The Pothole and the Forgers
In Lindley, right on the main road where the stones shine white like old bones, lies the Pothole. Not a hole- The Pothole. People pretend its ordinary, but everyone knows it steals small memories. Forget to greet it, forget something else.
A man once ignored it and misplaced his own birthday. A woman stepped over it carelessly and spent a week trying to recall her sugar measurements. Someone forgot his neighbour' s name; someone else forgot their prayer.
Only Little Charlie Mingus seems unfazed. Every day he plants tiny flowers inside the pothole- bright petals, bold colours, stubborn hope. Nobody understands him.
"Why you planting flowers in a hole that eats memories, " asks a neighbor, whose own name he lost somewhere last Thursday.
Little Charlie Mingus just smiles, pushing soil with gentle hands.
" The soil remembers us" he says.
" So we must remember it."
But the pothole stays, silent and hungry, swallowing little bits of forgetfulness while life carries on-loud, dusty, determined.
Some say it's cursed.
Some say it's lonely.
Some say memory itself needs a place to rest.
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