Speechless and with her mouth slightly opened, she stared at that impertinent little girl as if taking in her imagine for the first time: she couldn’t be more than seven years old, her hair was brown, cut in a bob with a fringe that was too adult for it to have been her choice, and was wearing a pair of embroidered overalls that looked just like the ones her grandma had embroidered for her when she was more or less that age.


“You know, I really like your overalls, my grandma embroidered a pair for me when I was a little girl that looked just like that.”


“Yeah? Where are they now?”


“Mhm, I’m not sure, I guess I must have outgrown them and passed them on to someone else?”


“Wrong! Your mum still keeps them in a box, tucked away in the attic, because, when you outgrew them, you told her, no matter what, she wasn’t allowed to get rid of them.”


“How… How do you know that?”


“No, that’s not the question. The question is: how do you not?”


“I mean…”


“No, actually don’t answer that, please. I mean, I know it’s been twenty years and, like, how are you expected to remember that after so long, but, like, what do you remember?! You’ve been smoking so much weed lately to ‘feel better’—and, better than what I’d really like to know at some point—that I’m afraid you might end up forgetting your own name in a minute…”


“Okay, okay, calm down! I know who I am, I know who you are, I just didn’t remember being so mean as a child…”


“Not mean, just a straight shooter. We never liked people walking around blindfolded to themselves and now you’re one of them… You’ve turned me into one of them… How?”