Page 31 of Going Home in the Dark

“So we were following someone on foot? Is that it?”

“On foot. Yeah.”

“Who? Who were we following?”

“Wait, wait, wait. It’s coming back to me, too. I see ...”

“What do you see?”

“It’s autumn. Cool. Moonless.”

“Yeah. The four of us are walking along Winkler Street.”

“Secretly following someone on Winkler? No, it’s too well lit.”

“We weren’t following anyone yet.”

“What were we doing?”

“‘It was night in the lonesome October ...’”

“What?”

“‘Of my most immemorial year.’”

“That’s Poe.”

“‘It was hard by the dim lake of Auber.’”

“‘In the misty mid region of Weir.’”

“‘It was down by the dark tarn of Auber.’”

“‘In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.’”

“Are you serious. You two were reading poetry?”

“Not reading.”

“We memorized a lot of stuff. All of us.”

“Yeah. And sometimes we swapped lines while we walked.”

“Why? Why did we do that?”

“We were geeks.”

“We were hopeless geeks.”

“It was that bad?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. I don’t. Wait. Maybe. Yes! Cool, moonless, Poe.”

“Give us some.”

“Some what?”

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