Even as the words were crossing my lips I had no idea why I said it. It didn't fit within the context of the situation nor have any connection to a recent event or discussion. It just birthed from my mouth as the physical manifestation of an unprovoked memory breaking the surface of my consciousness. And in that instant, I was a child again.
The words were from a story I would listen to as a kid about a bear who hibernates in a cave. When he wakes up he finds that a factory has been built around his cave. He is mistaken for a worker by everyone he meets having to explain to them in storybook repetition how he is a bear, not a man. Each person responds in the same storybook rhythm and repetition the line that popped into my head.
The story was on a cassette that was a copy of an LP my mother used to listen to herself as a child. I remembered the huge collection of story tapes that we had, and how I would spend hours lying on the carpet in front of the tape deck listening to stories I had heard many times before. For a moment I was there again in our livingroom in Britain curled up on the carpet beside the heater listening to the stories of Norse gods, daring Arabians and the small baker who made himself into a talking pie.
This was the happiest moment of my day.
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