I was suprised and disappointed at the extent I was let down by own memory following a small incident in town on Wednesday night.
Making a rare journey into the centre after dark, I was surprised when a woman came barreling out of a sidestreet as I was passing, almost knocking me off my feet.
Minus a shoe, and crying, she asked if she could borrow my mobile phone because she wanted to call her boyfriend. I explained that she could have it, but I wouldn't bet on it working: the reception has been a joke for weeks.
I was swearing at the phone, and trying to force it into some sort of activity, when the person I assume was her boyfriend emerged from the same alley, demanding to know what was going on.
She told the man to go away, pushing him and walking away into the night, leaving he and I to argue in the street.
"Did she want to ring the plees? Tell me the troof!"
"She never said anything about the police. She told me she wanted to ring her boyfriend."
"She wanted to ring the plees, dintshe?"
"I told you - she only mentioned her boyfriend. Nothing about the police."
This dialogue went on for some minutes, and I eventually left him, swearing at my retreating back after bidding him goodnight.
I can remember the conversations, but I can't remember what either of them looked like, or were wearing. Under pressure, under stress, my powers of recollection broke down - either that, or the situation was so difficult that the memories were never formed in the first place.
If my life depended on it, I couldn't tell you what colour the woman's hair was, how tall she was, what the man was wearing. I remember shaking as I emerged from the dialogue, through fear? Through the desire to flee?
I shall have more to say about the fallibility of my mental architecture in the future. For now, I am content to express sadness at it breaking at the point when I would have very much liked it to have been on my side.
