Excerpt: November Elf

this is a key excerpt from “November Elf.” The setting is a typical business-district downtown street in a major city. Up to this point, the story has been a traditional first-person past tense. But memory, especially with this character, is a tricky thing. And at his age it’s just beginning. Still, if the encounter is what he believes it to be, this portion of the story conveys, as well as I could capture it, the confusion that should accompany the experience. If it is at all intriguing, please visitHogglepot and read the story.

I felt a light tingle in my temples. Was he erasing my memory? “Hey, wait a minute!” I yanked the glasses from the bridge of my nose.
“You’ve had trouble remembering,” he said.
“Well yes, but—”
“Then it’s a fair trade,” he said. “You’ve been most kind. Thank you.”
“What trade?”
He stared back pleasantly. A bus arrived. Its door opened with a whoosh and a clunk.
“Third Street,” said the driver.
I shook my head. The door hissed closed and a cloud of diesel followed the bus away. I checked the time on my cell. If I didn’t get moving, the commute would be torture.
I don’t recall why I sat at the bus stop that day, but the moment is vivid in my memory.

There is more leading up to this point, of course, and a little more that folllows. The narrative has been described as light and “breezy,” although the story itself is anything but.