Earliest Memory

It involves a girl. And reeds. The sort that you run your hand down the head and all the little hairs came off in your hand and then you throw them to the sky, brown hair raining down.
Blue sky. Bright. Always shockingly bright. But sometimes dark rain clouds. Is this normal? Both at once?

Yes. Go on.

There's a fence running along the back of houses. It's a beach somewhere. South? Probably south. You can't see the beach but you can smell it. Are smells normal?

Yes. Please, go on.

Smells in memory? Memory always felt like a series of fading pictures.

Gardenias.

Oh? Gardenias?

Just that, for example, the smell of gardenias always brings me back to my grandmother's place. The backyard was full of them. An automatic sensory trigger that brings upon a memory relapse.

But there are so many beaches - why is the smell important here?

It places you at the beach. It's a location and temporal indicator. Without it, you could be anywhere. But the smell of the beach indicates a particular place and, with your records, gives us a more accurate timeframe to imprint.

So the smell isn't important?

Well, what sort of smell was it?

Hot. It was like vinegar and sunscreen and feeling the sand blowing, wearing away at your legs.

OK, good. Continue. Just try to get as much as possible.

There was a drain. The sort that runs past the back of all the houses and drains out at the sea. The one kids aren't supposed to play in because they drown.

About the girl...

Brown hair. It was in pigtails. She was popular in our class. I wasn't...

-

... She had green eyes. They were like tiny little marbles. She has braces and she looks into my eyes. And, for the first time, I really look at someone...

And then?

We hold hands, someone sees us and laughs and that's it. Nothing else. Is it enough?

For now. We've got Danielle giving a good parent picture and Sam's got first day of school. We might need you back in to do first kiss. Something to do with a record player might work well. Tanya's debriefing you today.