15 Facts That Demand Attention

It was an unusually hot spring day. I was eight years old, and I walked along the shoreline of the lake where my mom often took me. I passed by a park that I'd always played in before it fell into disrepair and now looked almost unrecognizable. I noticed that there were a bunch of other kids at play, and one caught my eye as she sat near what had once been a slide.

As I approached her, my heart leapt because there was something strange about her, but at the same time, it struck me like thunder through a clear blue sky. Her eyes were dark pools that looked like stormy oceans, or deep wells, yet they held no malice, just a kind of yearning sadness; they told a story only they understood; a tale of longing for a life long-since lived; an age that had faded into the history of our country's past, an era when things seemed simpler, a time where I might have been happier. I took her hand in mine, a moment that felt right to say hello. As we embraced, she began to whisper in my ear. She whispered these fifteen facts. I memorized them for twenty-seven years, and now I offer them here to you.