HENRY: I am in the clearing, in the Meadow. It’s very early in the morning, just before dawn. It’s late summer, all the flowers and grasses are up to my chest. It’s chilly. I am alone.

I’ve never seen these clothes before, so I have no idea where I am in time. Clare has also left me a snack: there’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich carefully wrapped in aluminum foil, with an apple and a bag of lay’s potato chips. Maybe this is one of Clare’s school lunches. My expectations veer in the direction of the late seventies or early eighties. I sit down on the rock and eat the food, and then I feel much better. The sun is rising. 

 

The whole Meadow is blue, and then orange, and pink, the shadows are elongated, and then it is day. There’s no sign of Clare. I crawl a few feet into the vegetation, curl up on the ground even though it is wet with dew, and sleep.

　When I wake up the sun is higher and Clare is sitting next to me reading a book. She smiles at me and says, “Daylight in the swamp. The birds are singing and the frogs are croaking and it’s time to get up!”

　I groan and rub my eyes. “Hi, Clare. What’s the date?”

　“Sunday, September 23, 1984.”

　Clare is thirteen. A strange and difficult age, but not as difficult as what we are going through in my present. I sit up, and yawn. “Clare, if I asked very nicely, would you go into your house and smuggle out a cup of coffee for me?”

　“Coffee?” Clare says this as though she has never heard of the substance. As an adult she is as much of an addict as I am. She considers the logistics.