It is April 4th, 2009. I am in Montreal. I am 24 years old.

The photograph lies in the sand at my feet.

Fragments are slowly coming back to me, snapshots of the past.

All we ever see of stars are their old photographs.

It is 2:00 AM, April 4th, 2009. Pat and I are driving back from Brampton after blowing the last game of our indoor softball season. It’s a long drive back from Brampton in any scenario, but after being part of a horrendous ’07 Mets-like collapse that saw us fall from 1st place to 4th in the span of only three games makes it seem to take just a little bit longer than usual. We both pledge to win a championship in our upcoming coed summer league for Caesar.

It is late February. AL, Jess, and I are all invited to a weekend in Montreal to celebrate some birthdays. They both eventually drop out, forcing me to pick up the slack and work twice as hard to cover. I’m usually happy to let AL take all the shots when he’s in, but with him missing, all that production has got to be replaced.

It is 9:00 PM, April 3rd, 2009. I am having a lovely dinner with Jess when Derek interrupts by calling me and telling me that I will be driving to Montreal tonight. I agree, eager to get out needing to sit in a crowded backseat situation for five hours, but I secretly question his judgment and my own ability to complete the mission before me. I tell Jess I love her in case I do not make it back.

It is 6:45 AM, April 4th. I am flipping out and yelling angrily at Pat and Derek at a gas station in Cornwall – our one and only stop on the way there.

It is 6:31 AM. Improbably, I have managed to drive for four straight hours before the inevitable night time hallucinations hit. I am being told that I am being pulled to let Pat finish off the last hour and a half, and that I should pull into the next service center. I understand the decision, although this still doesn’t stop me from exploding angrily when they formally ask me to relinquish the driver’s seat 15 minutes later.

It is 9:30 PM, April 5th. We are at Go 4 Tea again despite all reason and previous promises of never coming back. AL is making a baseball metaphor. He’s comparing me to a pitcher that’s thrown 120 pitches against one of the toughest line-ups in the league, on just a single day’s rest. I came out for the 9th to attempt the shutout, but understandably, I was pulled at the first sign of trouble for the best closer in the game to handle the heart of the order – getting off the highway and navigating to the actual hotel through city streets named after famous French people.

It is 6:30 AM, April 4th. After over 20 minutes of driving on a straight and completely empty stretch of road, I see something in my headlights. I tap the brakes, afraid to hit it. A partially muscled skeleton stands in front of me and screams for thirty seconds before vanishing.

It is 10:14 PM. Derek asks me if I’m going to drink tonight. I tell him I am not, pledging to myself that Single Yak is never coming out again. He is rude man of questionable moral values and always leaves me with a headache, a dry mouth, and a preposterous reputation when I wake up the morning afterward. This will be the night I murder him forever. Derek subjects me to a lot of crude sexual insults. Corina slaps him.

It is 10:15 PM. Paolo has, allegedly, accidentally poured one too many shots of Jager.

It is 2:00 AM, April 5th. I am in the middle of the club, inappropriately inebriated, screaming at the ceiling that I am the third heat.

It is 11:30 PM, April 4th. I am talking to Aprile’s friend Bryan. He is a white guy with a shaven head that gives off kind of a douchey vibe. He doesn’t seem interested in talking to me and walks away towards the dance floor, saying that he needs to “go and get some pussy.” I wish him good luck.

It is 1:30 AM, April 5th. Jennifer is asking me to call her the next time I’m in Montreal. I have no idea what her number is. I think she’s just being nice. She and her friend Monday – named after the day she was born on and wearing a weird highlighter green top – are leaving the club now.

It is 1:31 AM. I can no longer remember how either of them looked like. I think I am pretty drunk.

1:35 AM. I’ve lost track of how many drinks I’ve had tonight. Paolo buys me some sort of horrible beer cocktail and forces me to drink it. The bartender is friendly with me and has poured too much into our shots. I don’t know if I can finish it. The light…

The light is taking me to pieces.

3:30 AM. We are going for pizza. I see Aprile’s friend Bryan leaving the club with their other two male white friends. There are no girls around them. There are a lot of girls around me.

It is 2:30 PM, April 5th. We are having lunch and I am 70% sure that I am not responsible for the black eye Daryl mysteriously got last night or for Michelle’s fat lip. I claim that they are self inflicted wounds. I jokingly apologize to Daryl, explaining that I was probably trying to take a swing at Michelle’s new boyfriend and accidentally hit him instead. I am surprised to realize how probable that outcome actually was. A tachyon haze prevents me from looking back into the past and I am unable to fully deny even to myself whether it really happened.

The photograph is in my hand…falling…lying in the sand at my feet.

Above the Nodus Gordii Mountains, jewels in a maker-less mechanism, the first meteorites are starting to fall.