The other day I found myself calling "coming!" to my ringing cellphone, just like my grandmother used to. Unlike me who can't remember a time without a telephone in the house, my grandparents had a telephone installed in their late 40s, had to learn all the new that came with it, and unlearn what was before. Had to learn that the "coming!" wouldn't reach the other side of the telephone the way it would reach a neighbour calling to borrow some salt. Reaching over long distances also means that you sometimes forget how to reach for the short ones. I remember my grandmother calling to the telephone and me laughing at her and now, years after when I'm 23 and she is dead I wonder if that was deliberate, a forgetfulness feigned to make a granddaughter laugh. I wonder how much of that memory is a myth, how much of forgetfulness is passed down in the blood, how much of her I really remember and how much of the rest I have made up in my head, like a story, a fiction, the words of which are blurry and the image flickers and fades.
