flashing on random memories

[chronovore]

It's 05:20 on The Big Island of Hawaii; early grey light is pushing gently against the curtains. I woke up sneezing, so I leave the bedroom to avoid waking The Wife and The Boy. Pshauh, puh-shah, p-SHOW, one after another the sneezes are coming, I'm pinching the nerve in my septum to get it to stop, and put the TV on to distract myself; like hiccups, sneezes seem triggered by attention. I find MTV2 and watch a nightmarish video where the band members' faces are projected moving images on people wearing stocking masks. I am fascinated, and the sneezing stops.

It's morning in San Jose, and I'm in a stainless steel elevator going up to the 6th floor of that triangular building on Stevens Creek Blvd. just off Hwy. 280. The whole team has been working late nights trying to get our build in presentable shape to get the go-ahead for the next phase of development. I realize that in a few months I'll really feel nostalgic for these trips up the elevator, because they're about to end. Suddenly I find myself wondering where the thought came from, because it's filled with an absolute certainty. There's been no indication that the project is in danger, no unusual worries. The thought has the ring of inevitability to it. (Not long after that, in order to trim headcount for a purchase by the French during their game development shopping spree, the project was canceled and nearly the entirety of the team was laid off.)

It's an overcast afternoon at a shoreside amphitheater in Japan, the weather just becoming reasonable and fall-like cool after a sticky summer. My son is standing nearby; we're watching the grey, shimmering ocean, when half-meter long fish begin leaping out of the water, and splashing as the fall back in. Our heads are moving back and forth, like trying to watch a tennis game where the ball is invisible in transit.