What Used to Be Here

Terence met them at the station at ten. He had lived in the same suburb for forty years. He walked slowly, and it was not because of his legs.

He stopped at a building that was now a gym. “That used to be a cinema. Two screens. My wife worked in the ticket office.”

They crossed the bridge. The pavement was wet.

“There used to be a market here on Fridays. Fish at that end, flowers at this end. You couldn’t move.”

The avenue was crowded now with people who wanted coffee. Terence didn’t mention the coffee. He pointed at a bank and said it used to be a school, and then at a car park and said it used to be his school.

At the square they stopped by the fountain. The monument stood behind them, and neither visitor turned round to read it.

“And this?” the younger one asked.

“This is the same,” Terence said. “This never changed.”

Later, on the train home, the two visitors couldn’t remember a single shop in the town they had just walked through. They could remember the fish, the flowers, and the two screens.