J and I are standing in front of the building where we first met. Only thing is, there is no building any more. What there is, is a big hole in the ground. A bank of earth, a fence, a skip and fresh air.
"They have knocked it down," I say, stating the bleeding obvious. I am a master of that.
J looks at what used to be a student hall. What used to be our student hall. She sighs.
"Sometimes, I think my whole life is being knocked down," she says.
She reels off the list. "The hospital where I was born. My primary school …"
"It's not all about you," I say. "This is my past, too. Well, this was my past."
I don't want to feel left out.
"Look," I say, pointing to the point 30ft above our heads where she used to stay, "that is where you first kissed me."
It's the last knockings of Sunday afternoon. Earlier J and I had decided to go for a drive. We headed north and west. To Crieff. We hadn't been there for years. It's further away than I remember. Smaller than I remember it too. Wasn't the main street wider?
We walk about, poke around gift shops, go for lunch. [1] Driving back, the sun is still shining and we decide to go for a walk around the loch at the university.
So we do. Park round the back of the Macrobert Centre, cross over the link bridge, and walk up to the halls. Someone had mentioned that Geddes Court had been demolished so we go and have a look. Which is where we came in.
There's not much to say. Not much to look at either. Obviously. So we start talking about people we once knew here, the things we once did. "Is this where you said to that guy on his bike, 'man and machine; one perfect orgasm,'" J laughs.
"A slip of the tongue. I meant organism." I say. "And who knows? Who's to say how he really felt towards his bicycle?" [2]
We talk about the night we went a walk around the loch to find the banks covered in frogs. The time we were snowed in and ate macaroni for three days in a row because it was all we.
"It's a long, long time ago now," we say. "And a galaxy far, far away." [2]
We drive out of the university the back way. To the right the fields stretch away and up towards the Wallace Monument.
That way, in the distance, we can see some housing. Once upon a time it's where the Sword Hotel used to stand. That's where J and I had our wedding reception.
"And that's been knocked down to." I point out.
It's almost as if time has got something against us.
[1] Delivino is rather good. Particularly fine cakes as I recall.
[2] Gratuitous Star Wars reference. I'm getting mine out of the way early before the deluge. To be honest, I always preferred Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
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