Once more, life throws the possibility you never entertained in your face.

Words flew from my mouth, rolling off as if I were reading from a book.

Abruptly, I said, the potatoes ended, and the river opened before me. The water level was high, higher than I remembered it being, ever. Still it held a form of beauty, if a terribly stark one. I thought back to last summer, when my brother and I climbed on the branches that hung out over the water -- no more. It was a different place, an alien world I did not know, and I wished for another time...but this story you have already heard.

Drawing yet another blank.