five-thirty, again

Every year I seem to forget the night daylight savings ends.

An hour earlier than yesterday, the sun tucks away and the sky cools to a purple-blue, and I stop for a moment, wondering how the day slipped past me so quietly. With the moon watching from afar, the air turns a little more melancholy, and I grow a little more reflective. Each year it's the same soft ache, and I look around for where the day went. Under the laundry? Behind the doghouse? Only the crickets chirp in response, steady and indifferent.

Because it happens every year, it becomes a delicate thread connecting six-year-old me to sixteen-year-old me to the me of now, a quiet tug, a deja vu without a memory, just a faint ping from my past. Where was I last year when I felt this? Or the year before that? In a minute, I'll go back to folding laundry and forget this strange, soft flicker from my past selves, until next year, when the day slips away once more.

I wonder if the restaurant I meant to spend dinner at is still open—ah, I guess it's only 5:30.

Thank you to Tina Mai  for convincing me to share this piece.