Sun Valley Grocery wasn't far from the local mall. The name of this mall is unimportant. It was home to more than three dozen retail businesses, not counting the built-in carousel, the massage stands, and the various food and antique vendors who hosted their shows there. The businesses dropped and swapped out on a regular basis, though there were some mainstays that had been there for generations. Among these was a clothing store by the name of Harpin's. It was a family place, run by the Harpins since before the First World War. The family was even still involved with the business, unlike a lot of families who once founded such enterprises. They had about the same distance from the store's operation as a producer has from the movies they work on, but they did cameo now and again to see how things were going. People treated it with the dignity a small business deserved, though the growth of the great apathy disease had its impact there, too. What matters is that they
When our childhoods come back, the natural problems of memory distort the image to make it wrong . Think of how many nostalgic memories you have that you know, deep down, didn't happen the way you remember. Maybe it's one lie you told yourself. Maybe three or four. Maybe the whole thing is made up. I don't blame you. I had a good childhood but if all that people have of your own is a fantasy then all I can offer is a hope that your abuser, whether they're a person or a system, dies and burns in Hell. I have lived my life so focused on nostalgia that my day-to-day living has become full of holes in the present, just as there are holes all throughout my past. The future, that sea of infinite possible timelines, is probably nothing more than a Sea of Holes. And here we have the first personal node— Yellow Submarine was the movie I watched the most growing up. I had an LSD-soaked childhood and it braced me for a similar adulthood. The hippies who were the firs