I plucked a plum out of the fridge. It stared back at me wearing a velvet dark dress with the coolness of Madame Gautreau. Its skin was thin but not brittle. Its meat broke apart, with a soft soulful resistance. It melted slowly, with a meandering sourness, a rich lusciousness, a nectarous aftertaste. It was golden honey but not cloying or maudlin. Its ambrosial juice seeps between my teeth and tongue yet coyly remained in the space within my palms like some playful sentient elixir. It spared my lethargic white shirt. Even after everything, where my eyes could see and my hands could hold, there stayed a deep red purple core, casting a shadow from yesteryear.

I would not miss the North Fork at all, I thought. But in the market two blocks away, there sat my missing antidote, disguised as a simple imperative: I must be here to eat it again! It tethered. It anchored. It erased. It shed me of the past. It saw the tears in my eyes. It declared viscerally Einmal ist keinmal. Most importantly, it is delicious. Sweet, succulent, merciful thing! The advantage of having a calamitous memory is that you can call it home anywhere you go.