How It Ends

We're watching TV when I say, after some hesitation, you know, I left something back in 1996 and
I want to go get it. I know where it is. I'll be back in a flash. Okay, she says, and thinks for a second
before saying, oh, why don't you put some money in Starbucks when you're back? That might do
us some good. Okay, I say. If I remember. Then her brow furrows. She says, I suppose this means
things will be different between us when you come back. Yeah, I say. I suppose that's inevitable. We
were both well versed in the laws of science fiction. Okay, she says, but can you wait till this movie
is over? I want to see how it ends. But we’ve seen this movie before, I say. We know how it ends.
Yeah, she says, but we saw it a long time ago, and we're different people now. It's natural that the
ending will be a little different to us now than it was to us then. Okay, I say, and stick around to
watch the end. And she is right: it is a little different.