The sound of your past is usually held in a whisper but occasionally a note drifts forward to remind one of things they’d completely forgotten. Archived away in some recess of the mind the memory laid dormant until triggered by the sudden appearance of an old friend or the sight of a lost love.

Sometimes the experience can jolt loose a whole mental barrier and a wave of stored memories can come tumbling down, sometimes good ones you can’t believe you forgot, sometimes bad ones you wish you could. It happens a lot in a small town, although less and less as I move farther from my distant high school affiliations.

The surge of familiarity among most people, all in the same age category, forced together for years at a time. I’m sure similar connections are forged with ones military and college years but those acquaintances seem to filter out into the world more quickly for obvious reasons but in our hometowns the high school concentration stays strong.