I CAUGHT MYSELF SKIPPING THE OTHER DAY. There was nobody home, I hadn't done anything to fuck up, there was a full load of laundry now in the drier, and on the way to the steps up from the basement into the kitchen I made the familiar but remote gesture of hopping a little on the stepping foot. Ba-dump ba-dump instead of dump dump dump. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents theme song was in my head. I smelled pleasant detergent in the basement illuminated by the dim backyard light through the slatted laundry vent, divesting my senses of any rueful remembrance. For a full moment I was a child, untainted even by memory, which momentarily slept. It happened on a spot on the basement floor where a little bit of pink chalk remained, a hopscotch figure.
I hadn't skipped since I had been taught to march.