around Seth, high-fiving his hands, patting his back, grabbing his shoulder, rubbing his head.

I retreated to the playground without looking back. I nearly hit my head against the monkey bars before settling on sitting at the end of a slide. Mr. Roberts appeared.

“Do you know what just happened?” he asked.

“Dodgeball. Seth, the last one remaining on his team, versus me, the last one remaining on my team.”

Mr. Roberts nodded. “Go on.”

“We tossed the ball back and forth for a bit. I always had pretty weak throws; I was better at dodging, but all the adrenaline had me throwing as hard as Seth did. After like, five minutes, I underestimated one of his throws, and the ball slipped right under my hands and hit me in the shin. Everybody cheered again for Seth, and I escaped to the playground. A few friends followed me to make sure I was okay, and I said I was, but, uh...I started crying a little.” I rubbed my face and was shocked to find it wet. “My friends asked me what was wrong, and I told them that my ‘torso’ was sore from catching the ball there so much. We had just done a unit on human skeletons and muscles in your class, so I thought it’d be appropriate to use some of the vocab. For some reason, my friends believed me, but of course, I was lying.”

Mr. Roberts didn’t say anything. He just looked at me apologetically, still nodding.

“Why? Why am I dreaming this? Can I enjoy the start of my Memorial Day weekend without having to think about all this?”

“Like I said earlier, you’ve had a lot of memories that you’ve repressed. This dream has helped them resurface. Maybe because you’re at a time when you need to look back, look back and let go in order to move on because right now Brian, you know that you’ve got a lot of baggage on you.”

“No I don’t.”

“Don’t try to hide the truth from yourself Brian. Truth—” he deepened his voice. Here came one of his classic Elvis impressions. “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, thank you Mr. Roberts. I’m going to go wake up now.”

I blinked my eyes a few times until I opened them to the sight of a white ceiling. I sat up on my bed and faced the light coming in through my apartment window. It was a sunny day in Irvine.