things we forgot we needed 

things we forgot we needed

What it was, he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember a lot of things. But that was the first thing he remembered coming out: I gotta go to the Snappy Mart. I gotta get something. There's something I need. These thoughts swirled uselessly around like leaves in a whirlpool. He struggled
to pull the cabbage leaf off of his eye and was surprised to find it was stuck tight. He frantically began clawing at his face-- why couldn't he see? Why was he lying down? A restraining hand on his arm-- "Who are you? What's going on?" A cacaphony of sound now-- alarms ringing, voices.
Elizabeth saying over and over Walter, oh Walter thank God.

He never did find out what he needed at the Snappy Mart. That need, and the four days intervening between having it and remembering having it, were gone now. He'd gotten as far as the door of the mart, witnesses said. Even went so far (Goddamn Midwestern manners) as to hold it wide open for the two young boys running towards it from the inside. Said something like "Where's the fire?" when one slammed into him on the way out. At least that's what the clerk said he did. The boy responded with a crushing blow to his head with what felt like a truck, but turned out to be a lead pipe wrapped in electrical tape.
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