Memory of Akumal


We swam to the open waters from the closed inlet, crowded with snorkelers. So many swimmers  seek the brilliant colored parrotfish, the blue tang, angelfish, sergeant majors, royal gammas, needlenose. We swam to the open water where I imagined I could see in the distance Captain Jack Aubrey's HMS Sophie, but looking straight down, there is a turtle, a big sea turtle, just galumphing along. I point, so that she will see it, but she already sees another and points for me to notice.
How Dina Aunty relished her memories. Mummy and Daddy were the same, talking about their yesterdays and smiling in that sad-happy way while selecting each picture, each frame from the past, examining it lovingly before it vanished again in the mist. But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be re-created—not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.

> From A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry