The meeting ended when someone folded the moon. The activists stacked chairs that grew lighter each time they were lifted until the final chair floated toward the ceiling and remained there, humming softly. Outside, the parking lot became larger than anyone remembered. A pigeon carried a house key in its beak. Nadia and Omar stood beside a maple tree whose leaves were old photographs. Every few seconds one drifted to the pavement and, before either could examine it, turned blank. A passing car played Leonard Cohen. Not through speakers. Through its headlights.

“I can’t forget…”

The lyric illuminated the pavement for a moment before disappearing beneath their feet. Nadia watched a cloud slowly assume the shape of America. Before she could point it out, it became Manitoba.

“I keep wondering,” she said, “whether memory gets lonely.”

Omar considered this.

“I thought loneliness invented memory.”

A bus arrived. Every passenger had Omar’s grandmother’s face. None of them got off. The bus departed without making a sound. The chorus returned.

“I can’t forget…”

“But I don’t remember what.”

A fire hydrant nearby began weeping. Not water. Olive oil. No one seemed surprised.

“You know,” Nadia said, “I used to think history was a line.”

“It isn’t?”

“No.”

“What is it?”

“A room where every clock insists it’s yesterday.”

Omar looked at his watch. Its hands had become two tiny people arguing. One pointed east. The other refused.

“I think Cohen understood something.”

“What?”

“Some memories stop belonging to individuals.”

“They become weather.”

A gust of wind blew across the parking lot carrying hundreds of names. Each landed on the asphalt, looked around, then quietly erased itself. Omar bent down and picked up one that had almost vanished. It read only: Someone. He slipped it into his pocket.

“I wonder,” he said, “whether forgetting is simply memory changing governments.”

Nadia smiled.

“That’s either profound or completely ridiculous.”

“They’re neighbours.”

A child appeared pushing an empty shopping cart. Inside the cart sat an enormous stone. The child seemed to struggle under no weight whatsoever. Across the street, the community centre had become an apartment building. Then a synagogue. Then a school. Then a pile of sand. Then a community centre again. No one passing by appeared to notice.

“I’ve stopped trusting maps,” Nadia said.

The song ended. But the chorus continued anyway. Neither of them could locate where it was coming from. Perhaps from the cigarette smoke. Perhaps from the tree. Perhaps from the folded moon.

“I’ve been thinking,” Omar said.

“What if Cohen wasn’t singing about a memory?”

“What then?”

“What if he was singing about an inheritance.”

Nadia looked toward the sky. It was filling with keys. Thousands of them. Each one casting the shadow of a different house.

“And what if,” she said, “the thing he couldn’t remember…”

“…was who the key belonged to?”

A long silence. The pigeon returned. It laid its key gently between them. Neither reached for it. Instead they stood listening to the impossible refrain echo through the evening like a nation trying to recall the first sentence it ever spoke.

“I can’t forget.”

Neither of them could remember who started singing.