My father was in the hospital so I went to visit him. He had a heart attack but he was recovering nicely from the event. Upstairs in the hospital room I saw that he looked significantly younger. More color in his face, darker hair and disturbingly his eyelashes were more pronounced which reminded me of the awful, awful Tom and Jerry cartoons done by Chuck Jones in the 1960's. He seemed happy enough so I bid farewell.

Outside I shouldered my backpack, put on a broad brimmed camouflage hat. It was the kind you see in movies about Viet Nam. The weather was beginning to turn as the sun went behind the mountains. Wind rose and the temperature fell as I walked up old Colorado avenue.

I think I was the oldest person walking up the street, everyone else looked like they were in high school or had graduated and were considering pursuing college or knocking up their girlfriend to begin a life of domestic indenturement. Each one approached me, asking me what was in my backpack while others made desperate but futile grabs to steal it from me.

Later I made my way through a few backyards and a stretch of forest where I found myself stepping onto the street I grew up on back in the seventies and early eighties. I jumped the chained-off driveway which led to the industrial area of my hometown and found myself in front of a thin, tall and gray house. One of the girls from work caught my attention.

Every time I see this girl she's fighting with her ex-husband in the parking lot. Certainly she thinks of such confrontations as "having a discussion". When I regard her, she whips out a big glass bottle and swings it at my head missing by a mile. I grab it from her hand saying "I don't want to fight. What's wrong with you?" I don't remember her exact response but I know it was about the contents of my backpack.

Thing is that I don't even remember or know what was in my backpack.