If Words Could Make Wishes Come True

...save every day like a treasure and then, again...

"It used to be better," she said.

I nodded. "Much better."

"I mean, they had to change the packaging and I really liked the old package."

"And the flavor. It tastes different now."

"Not as good."

I nodded again.

We were silent for a long time. Sitting on the big rock that balanced at the edge of the waterfall near the state park that we'd agreed had to be the most beautiful state park in the entire world.

"A lot of things used to be better," she said. "Not just the food."

And I looked around and thought of the many things in our hometown that used to be better and had changed. And the many things in art and music and movies and literature that were so much worse than what had come before.

And I had to agree with her.

We smiled, confident and comfortable in the fact that we alone had a handle on what was right and what had gone wrong.

It was that brief moment when we knew literally everything there was to know. When we had discovered the absolute and total truth.



We were 14 years old.

Soon, we'd be smart enough to realize how much we didn't know. But that one cloudy afternoon, we knew it all.

Even if no one would listen.