L'Oubli

Lyrics

You say the coffee went cold. Three times.
You say I kept asking if you’d made it.
And who you were.

Six-thirty in the morning. Our kitchen.
The blue-striped mugs on the counter where they always are.
You tell me I looked right through them.
You tell me I asked for the date, over and over.
Not in panic. You said it was calm.
Just… gathering data.
A scientist in my own home, collecting facts I couldn’t keep.

They call it a blank tape.
A clean excision.
The recorder in my head just… stopped.
The spools kept turning but nothing printed.
Eight hours.
Gone.
Not lost, you understand. Just never recorded.
An empty space where the afternoon was supposed to be.

The doctor, a kind man with tired eyes,
mentioned C. Miller Fisher. Nineteen fifty-six.
He drew a little diagram of a brain on a paper towel.
You told him I said there was a pop.
A soft… plugging sensation behind my right eye.
But I don't remember saying that.
It's your memory of my words describing a feeling I no longer own.

They call it a blank tape.
A clean excision.
The recorder in my head just stopped.
The spools kept turning but nothing printed.
Eight hours.
Gone.
Not lost. Just never recorded.
An empty space where the afternoon was supposed to be.

The strangest part, you said…
was the crossword. The Saturday one.
I finished it.
My hand knew the word for that Yaghan expression.
My hand knew the capital of Burkina Faso.
But the mind that held it… who was he?
A guest in my own chair.
His hands were mine. His knowledge was mine.
But he left no notes. No trace.
Just a perfectly completed grid in black ink.

And now the coffee is hot.
It’s Sunday.
The tape is running again.
But I feel the splice.
A smooth, perfect cut.
From six-thirty a.m. to four p.m.
A ghost of a day.
A story you tell me about myself.