There aren’t many things I remember from nursery, or was it reception, but this vivid memory is one of them.
Having no recollection of how we arrived here - I found myself crying, yapping to my teacher that the boys over there - hand raised and finger pointed towards the accused - no longer wanted to be friends with me.
As teachers do, professionally with an essence of maternal care that washed over all of us she asked the boys to come over and asked them if this was true?
‘And why can’t you be friends?’
The actual answer to that I really can’t remember - maybe they had a valid reason, maybe I wasn’t cool enough, maybe I said the wrong thing. She continued - ‘Now, all of you shake hands and make amends, there’s only one classroom so we’re all going to have to learn to live together and get along.’ So we shook hands and by the next morning it was forgotten - collectively together we moved on into the future, I don’t think we even became friends yet the pain of the heartache ceased.
No one left behind waiting for a train that the village knew was never going to come except for the earnest optimistic boy who was willing to wait, envisioning the infinite potentialities that spurred off his moment into their own trail like narratives, only one of which included that train to arrive eventually, and so he waits - just in case.
In the life of the mid-twenties, filled with delivered unopened envelopes and blocked memories buried alive, there are no teachers to look after us, guide us, ask us what exactly are you waiting for, force us to confront each other and ask us why - ask us why?
15:05:36 | 29/03/25
*yes, the title was a deliberate reference to Inception.
The piece as a whole was partially inspired by the piano soundtrack Ask me Why by Joe Hisaishi — featured in the wonderful Studio Ghibli film — The Boy in the Heron directed by Hayao Miyazaki.