Recreation Center

They sit there, ragtag knights of yesterday’s round table, elbows on its plastic top occasionally slipping in a ketchup spill, they curse, lick at the aggrieved crazy bone like a cat cleaning after eating a bird, old men mining the past recollecting or inventing, piecing together the jigsaw of their time on earth. They recall the fish— or was it a woman— that got away to float listlessly forever in the mists of time, or do they just imagine? Well, if it didn’t happen exactly like that, they say, why does talking about it make them feel so bad? Others wrap themselves in their warrior’s cloak and loudly recall glory days that weren’t so glorious but surely could have been if they had gotten their chance. All on some level know that here today like yesterday and tomorrow in the company of their clan and its reconstructions of the past is the escape they are searching for as they face the black hole. They will bring you down, so give them a wide berth, but accord them due respect because in the fullness of time they are you and you are them.