dr Krueger and Lisa.
On his way to pick up the 50-foot garden hose, half way between the front door and the garage, all of a sudden, he had a very pleasant thought. He caught himself thinking it. And he made a mental note: “That’s a very pleasant thought.” For pleasant thoughts were few and far between those days. He saw his breath through the bright light that came on motion-detected over the garage door and made an effort to commit that pleasant thought to memory. To his genuine surprise, however, the thought had been gone already. It had dissipated completely in a matter of a second or two. He stopped short and moved two steps back in the hope of retrieving that pleasant thought. “Perhaps it is a question of space,” he was thinking, but was little convinced. The thought refused to resurface. “But then, am I entitled to a pleasant thought in the first place?” he wondered and was immediately surprised and disgusted by that question, silly and melodramatic at the same time. He then forced himself remember the Krugers’ visit earlier that day and Lisa’s story about a prom dance gone wrong seventeen years ago that she had related to him over dinner in an effort to keep conversation going — to no avail: the pleasant thought he had so distinctively perceived materialise in his mind was gone for good. “I should carry a notebook around,” he said aloud, although he would deny it, had anyone heard him.
