The Memories of Childhood

I remember the smell of freshly baked peanut butter cookies in the kitchen wafting like a warm summer breeze. I remember how they crumbled in my hand as I ate them, little bits of delicious debris, and how there were always enough to last a week or more. I plucked them out of the Tupperware container one by one, day by day, a child’s guilty pleasure.

I remember the sound of my father mowing the lawn, a sawing roar yet somehow comforting. I remember the pungent odor of freshly cut grass coming through my open window, and I remember him manhandling the lawnmower up the steep hill in our backyard.

I remember walking through the forest park, the pine needles blanketing the ground like slivers of gold. I remember the tall trees that shaded me, and the baseball diamond at the park’s edge, where my parents and I used to buy hot dogs before returning home.

I remember the day after I had my wisdom teeth removed. My mind was a drowsy blur from anesthetics. I remember how my numb jaw felt like a lump of dead meat that didn’t hurt even when I pinched hard. I held a bag of frozen peas against it when the feeling and the pain started coming back.

I remember when I first became a writer. My parents owned a word processor, and I used it to write stories about my action figures. I printed them out and hung them on my wall, so proud of my work. I started my first novel, and never got past the fifth page. I remember getting my first computer, a great, gray blocky thing, and using it to write new stories. A child’s fancies that watered a ripe imagination.

I remember much, much more. More than could ever be committed to blog or paper. My childhood is over. The memories endure.

***

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“