Stray Moments

N.d. Poems and Essays. By G. J. Gillespie. Web. 21 Jan. 2015.

Matan sat down to write his stray moments; he had trouble remembering any. He thought about what had happened in class; Ms. Marcus had explained stray moments, she gave examples of stray moments, Matan had thought of some stray moments then, but he couldn’t think of any now. Ms. Marcus said that they were events or actions that someone wouldn’t think about or remember later. He emailed Ms. Marcus to try to help him understand stray moments. When she replied, she gave a couple examples as well. As soon as he read the examples he couldn’t recall them. He re-read them and still, as soon as he looked away from the computer screen he couldn’t recall the memory. He wondered if this was just the nature of a stray moment: something disappearing from your mind as soon as you try to recall it. If that was the case then how would anyone even know what they were or give examples of them? He began to really think about this. He would experience something and think to himself, was that a stray moment? And then realize he wasn’t sure what he was thinking about. If a stray moment is a moment you can’t remember then is the word stray moment just an imaginary concept? He wondered.

 What if there were world events that only one person remembered, because everyone else passed it off as a stray moment. He couldn’t get over the fact that as soon as he thought anything was a stray moment it would disappear from his mind completely. The next day he went to Ms. Marcus’ room to see her during his free block and told her about his thoughts and feelings on the concept of a stray moment. He told all about how as soon as he tried to categorize a moment as a stray moment, it disappeared. She asked him where it went.       

“Where what went?” he replied.

“The stray moment,” Ms. Marcus reminded him.

“What stray moment?” Matan asked confused.

“The one we were just talking about…”

“I’m sorry I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

Matan left the classroom shortly after that. As the week went by, he began to feel more and more uneasy with the concept of stray moments.

Matan went in search for answers. He searched near and far, high and low, here and there. He finally found himself in Tel Aviv at the apartment of Edgar Keret: the man who had started it all for Matan. Matan knocked on the door and waited for an answer. Matan wondered how he would react to seeing a random teenager at his door with a mountain of questions. Edgar opened the door and saw Matan standing in the hallway apprehensively. Matan explained his situation to Edgar and Edgar looked back at Matan with a look of understanding. He invited Matan into his apartment. Matan sat down as Edgar offered him something to drink. Matan declined politely and asked him if they could talk.

“So you want to know about stray moments, right Matan?” Edgar said.

“Yes, I really would.” Matan replied desperately.

“ Well, they never really existed in the first place.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“They’re more of a concept than a reality.”

“But that doesn’t explain why I can’t remember them Mr. Keret.”

“It’s a difficult thing to explain, but I can try. They’re something that you only remember for an instant. After the first time you think of it, you can never think of it the same way again.”

“Then how do you write about them then?”

“You have to feel them and try to write them from emotions not from thinking.”

“So then theoretically couldn’t stray moments be dangerous for one's health, for example, if I thought that this whole encounter was a stray moment?”

As soon as the words left Matan’s mouth, the moment disappeared. Matan was standing outside a man’s apartment wondering how he got there. He waved off the situation as a weird fluke of nature.

He pondered the possibility of his life being just a stray moment thought up by some being of higher intelligence. As soon as he thought that, everything just ended. Everything Matan had ever known, or loved, or cared for, or thought about was gone. All of it gone in a millisecond.