Speaker 1: Hollo, I moalcan stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: If it weren't for Maureen's postcard, her brisk, impatience script
Speaker 2: hauling me out of retirement, I'd never have come to
Speaker 2: her village on this blustery thumb of Cornish coast. But
Speaker 2: she'd written bring your walking boots and that nosy brain.
Speaker 2: You'll need both, then signed off with her usual flourish,
Speaker 2: a doodle of a half feet and biscuit. It was enough.
Speaker 2: I packed my small rucksack, slept fitfully, and set off
Speaker 2: through the long green heart of the country, trading trains
Speaker 2: for buses. As the roads grew narrower, the mist thicker,
Speaker 2: the world slipping quietly out from under its city skin.
Speaker 2: The last stretch, I drove Maureen's borrowed hatchback down, a
Speaker 2: single car wide lane, coiling like a string beside low
Speaker 2: stone walls. Fog pressed in, beating the windshields so densely
Speaker 2: that I saw the world only in flickers, bramble stands,
Speaker 2: a sheep veiled in silver, the shape of the road
Speaker 2: always one curve ahead of certainty. I kept the window cracked,
Speaker 2: letting the air's sultaness claim the inside of the car
Speaker 2: until the radio faded into faint white noise. By the
Speaker 2: time the first huddled cottages appeared, no house numbers, just
Speaker 2: carved names. I could hear the seas slow breathing behind
Speaker 2: it all. I was honestly unsure whether I'd crossed into
Speaker 2: a different year, let alone a different county. Maureen's bungalow
Speaker 2: squatted at the far edge of the lane, garden sodden
Speaker 2: but bursting chives, runner beans, nasturtiums. She opened the door
Speaker 2: with her hands in the flower, wiping them on her apron.
Speaker 2: You're early by at least twenty minutes, she announced, as
Speaker 2: if this was a character flow. Then she grinned, pulled
Speaker 2: me into her kitchen and set the kettle on home
Speaker 2: exhaled into the room, bread cooling on a wire rack,
Speaker 2: a radio tuned low to brass band music, and the
Speaker 2: comforting rattle of her ancient wall clock. I set my
Speaker 2: bag down on a chair and caught my breath for
Speaker 2: a moment, then noticed the calendar above the sideboard, nailed
Speaker 2: with miniature wooden pegs, hung a kitchen calendar with water
Speaker 2: color boats. The dates swung easily pushed into place by
Speaker 2: a small magnetic strip Friday two July, which was unmistakably yesterday.
Speaker 2: I double checked my phone. Its battery still clung to life,
Speaker 2: in spite of the patchy signal and long journey there.
Speaker 2: It was Saturday, three July zero eight thirty two. Maureen,
Speaker 2: I ventured trying to be casual. Your calendar's a day
Speaker 2: behind old habit, year's sorting post, a lifetime watching numbers, stamps, schedules,
Speaker 2: time tables. Er was my instinctive prey. She glanced over
Speaker 2: her shoulder with a flowery smile. Well, it's always yesterday here,
Speaker 2: isn't it. I waited for the wink or the shared joke.
Speaker 2: It didn't come. She buttered me a slab of home
Speaker 2: made bread and pressed a mug of tea into my hand.
Speaker 2: Eat that before it goes dry. Breakfast down at the
Speaker 2: Harbor Cafe. You'll love their kippers. Oh, don't let on
Speaker 2: about your posh phone signals hopeless and nobody cares. It
Speaker 2: was easier to let it go just then. Anyway. The
Speaker 2: kitchen window steamed up as we talked about our old lives.
Speaker 2: I described early retirement, too many empty afternoons, the peculiar
Speaker 2: ache of no longer being needed to know every post
Speaker 2: code by heart. Maureen slid packets of yeast across the
Speaker 2: table and told me about village life, her return after
Speaker 2: city years, the bruised hills, the relentless fog. Only after
Speaker 2: our conversation wandered through bread weather and the misadventures of
Speaker 2: the local fox, did my gaze find the calendar again.
Speaker 2: The date hung insistently behind her. Friday, two July. We
Speaker 2: wrapped up in scarves and wind breakers for the short
Speaker 2: walk to the cafe. The mist had thickened and the
Speaker 2: sea moved in slow pewter waves below the harbor wall.
Speaker 2: The village clustered around the curve of the bay like
Speaker 2: a child's drawing. The cafe was already filling with the
Speaker 2: morning crowd. Blackboards outside promised yesterday's catch, fresh on the
Speaker 2: griddle in bold chalk, salt, and new sprint hung in
Speaker 2: the air. A woman with coppery hair, Kirsten, Maureen's friend,
Speaker 2: served us without fuss. She handed me a till receipt
Speaker 2: for two breakfasts, kippers for me and poached eggs for Maureen.
Speaker 2: I looked down, almost laughing. Two July twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: printed clearly yesterday again. Forgive me, I said, hearing how
Speaker 2: prim it sounded. This says yesterday's date. Is that I
Speaker 2: trailed off, not wanting to seem fussy, especially so soon.
Speaker 2: Kurston just shrugged, unconcerned. That's right. Breakfast es always better.
Speaker 2: The day after, she flashed a smile and swept another
Speaker 2: receipt from the machine, but stamping it and passing it
Speaker 2: to the next table. The local newspaper in the rack,
Speaker 2: a four pager titled The Echo, was headlined high winds
Speaker 2: predicted for yesterday. Its content the school's summer play staged yesterday.
Speaker 2: The calendar of events all finished as of yesterday. A
Speaker 2: recipe for leftover mackerel, good luck next time, Rowland with
Speaker 2: a photograph of a beaming fisherman clutching a lifeless dogfish
Speaker 2: caught yesterday morning. I blinked, feeling as if I'd missed
Speaker 2: the rehearsal for a joke. But everyone else seemed at home.
Speaker 2: The children outside played hopscotch, chanting indistinct skip rope rhymes
Speaker 2: that always seemed to end with like yesterday. The cafe
Speaker 2: regulars haggled over football scores. That was yesterday, wasn't it? Arthur.
Speaker 2: All the best matches always yesterday, if you ask me.
Speaker 2: The post office stood a few paces from the water,
Speaker 2: wedged between an ice cream hatch and the pub. At
Speaker 2: Maureen's urging, I wrote a postcard to my niece, noting
Speaker 2: my safe arrival and more Maureen's enduring refusal to sugar
Speaker 2: her tea missus jedge. The postmistress pressed the card onto
Speaker 2: her battered rubber mat, inking it with a cheerful whack
Speaker 2: two Jul twenty one. She nodded, approvingly, smashing handwriting neat
Speaker 2: as they come, no hint that anything was a miss.
Speaker 2: On our way back after breakfast, every window box and
Speaker 2: signs seemed both ordinary and untouchable, as if protected by
Speaker 2: some invisible bubble. A girl outside the bakery scrawled her
Speaker 2: name in pink chalk across the pavement. Her friend corrected her,
Speaker 2: you forgot it's yesterday. The girl giggled, erased the date,
Speaker 2: and scrawled two July beside her lopsided signature. As the
Speaker 2: day let up, Maureen steered me through looping lanes along
Speaker 2: the harbour. The fog never lifted, just changed character, sometimes
Speaker 2: pearled and soft, sometimes as dense as cotton. Batting. I
Speaker 2: watched three men men's nets by a lobster boat, their
Speaker 2: laughter carrying up to where cormorants stretched their wings. All
Speaker 2: the while a gentle confusion prickled at me, settling just
Speaker 2: out of reach. It wasn't misunderstanding, not quite. It was
Speaker 2: as if the village had collectively agreed to live on
Speaker 2: yesterday and everyone else had forgotten to catch up. Later,
Speaker 2: as we returned for tea, I asked Maureen whether anyone
Speaker 2: ever got mixed up by all this. She was already
Speaker 2: in the doorway, unwinding her scarf. Mixed up, she called,
Speaker 2: it's just how we do things. You'll get used to
Speaker 2: it soon enough, same as everyone. So I left it
Speaker 2: for the moment, pretending badly to let my curiosity lie.
Speaker 2: But that night, as the lamps winked along the harbor
Speaker 2: wall and the fog tightened its grip, I couldn't shake
Speaker 2: the thought was it really just custom? Or had I
Speaker 2: stumbled on the enduring shadow of some older, deeper thing.
Speaker 2: By the time I tucked myself into Maureen's spare bed,
Speaker 2: her neighbor's dog barking somewhere in the haze, my last
Speaker 2: thought was, what if here to day is truly impossible.
Speaker 2: Morning in Moureen's house was always blessedly the same. I
Speaker 2: found comfort in that, at least at first, the kettle,
Speaker 2: the serial bowls stacked like coins, the veined hands that
Speaker 2: knew the local forecast by the color of the dew.
Speaker 2: The second day, though already I was uneasy with day,
Speaker 2: as the word seemed to slip, I wove myself into
Speaker 2: Maureen's routines. Laun died yesterday's socks, planned to walk the
Speaker 2: headland if the fog didn't choke it. Rowland arrived just
Speaker 2: after breakfast, with a battered wool cap in hand and
Speaker 2: cheeks burnished by the wind. He greeted me as though
Speaker 2: he'd only just remembered who I was, Maureen's city friend.
Speaker 2: You got caught in the tide, then, did you. His
Speaker 2: laughter made the mugs rattle. Maureen rolled her eyes, giving
Speaker 2: her the scare stories. Already, row they're true, he insisted,
Speaker 2: eyes bright. The village'll keep you busy. What you don't
Speaker 2: lose track of yourself is all. The morning went by
Speaker 2: a mother errands. Maureen delivered rolls of twine and checked
Speaker 2: in on missus Jeedge at the post office, who was
Speaker 2: embroiled in a logic puzzle with an elderly fisherman named Davy.
Speaker 2: Their banter was affectionate and sharper than the salt air.
Speaker 2: Davy tried to send a birthday card with no stamp. Again,
Speaker 2: Maureen explained quietly. He's terrible about it. But Missus Jedgell
Speaker 2: pretended slipped through. She always does. Missus jedge herself was
Speaker 2: a study and cheerful contradiction, white hair woven in a
Speaker 2: tight coil, eyes that missed little we get by, she
Speaker 2: told me after I tried to help with the puzzle.
Speaker 2: Folk have their habits you as well. I shouldn't wonder.
Speaker 2: Mine's a hot water bottle every day, even when it's
Speaker 2: warm outside. The children's skipping games circled through the winding lanes,
Speaker 2: their rhyme, dancing between sense and nonsense. Yesterday yesterday round
Speaker 2: and around Yesterday lost and yesterday found. The bakery smelling
Speaker 2: of caramelized sugar and seaweed loaves, had piles of burnt
Speaker 2: buns at the counter that nobody claimed fresh batch for tomorrow.
Speaker 2: If you're keen, the baker called, as if the idea
Speaker 2: itself was a fresh baked treat lunch was a communal
Speaker 2: affair at the sole pub, the sailor's knot hard by
Speaker 2: the sea wall. Benches pressed together as locals brought out
Speaker 2: whatever they'd caught or baked. Crab sandwiches dripping past these
Speaker 2: bowls of chowder dolled up with dock leaves. A chalkboard
Speaker 2: menu leaned at a dangerous angle behind the bar Rowland
Speaker 2: was telling a story about a lobster with the face
Speaker 2: of a priest when the vicar appeared in the doorway, hatless,
Speaker 2: spectacles fogged. Reverend Carmichael was younger than I'd expected, gentle faced,
Speaker 2: uncertain in his steps. He greeted everyone by name and
Speaker 2: sat for a soft pint. Someone called out, is tomorrow's service,
Speaker 2: the charity lunch or the washed out cricket match. The
Speaker 2: vicar gave a gentle bank shrug. We'll see what yesterday
Speaker 2: had to say about that. I've learned not to schedule
Speaker 2: too much ahead. Everyone laughed, some with more feeling than others.
Speaker 2: As the plates cleared, Maureen turned to me, you get
Speaker 2: used to the way we do things, don't worry. Folk
Speaker 2: are odd everywhere. Yet during the brief hush that followed,
Speaker 2: I felt myself outside something tender and intricate, a fabric
Speaker 2: I wasn't woven into, not yet. On errands with Missus
Speaker 2: Jedge that afternoon, I watched her perform what was clearly
Speaker 2: a ritual, sorting incoming mail and stamping each piece, the
Speaker 2: numbers crisply inking yesterday's date. The stacks rose and shifted,
Speaker 2: but the rhythm held steady. I've tried to change it
Speaker 2: for outsiders, she said, when I peeked over her shoulder,
Speaker 2: but somehow it always comes back right, don't you miss
Speaker 2: making the rounds? Her voice softened. She glanced at her
Speaker 2: battered stamp, then at me. Never mind, you'll see evening
Speaker 2: descended in pearled layers. The children's laughter faded, replaced by
Speaker 2: the shanty voices of fishermen making their last rounds. A
Speaker 2: group played darts outside the pub. Another gathered with battered
Speaker 2: radios to listen for the weather, always yesterday's, of course.
Speaker 2: Maureen and I ate a second supper by the window,
Speaker 2: the fog pressing gentle against the glass. I pulled out
Speaker 2: a paperback and tried to lose myself, but found the
Speaker 2: words slipping sideways. At some point, as the flame of
Speaker 2: the lone candle wavered, the clock ticked past a time
Speaker 2: that didn't feel like to day at all. I put
Speaker 2: the book aside, overcome by a peculiar pleasant sadness, like
Speaker 2: missing a train you d already decided not to catch. Still,
Speaker 2: the odd hitch persisted. Every time I glanced at a
Speaker 2: clock or calendar or label or sign. It was yesterday's day.
Speaker 2: Not simply carelessness, something more enveloping, as though the village's
Speaker 2: logic wrapped tightly around itself. The routines and the people
Speaker 2: gave nothing away, And if the matter of time ever
Speaker 2: hinted at contradiction, it swept the blush away with an
Speaker 2: easy joke. It was on the third evening, my sense
Speaker 2: of days already unspooling, that things shifted. The sailor's knot
Speaker 2: was strung with colored bunting for weekend quiz night. I
Speaker 2: relished the chance to wet my bureaucratic instincts, facts, figures, teams, stakes,
Speaker 2: as innocent as a free dessert. Locals clustered around plank
Speaker 2: tables under dim pressed glass lamps. Roland ran the questions,
Speaker 2: his voice echoing through the beams. At our table, the
Speaker 2: usual jostle of pencils and squabbling over which king built
Speaker 2: what The mood was raucous elbows everywhere, buttered crumbs cascading
Speaker 2: from the battle for crisps. At one point, a mild
Speaker 2: dispute arose, which day did the railway close back in
Speaker 2: the seventies? Yesterday, crowed Arthur, a round cheeked man with
Speaker 2: more belly than memory. It was Tuesday or Wednesday? His
Speaker 2: wife insisted, I'd had enough after so many receipts ink
Speaker 2: to skew. It was reflex to reach for my phone,
Speaker 2: tucked now in my jacket, in defiance of Maureen's warnings.
Speaker 2: No service, as ever, But the locks screen calmly displayed
Speaker 2: its verdict, Saturday, three July to day's date, at least
Speaker 2: outside these walls. To settle the argument, I read the
Speaker 2: date aloud, Saturday, third of July to day. For a beat.
Speaker 2: That word echoed in the smoky hush. Arthur shrugged, unconcerned
Speaker 2: if you say so. But it'll be yesterday soon enough,
Speaker 2: won't it. Norah? Everyone laughed. Behind the bar, the chalkboard
Speaker 2: listed Sunday roast served yesterday, try again to morrow. To
Speaker 2: the right a sign promised specials from last night, and
Speaker 2: in the far corner, a woman celebrated her birthday paper
Speaker 2: hatter skew cake, bearing a stubby candle. Happy birthday yesterday,
Speaker 2: my brow knitted. Doesn't anyone get confused? Used? I asked
Speaker 2: mareing quietly as the quiz wound up, our team decisively
Speaker 2: fifth place. She hesitated a fraction too long. What's to confuse?
Speaker 2: It's always yesterday, isn't it the same everywhere? Her voice
Speaker 2: was mild, but clipped, humorless. For once, she looked away,
Speaker 2: busied herself wiping a stray crumb from the table. I
Speaker 2: sat for a while in the gentle swirl of laughter
Speaker 2: and clinking glasses, the ordinary warmth of village camaraderie humming
Speaker 2: around me, and felt the contradiction settle. This wasn't backwardness
Speaker 2: or parochial sloth. It was an unyielding communal logic, so persistent,
Speaker 2: so complete, it had erased the possibility of to day.
Speaker 2: Even when I pressed, even when I challenged, the answer
Speaker 2: always the same, rippled back like the tide. Here there
Speaker 2: was only ever yesterday. And with that my curiosity cooled
Speaker 2: into a stubborn, growing flame. How could this be linguistic quirk,
Speaker 2: A secret joke kept alive out of principle or fast stranger,
Speaker 2: a tight communal turning away from time itself, I found
Speaker 2: I wanted to test the fabric, to push against the
Speaker 2: village's boundaries, not out of disbelief, but because something inside
Speaker 2: me thrilled at the quiet, persistent impossibility of it. All
Speaker 2: the next several days, or more precisely, what felt like days,
Speaker 2: I pressed further, the fog barely thinned. I made a
Speaker 2: habit of walking, not necessarily anywhere, but from Landmark to
Speaker 2: Landmark Harbor, the battered fish market, the muddy crescent of
Speaker 2: the town square, ringed by undaunted petunias. Each corner had
Speaker 2: its own minor rituals. At the bakery, I waited in
Speaker 2: line as missus penherligen, hands dusted white, presided over a
Speaker 2: string of apologies for burnt crusts. That batch always yesterday's mishap.
Speaker 2: You know how it is, she said, each time, winking
Speaker 2: at her customers, who nodded as though the event were
Speaker 2: breaking news. The grosser, mister Haw, a string bean of
Speaker 2: a man with hands permanently inked by soil, welcomed me
Speaker 2: in crates of root vege glistened in the misty light,
Speaker 2: fresh delivery from yesterday, as usual, he said, stacking new
Speaker 2: turnips atop old. No one batted an eyelid. Inside the church,
Speaker 2: the bulletin board, adorned with thumb tacks and curling fliers,
Speaker 2: listed the coming week's service seven thirty p m. The
Speaker 2: parable of the sewer yesterday's reading. I ran my finger
Speaker 2: down the list. Not a single Tomorrow, not a single
Speaker 2: to day, just a gentle waterfall of yesterday's. I tried
Speaker 2: to arrange coffee with Kurston at the cafe, asking are
Speaker 2: you free to morrow morning? She blinked at me briefly baffled, Oh,
Speaker 2: just drop by, you know, like you did yesterday. I smiled,
Speaker 2: though something in me tightened. That afternoon, I lingered in
Speaker 2: the post office, watching missus Jedge process a queue. Every
Speaker 2: single envelope, every stub of a receipt carried the same
Speaker 2: date to j u l twenty one, though by my
Speaker 2: watch that date lay farther and farther behind the chalk
Speaker 2: board propped outside confirmed tea cakes fresh batch yesterday. My
Speaker 2: discomfort sharpened quietly. When the street was empty, I rubbed
Speaker 2: off the date with the side of my coat sleeve
Speaker 2: and chalked into days bold and blocky. The next morning,
Speaker 2: hurrying back despite Maureen's caution, you'll catch her chill, I
Speaker 2: found the board freshly raised two July written in the
Speaker 2: looping hand I'd seen everywhere. The street itself seemed unchanged,
Speaker 2: perhaps a bit emptier, or perhaps that was only the
Speaker 2: mist thickening Again. Looking for firmer evidence, I questioned people
Speaker 2: more directly. Missus Jedge, unfazed, told me the same anecdote
Speaker 2: twice on consecutive days, the time her cat got into
Speaker 2: the village Fate's cream. The punch line always just yesterday,
Speaker 2: mind you. The details shifted a little, but never the timing. Outside,
Speaker 2: a trio of children bounced on the stoop with balloon
Speaker 2: animals and hats still glued to their hair. Did you
Speaker 2: just have a party? I asked brightly. Yesterday was my birthday.
Speaker 2: One girl piped up, But there's still cake and hats.
Speaker 2: When's the next party? Another child frowned. Suppose it was yesterday,
Speaker 2: wasn't it? They eyed me as if searching for a
Speaker 2: riddle's answer. Late that afternoon, I tried to tally my
Speaker 2: own stay. How many nights now? Three? Four? I opened
Speaker 2: my battered travel diary to check My entries were neat enough,
Speaker 2: but every single one it must have been a mechanical error.
Speaker 2: Began yesterday, my handwriting my ink, But a single relentless word.
Speaker 2: Anything I wrote about a walk along the fog or
Speaker 2: the taste of Maureen's chowder could have been any yesterday
Speaker 2: at all. The Inn's guest Book, which I leaped through
Speaker 2: one morning while pretending to search for a lost earring,
Speaker 2: showed each hand carefully inscribing arrived yesterday, different writers, subtle
Speaker 2: variations in accent or free raising, and always the repetition.
Speaker 2: Village life never seemed to change. Gears only shifted gently
Speaker 2: back and forth between familiar rituals. Each evening I watched
Speaker 2: the fisherman's lanterns bloom along the quay. Each morning, Maureen
Speaker 2: pulled bakestone crumpets and blue eggs from a wire basket,
Speaker 2: as if serving me for the first time, and yet
Speaker 2: underneath the surface rippled. Sometimes small details of yesterday were different.
Speaker 2: The bread's crust burned in a fresh accidental spiral. The
Speaker 2: children's game coming up with new rhymes, the quiz night
Speaker 2: winner changing name, sometimes Arthur, sometimes Joan, but always celebrating
Speaker 2: yesterday's win. It dawned on me. This was no mere oversight,
Speaker 2: no accidental error, no sly wink. Something about the village, socially, behaviorally,
Speaker 2: even physically, was composed entirely around yesterday. Communal and private
Speaker 2: memory bent itself into that shape. Public records, receipts, and
Speaker 2: seemingly even objects gravitated there of their own accord. For
Speaker 2: the first time, I wondered if it was possible to escape.
Speaker 2: Was there a trick, some social dare or taboo I'd missed?
Speaker 2: After another silent afternoon, fog always fog, as if the
Speaker 2: sea itself had decided to squat on the roof tiles,
Speaker 2: I put the question directly to Maureen, as we sat
Speaker 2: sorting runner beans in her kitchen. Didn't you ever want
Speaker 2: to live somewhere you could plan for to morrow or
Speaker 2: just wake up and no it was a new day.
Speaker 2: She looked at me flatly. It's always been this way.
Speaker 2: You get used to it. She looked out the window,
Speaker 2: then back. I suppose you get to choose what suits
Speaker 2: you in the end, don't you. Rowland popped in later,
Speaker 2: brined through with the smell of fish and ailskins, arms
Speaker 2: full of crab pots. I caught him before he hustled
Speaker 2: away Rowland. Growing up, did you ever talk about to morrow?
Speaker 2: Was it ever different? He pondered. Mum say there'll be
Speaker 2: a storm to morrow, so stay in to day. But
Speaker 2: it never came, not that I remember. After a while,
Speaker 2: it was just best keep yesterday safer that way, he
Speaker 2: shrugged folk from outside talk about next week, But none
Speaker 2: of it makes much difference in the end. Testing myself,
Speaker 2: I set my digital watch to Greenwich time, wound my
Speaker 2: old postal stopwatch, and set an alarm on my phone
Speaker 2: for eight am to day. That night, I left sticky
Speaker 2: notes scattered on my book jacket, the mirror, the fridge
Speaker 2: to day Sunday, July four. I woke to faint sunlight
Speaker 2: across my bed, the faint hiss of the tide out
Speaker 2: beyond the glass. The alarm was ringing, but the watch
Speaker 2: stubbornly displayed Saturday, too July, and the sticky notes, though
Speaker 2: clearly written by my hand, now bore yesterday too July.
Speaker 2: I felt a pulse of triumph. The experiment had proven something,
Speaker 2: even if I couldn't say what, but also a strange shiver.
Speaker 2: Whatever the explanation, it ran deeper than a lazy joke.
Speaker 2: Breakfast with Maureen was a mirror of every day before.
Speaker 2: Toast raspberry jam TEA feel like I'm serving you for
Speaker 2: the first time, eh, she winked. We shared out kitchen
Speaker 2: talk when you went away before, Maureen, was it strange
Speaker 2: coming back? She considered, London was different but lonely in ways.
Speaker 2: Folk here can't imagine time gets away from you. Here,
Speaker 2: at least you know where you stand. I sat quietly
Speaker 2: my old life, a world of post marks, departure times,
Speaker 2: neat color coded calendars had once felt rooted. Now it felt,
Speaker 2: in its own way, artificial boxes to hold nothing but
Speaker 2: forward motion. But here yesterday was a walled garden. Days
Speaker 2: trickled onward and perhaps backward. My phones messages stopped coming
Speaker 2: in entirely. The outside world began to feel as distant
Speaker 2: as a half remembered film. It was only when I
Speaker 2: found myself standing one fog afternoon at the end of
Speaker 2: the pier, where red paint faded in curling scales and
Speaker 2: salt air buzzed against my skin, that I felt the
Speaker 2: first tremor of unease, Not fear, but an ache for context.
Speaker 2: I was part of this pattern now, whether I wanted
Speaker 2: it or not. Trying to shake the static from my brain,
Speaker 2: I prowled the edges of the town square. There, near
Speaker 2: the derelict end of the row stood the village library doors,
Speaker 2: chained windows, clouded over by decades of dust and warped glass,
Speaker 2: a sign half lost to time read closed for inventory yesterday.
Speaker 2: I rounded up Maureen, who produced a large, jangling ring
Speaker 2: of keys that would have survived the blitz. It's nothing special.
Speaker 2: Stopped using it after the council cuts. But there's books, ledgers,
Speaker 2: tatty cards, roch used to keep the good biscuits in there,
Speaker 2: she said, rattling the key in the stiff lock. The
Speaker 2: door protested but yielded, swinging open just far enough for
Speaker 2: the two of us to set slip inside. The smell
Speaker 2: of mildew was less oppressive than I expected. Books, after all,
Speaker 2: made decent air filters if you gave them enough time.
Speaker 2: Inside the floor was lined with ledger boxes, stacking shelves,
Speaker 2: warping under the weight of parish histories, school registers, account books,
Speaker 2: and dog eared catalogs. Dust fell like soft snow as
Speaker 2: Maureen flicked on a corroded lamp. Near the window were
Speaker 2: two battered boxes labeled visitors I drew one toward me.
Speaker 2: The top was filled with signing in books for a
Speaker 2: half century visited July one, two thousand three, arrived yesterday,
Speaker 2: left blank dozens of hands. Every decade, every script arrived yesterday,
Speaker 2: I opened school registers, students listed for yesterday's session, attendants
Speaker 2: always meticulous, never extending forward. In the parish accounting books,
Speaker 2: church festivals, regattas, and baptisms, all zipped up in a
Speaker 2: collar of yesterday's. Even the very old, brittle papers kept
Speaker 2: to the ritual. The only blank spaces tomorrow's crossed out,
Speaker 2: sodden with correction fluid. On one low shelf, children's coloring
Speaker 2: books were stacked every drawing dated yesterday. I ran my
Speaker 2: thumb along the crayon petals, feeling the stubbornness in the paper.
Speaker 2: In the back, a battered photograph album held curled images
Speaker 2: crowds waving flags emblazoned Yesterday's festival and the Great Carnival
Speaker 2: of Yesterday, each year, the same title, new faces grinning
Speaker 2: uncertainly at the lens. The penny dropped. It wasn't that
Speaker 2: the village had simply lost track of days. It had
Speaker 2: collectively chosen, or perhaps been compelled to fix every public
Speaker 2: and private moment to the anchor of yesterday. No record
Speaker 2: pushed forward, no document permitted a tomorrow. I moved into
Speaker 2: the next room, Maureen trailing behind. Look at this, I said, quietly,
Speaker 2: holding up a faded envelope. It was addressed to the
Speaker 2: post office in the next village, dated in a careful,
Speaker 2: old fashioned hand yesterday, decades ago. The bundle had yellowed
Speaker 2: and never been posted. Shelves upon shelves were stacked with
Speaker 2: similar letters, birth announcements, change of addressed cards, invitations, each
Speaker 2: bearing the unmoving postmark of yesterday. Even more peculiarly, the
Speaker 2: ink and stamps felt fresh, as if they had been
Speaker 2: added only that morning. I sought it through a handful
Speaker 2: until my fingers shook. At the back, a small stack
Speaker 2: of undelivered letters was bound with elastic. One bore my
Speaker 2: own handwriting yesterday's date. Though I had posted it only
Speaker 2: a day ago. All it seemed never truly left, Maureen.
Speaker 2: Do you think I started? Then paused, turning a postcard
Speaker 2: over in my hands. The postmark in Missus Jedge's quick
Speaker 2: arched script marked T j U L twenty one, exactly
Speaker 2: matching every other record, No matter the day, Maureen considered.
Speaker 2: If it were up to me, I'd say it was
Speaker 2: just habit or an old joke. But you see how
Speaker 2: the stamp never sticks, don't you never folds forward into
Speaker 2: the next day. She looked tired, as if the admission
Speaker 2: had cost her. In the far back, I found a
Speaker 2: faded black and white photograph edges curled under. My heart stuttered.
Speaker 2: It was a younger version of Peter, an old sorting
Speaker 2: office colleague, his shock of wild hair unmistakable even through
Speaker 2: the years, visited yesterday, noted underneath in his handwriting a
Speaker 2: date from nineteen seventy two. Is he did he come here?
Speaker 2: I asked softly. Maureen glanced at the picture. Peter, Oh, yes,
Speaker 2: funny sort always carried two watches, complained about radio signals,
Speaker 2: left his note book behind. I think she shrugged. I
Speaker 2: slumped onto a crate of pamphlets, feeling the logic of
Speaker 2: my old world crumple, replaced by something more persistent, and somehow,
Speaker 2: though it defied every habit of a life spent chasing punctuality,
Speaker 2: almost soothing, in this archive, whole lives unfurled and folded
Speaker 2: up again, pinned forever to yesterday, every piece of evidence, ledgers, photographs, posts,
Speaker 2: memories pivoted not on secrecy or rural sloppiness, but a shared,
Speaker 2: robust truth. That evening, walking back through a village shrouded
Speaker 2: in sea mist, I felt my purpose changing shape. I
Speaker 2: was no longer here to marvel at a local oddity
Speaker 2: or correct a communal lapse. The yesterday of this place
Speaker 2: was a living thing, occupied, shaped and preserved across centuries
Speaker 2: and generations by people I now cared for, and by
Speaker 2: a pattern that lured me even as I resisted it.
Speaker 2: I'd always believed I could file, sort, and stamp the
Speaker 2: universe into neat lines. Here, none of my tools fit.
Speaker 2: This was not carelessness or tradition or accident. It was
Speaker 2: a fact, as real and operative as the tide. Abruptly,
Speaker 2: I wanted to know what anchored yesterday to this village.
Speaker 2: Was there an origin, story, a bargain, a curse? Did
Speaker 2: it have limits? Or was I simply witnessing a reality
Speaker 2: that quietly overturned everything I had ever trusted about clocks, labels,
Speaker 2: the soft machinery of days. The library door shut behind us,
Speaker 2: Maureen and I stepped out into the growing dusk. I
Speaker 2: turned on the path and gazed back at the sign
Speaker 2: above closed for inventory yesterday. Somewhere inside me, deep and
Speaker 2: not unpleasant curiosity surged up, alongside a kind of wild,
Speaker 2: skeptical thrill. Tomorrow, if it came here, would be the
Speaker 2: first in a very long time. We walked home from
Speaker 2: the library, with the sea fog still pressing in faintly
Speaker 2: phosphorescent along the lanes, the lamp at the corner blurring
Speaker 2: into a watery bloom. Maureen didn't talk much, but neither
Speaker 2: did she hurry, and I found I was grateful for
Speaker 2: her presence, grounding as sturdy as her gait. The door
Speaker 2: to her house squawked as we went in, and warmth
Speaker 2: gathered us up, the slow tick of her kitchen clock,
Speaker 2: the rumble of the kettle once more. That night passed
Speaker 2: in restlessness. Sleep, when it came was thin, pocked with
Speaker 2: half remembered conversations and a persistent undertow of calender pages
Speaker 2: fluttering endlessly back over older dates. When the sun managed
Speaker 2: to burn through a slice of fog the next morning,
Speaker 2: I slid from my borrowed bed, determined in a way
Speaker 2: I had not felt before, if the answer was going
Speaker 2: to show itself, I had to prod the boundaries. I
Speaker 2: would not merely drift in the tide. I wanted needed
Speaker 2: to know what sustained yesterday, and whether I or any
Speaker 2: one could loosen its anchor over porridge. I nudged Maureen,
Speaker 2: who in the village has lived here the longest, not
Speaker 2: just in years, some one who remembers old ways, stories,
Speaker 2: things from long before your time or mine. She worked
Speaker 2: sugar into her own bowl. Considered tams In blight up
Speaker 2: by the headland, last cottage before the cliff's let out.
Speaker 2: She's been here longer than any one alive. Bit prickly.
Speaker 2: But if it's stories you want, she'll have them, she
Speaker 2: looked straight at me. Just don't get your hopes up
Speaker 2: about well satisfying explanations. I found Tamsin's cottage cowering at
Speaker 2: the edge of land, thumped by wind and years. Its
Speaker 2: painted gait was hung with cow parsley and bells of foxglove,
Speaker 2: both rattling cheerfully in a salty gust. The air up
Speaker 2: there thinned as it met the first hard edge of sky.
Speaker 2: Tams In herself opened the door after my third knock,
Speaker 2: thin as driftwood, wrapped in three jumpers and an old
Speaker 2: lace curtain knotted for a scarf. Her eyes were the pale,
Speaker 2: unblinking blue of whelk shells. Oh, she said softly, yesterday's postmaster,
Speaker 2: come to see if an old woman can remember to day.
Speaker 2: I suppressed my embarrassment and greeted her carefully, explaining that
Speaker 2: I was a friend of Maureen's, interested in stories about
Speaker 2: storm and calenders and how things came to be as
Speaker 2: they were in the village. She laughed, not unkindly, and
Speaker 2: waved me inside. Her rooms held the faded clutter of decades,
Speaker 2: photos on tented edges, pieces of driftwood, a mug painted
Speaker 2: in childish hand, best gran yesterday. The hearth sagged with
Speaker 2: the lateness of unburnt peat. She brewed us a pot
Speaker 2: of drastically strong tea, spooned over with thick, unctuous cream,
Speaker 2: and watched me over the rim. I'll answer what I can,
Speaker 2: she said, but you'll find some things are just the
Speaker 2: air you breathe. I never knew it any different, I asked, directly.
Speaker 2: Has it always been yesterday here? Did anyone ever try
Speaker 2: to keep a calender straight? She smiled, her tongue flicking
Speaker 2: between her teeth. When I was a slip of a girl,
Speaker 2: my mother used to say, it's always easier to remember
Speaker 2: what's past than what's to come. Her mother, same tale,
Speaker 2: and so on, back and back. Folk round here don't
Speaker 2: let go of old habits lightly. But why I pressed
Speaker 2: gentler than before? Was there ever a reason? Tamsin's eyes
Speaker 2: glazed with memory, or perhaps with a natural resistance to
Speaker 2: being pried open. Suppose you've heard the old story. Then,
Speaker 2: when the storm came, a roaring, killing wind, with the
Speaker 2: sea on its shoulders, folk in the village, or so
Speaker 2: they say, made a bargain with whatever keeps us anchored,
Speaker 2: gave away to morrow for everlasting calm. So the boats
Speaker 2: always came home. Storm never quite landed, except beyond the head,
Speaker 2: where the rocks eat what walks too close. She fell
Speaker 2: silent for so long I thought she'd finished, staring at
Speaker 2: her hearth, as if reading a water mark in the soot,
Speaker 2: you know, she added, finally, it's not the losing of
Speaker 2: to morrow that stings, not unless you've something worth hurrying toward.
Speaker 2: We always had what we needed enough for every yesterday.
Speaker 2: After a while, you learn it's enough. Storms stayed in
Speaker 2: some one else's sky. We drank for a while in silence,
Speaker 2: the wind pressed on the window, carrying the gull's complaints,
Speaker 2: I realized she was not only unconcerned by the loss
Speaker 2: of to morrow, but almost protective of it. Bemused at
Speaker 2: my insistence, I tried another tack the fog. I've noticed
Speaker 2: it never clears completely. Has any one ever seen out
Speaker 2: past it? Left for a day and returned? Why do
Speaker 2: you want to go past the fog? She counted, eyebrow sharp.
Speaker 2: What's so fine about to morrow? Anyway? Folk try always
Speaker 2: find themselves back at the quay, boots damp, memory, soft
Speaker 2: as a bruise. Maybe that's the bargain. Maybe not for
Speaker 2: a moment, her lips quivered with a smile. If you
Speaker 2: can see through the fog, maybe you'll catch a glimpse
Speaker 2: of to morrow. But no one here ever has not truly.
Speaker 2: She rummaged for biscuits and pressed them into my palm,
Speaker 2: and the conversation drifted into kinder topics, weather and recalcitrant hens. Still,
Speaker 2: I left the cottage with her last questions stuck to
Speaker 2: me like sea weed. Why is tomorrow so important to you?
Speaker 2: Fog accompanied me half way back, and I turned over
Speaker 2: her words while clouds rolled low and pulled threads of
Speaker 2: old anxiety. Was I chasing some hope of escape? Or
Speaker 2: did all my old boundaries, dates, clocks, stamps suddenly seemed
Speaker 2: pale in the face of such contented stasis that restless
Speaker 2: energy broke out. When I found Maureen prepping a batch
Speaker 2: of batter for the weekly market, I pulled her aside, breathless,
Speaker 2: Will you help me try something? She eyed me with suspicion,
Speaker 2: but nodded, depends on what we make it. Everything everywhere,
Speaker 2: say to day or even to morrow, for once, change
Speaker 2: every sign, the menu, the pub board, the church, everything,
Speaker 2: See if it sticks. She called for Rowland, and he
Speaker 2: gamely joined us with only the smallest display of skepticism.
Speaker 2: Three hands, a bucket of chalk, a pocket full of sharpies,
Speaker 2: and more brio than sense. We swept through the village quietly,
Speaker 2: erasing and rewriting blackboards at the bakery to day's bread,
Speaker 2: grocer's window, fresh produce harvested to day. The chalkboard outside
Speaker 2: the sailors not proclaiming to night quiz night grand prizes
Speaker 2: forward to tomorrow. Even the post offices stamp we adjusted,
Speaker 2: switching the dye to display the right date. Missus Jedge
Speaker 2: saw us at the table. Pursed her lips, but on
Speaker 2: seeing Maureen's set jaw, allowed it. If it'll end your
Speaker 2: pestering just this. Once Rowland went to the church, changed
Speaker 2: the date on the service board. I stuck paper over
Speaker 2: village notices for one needy moment. I felt elated. As
Speaker 2: dusk gathered, we declared a tomorrow meal, Maureen's best casseroles
Speaker 2: dressed up as a celebratory feast. The three of us,
Speaker 2: Rowland's daughters and Kurston from the cafe, squeezed round the table.
Speaker 2: We toasted to day at last and crafted imprompt you
Speaker 2: Tomorrow bunting from old newspaper. The others joined in with
Speaker 2: increasing cheerfulness, laughter running higher than usual, as if delighting
Speaker 2: in the novelty and maybe the faint tremor of subversion.
Speaker 2: Rowland insisted we parade to the key and announced the
Speaker 2: arrival of Tomorrow. We did, waving napkins and off key singing,
Speaker 2: and a few neighbors came to their doors, mildly bemused,
Speaker 2: but joining in for the first time. A faint, improbable
Speaker 2: seed of hope stirred in me. If we could pull
Speaker 2: to Day into the world by insistence, would the village
Speaker 2: let it root. Exhausted, we returned home, light headed and
Speaker 2: washed out by the optimism. Morning, I woke to the
Speaker 2: usual gray slice of light, stumbled out into chill air,
Speaker 2: and set out to see if the impossible had held Back.
Speaker 2: At the bakery, the blackboard was scuffed, but the looping
Speaker 2: script read yesterday fresh loaf, the grocer's sign, delivery yesterday
Speaker 2: outside the pub, quiz night, yesterday's winner. The service bored
Speaker 2: at the church bore yesterday, the prodigal sun in side
Speaker 2: the post office. Missus Jedge offered up an apologetic frown.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't let me keep the new dye? Dear settled back
Speaker 2: as it was? Can't quite say how even the bunting
Speaker 2: from last night had been taken down. Rowland's Girl's munching
Speaker 2: leftovers in the kitchen, Indeterminate about the reason, wasn't that
Speaker 2: yesterday's party? Maureen shrugged, not unkindly and checked the weather
Speaker 2: radio for yesterday's forecast. It was as if the evening's
Speaker 2: commotion had been a peculiar pageantry, memorable in feeling, but
Speaker 2: already part of the same old Yesterday. I walked alone
Speaker 2: to the village boundary, determined to see if something would
Speaker 2: meet me from outside. The mist here thickened, drawing close
Speaker 2: as a blindfold, the path twisted between bracken and stone,
Speaker 2: the seas hushing louder. Now I pressed on, determined to
Speaker 2: keep walking. Steps counted, pace measured, even as the trees
Speaker 2: along the path seemed to repeat the third lichen blotched
Speaker 2: gait by my left hand again and again. I thought,
Speaker 2: absurdly of those old stories lost travelers rounding circles forever
Speaker 2: in fairy woods. And then suddenly I was back at
Speaker 2: the familiar junction by the square, the bakery to one side,
Speaker 2: the pub to another. Kirston called after me, out for
Speaker 2: a walk again? Are you just like yesterday? It wasn't
Speaker 2: a threat or a warning, just gentle acknowledgment, a tide
Speaker 2: one could not press against, no matter how one flailed.
Speaker 2: At midday, frustrated but not defeated, I went to see
Speaker 2: Reverend Carmichael the vicarage. Crouched beneath a pair of wind
Speaker 2: scissored sycamores, humble book lined oddly comforting, he welcomed me in,
Speaker 2: producing a battered box of parish registers and offering weekly
Speaker 2: brewed coffee in a cup that read Vicar of yesterday.
Speaker 2: In a faded script, I explained my discovery in the library,
Speaker 2: the changing chalkboards, the failed experiment, my sense that whatever
Speaker 2: shaped yesterday here, it was not only a matter of habit,
Speaker 2: but something deeper, older communal. He listened gravely. My understanding,
Speaker 2: he said, after a thoughtful interval, is that every generation
Speaker 2: finds its own story for the same shore. When I arrived,
Speaker 2: ten years passed. Now I thought it a charming quirk.
Speaker 2: Then it became a provocation, even a spiritual puzzle fell
Speaker 2: into the old records. Some blame the storm, some a
Speaker 2: lost child, or a vanished army, or a fisher king
Speaker 2: who never returned. Each story is a kind of net
Speaker 2: cast over what we dare not name. He laid out
Speaker 2: a series of register books, rolls, and records, not so
Speaker 2: different than those I'd seen in the library, except annotated
Speaker 2: in his own gentle hand. Every entry, birth, marriage, a
Speaker 2: dispute about the garden wall, all marked for yesterday, none
Speaker 2: for to day, never for tomorrow. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 2: I intend otherwise. The habit unravels my intention every time
Speaker 2: parishioners mention anniversaries and sermons as if they've just transpired
Speaker 2: or might still but always yesterday. It's not carelessness, more
Speaker 2: like an intention pressed in all directions, an endless, low tide.
Speaker 2: I poured us both more coffee. Emboldened by his candor,
Speaker 2: Has any one ever tried to leave or to challenge it?
Speaker 2: He smiled, with something between pride and resignation. A few
Speaker 2: young folk sometimes make fun, paint out the dates, plant
Speaker 2: future trees on the green, that sort of thing. The
Speaker 2: changes rarely last. The old notion returns as surely as
Speaker 2: the mist. He drew out a unique looking diary the
Speaker 2: archivists above mentioned diary of debates, its cover padded, edges, worn, ink,
Speaker 2: faded to violet. There's a passage here if you like,
Speaker 2: he read, voice low and clear. Are we trapped? Or
Speaker 2: have we chosen? Does yesterday keep us safe from the
Speaker 2: loss of old faces, old homes? Or does it fret
Speaker 2: us into smaller and smaller circles? When did it begin?
Speaker 2: Was it always so? A pause? But look here? He
Speaker 2: turned the page, each entry, no matter the question is
Speaker 2: signed off written yesterday. I considered what that meant. Not evasion,
Speaker 2: but perhaps a profound, even protective need, a desire to
Speaker 2: never move past loss, to never risk what could be
Speaker 2: swept away by storm or progress. My old habits, the
Speaker 2: world kept straight by order and deadlines began to seem
Speaker 2: as idiosyncratic, as collectively willed as anything here. As I left,
Speaker 2: Missus Jedge waved me down from her post at the counter,
Speaker 2: post bags slung over her elbow. Her smile was knowing
Speaker 2: you're like this, she said, laying out a battered notebook
Speaker 2: in which she'd tallied odd observations. No local can recall
Speaker 2: to morrow, not ever, not once. Yet we never forget either.
Speaker 2: It's safer that way. Don't risk disappointment, don't invite the
Speaker 2: sea's teeth. I write birthday reminders, market lists always set
Speaker 2: for yesterday, never run late, never run early. Naturally. She
Speaker 2: flipped through the pages, then produced the latest edition of
Speaker 2: the Echo, headline storm averted Yesterday once again, she laughed.
Speaker 2: You see there's comfort. Never quite have to let go
Speaker 2: of what you liked, No need to mourn, no need
Speaker 2: to trudge forward. Ask the children, even they'll tell you
Speaker 2: Birthday yesterday. Cake never spoiled, gifts never gone. I glanced
Speaker 2: at the visitor's book again, flipping to the back. Among
Speaker 2: the careful, sometimes puzzled hands of guests was message after message,
Speaker 2: I was here yesterday, a French family, a touring Canadian couple.
Speaker 2: We came and yesterday greeted us. Strangeness, yes, Confusion, certainly,
Speaker 2: but never fear, never panic. More often a shy contentment,
Speaker 2: a sense that even the unsettling had been handled with
Speaker 2: a soft glove. Later that afternoon, over a cup at
Speaker 2: the cafe, I tried to posit the psychological angle to
Speaker 2: Maureen and Rowland. Maybe it's survival. The world outside brings
Speaker 2: up here evils, war, weather, migrations. Maybe the only safe
Speaker 2: way to stay whole was to give up ever reckoning
Speaker 2: with the future. Rowland shrugged could be, or just that
Speaker 2: nobody much liked change. We're not like you post office folk,
Speaker 2: needing everything just so. Maureen always brisk tapped the table.
Speaker 2: Suppose it's more if you call everything yesterday, nothing ever
Speaker 2: really leaves. You don't have to say good bye, You
Speaker 2: don't have to lose what you can't hold. As evening thickened,
Speaker 2: I sat in the square with my own battered watch.
Speaker 2: This time I tried a technical test, sink two digital
Speaker 2: watches to the outside world, one left with missus Judge
Speaker 2: in the post office, one in my own pocket. At
Speaker 2: the start of yesterday. They showed the same hour, minute,
Speaker 2: even the blinking second. I walked clear to the headland,
Speaker 2: peered into the thickening night, let the sea mist graze
Speaker 2: my cheeks. An hour or two later, hard to judge
Speaker 2: despite my old skills, I returned, nerves tickling with anticipation.
Speaker 2: Missus Jedge slid my spare watch across the table. The
Speaker 2: displays matched stolidly. Seconds had passed as expected, but the
Speaker 2: date stubbornly read to July, matching neither the clocks I
Speaker 2: had left at home, nor those I'd seen in service
Speaker 2: rooms up and down the length of England. But ticking
Speaker 2: along with yesterday. Here, Missus Jeedge grinned, delighted. What did
Speaker 2: you expect? Time runs on yesterday's tide? By now the
Speaker 2: question had outgrown mere classification, habit, tradition, routine into something
Speaker 2: wholly alive, peculiar, a self maintaining truth. It cohered through story, custom, myth, and, perhaps,
Speaker 2: though I couldn't begin to understand it, something elemental in
Speaker 2: the air, the fog, or the chalked bones of the
Speaker 2: headland itself. It was easy, having found so much to
Speaker 2: be seduced by the surface oddity and stopped there. After all,
Speaker 2: my entire life had been about pinning down the days,
Speaker 2: moving forward by increments charted with stamps and date pads
Speaker 2: and alarms that, without ever meaning it wrote the world
Speaker 2: into ordered grids. But now, after walking days, no, not days,
Speaker 2: Yesterday's within the village, the deeper realization tugged at me.
Speaker 2: It was not just that time here had been bent
Speaker 2: by unexamined tradition, but that tradition itself had become the environment.
Speaker 2: Yesterday itself was the water, the very air, a shield
Speaker 2: against loss and a balm for wounds. Refusing the possibility
Speaker 2: of regret or change. Over supper, Maureen saw my pensiveness.
Speaker 2: Did you get what you came for? She asked, voice
Speaker 2: softer now. I shook my head, then nodded, unsure. I
Speaker 2: don't think i'll ever fully know how it started, but
Speaker 2: I think I understand why it matters. You will get
Speaker 2: to keep all at once, everything you've ever cared for.
Speaker 2: In yesterday. There's no loss, no to morrow to threaten.
Speaker 2: What's safe. It's not my world, but it's I trailed off,
Speaker 2: unable to name the exact combination of comfort and unease,
Speaker 2: She squeezed my hand across the table, her thumb warm
Speaker 2: and gave me a look that said I'd risen, perhaps
Speaker 2: to the edge of the map. I think you found
Speaker 2: the only answer there is. She murmured, don't make it
Speaker 2: more complicated than it's glad to be. The fog thickened
Speaker 2: around the window, and for the first time I let
Speaker 2: myself accept, maybe even admire, the peculiar harmony this place
Speaker 2: had not broken time, it had folded it endlessly on
Speaker 2: to a safe, softer shelf. On my last morning, the
Speaker 2: fog lay in only a low shroud, and the sea
Speaker 2: was visible, pewter and wild beyond the headland, bags packed,
Speaker 2: I paused at the doorway, feeling unmoored in a way
Speaker 2: that was neither lonely nor afraid. Rowland met me by
Speaker 2: the lane, arms folded tight against the wind. If you
Speaker 2: want to come back, just knock. Doors always open yesterday
Speaker 2: or not. And if you solve it, really solve it.
Speaker 2: Perhaps let us know just after it's all done. Maureen
Speaker 2: hugged me with her arms and her voice briskness melting away.
Speaker 2: Don't wait too long. We'll see you well yesterday, she laughed,
Speaker 2: almost like an apology, and benediction. Both. I set out
Speaker 2: on the damp gravel lane, the world a little clearer,
Speaker 2: the air sharp with brine and old violets. As I
Speaker 2: reached the crest of the valley, the village behind me,
Speaker 2: I looked back once to watch the sun finally pick
Speaker 2: its way through the fog. It made towers of golden air,
Speaker 2: lighting the windows and the curling lanes. I could just
Speaker 2: make out the children's voices, the distant hammer on boat wood, familiar, continuous, peaceful.
Speaker 2: The further I walked, the more I wondered if time
Speaker 2: outside would snap forward or simply accept me, return me
Speaker 2: to clocks and headlines and the long, cool tick of
Speaker 2: ordinary days. When I reached my home days later, or
Speaker 2: so it seemed, it was a small stack of letters, waiting, bills, notices,
Speaker 2: and on top a faded envelope postmarked in Maureen's brisk,
Speaker 2: unmistakable hand to j U l twenty one, yesterday again,
Speaker 2: no matter when it had left her. I sat at
Speaker 2: my kitchen table, the city returning in the tap and
Speaker 2: shuffle of passing buses, and flipped through my diary. Every
Speaker 2: page from the village began yesterday. Details blurred the harbor,
Speaker 2: the smell of fog and mackerel, the shape of Maureen's smile,
Speaker 2: the taste of bread and strong tea. Each memory was immediate,
Speaker 2: Each memory was yesterday. Perhaps I wrote in that same
Speaker 2: book somewhere yesterday has never ended. Perhaps we all carry
Speaker 2: a small part of it tucked in paper, memory, or
Speaker 2: in the ways we refuse to grieve or let go.
Speaker 2: I cut the envelope in my palm, held a little
Speaker 2: longer than needed, and let the mystery remain, not unsettled,
Speaker 2: but gently cradled. Because for that VI, and maybe for
Speaker 2: more of us than we'd care to admit, yesterday is
Speaker 2: just the name we give a place the world has
Speaker 2: never quite let go.
Speaker 1: And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next one.