A childhood can seem like it will span forever and then be gone all too soon for most. You might find it missing or even taken from you.

For 'me', it was the day I remembered everything.

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I didn't recall all of my past life at once. Nor as a mass of cells in my mother's womb. Nor did I work through tribulations at the tender age of one to ready myself for the trials of a life yet to be experienced.

I simply awoke slowly one day, not opening my eyes, but feeling lightness upon them in a way that should have been no different from prior ones. But it was different. Everything was.

My bed felt unusual for some reason... smaller than I could recall it being in my decrepit, drafty apartment near my store.

I remember rolling my shoulders.

They felt different too. No stiffness from my from the usually chilly mornings wasn't there and instead, I felt like I might have years ago.

Was it a dream, or was I dead?

Now memories began to flow even faster and then overlap with the pitiful little I knew from this new existence of mine. Like the recap of some shitty show, it spat information at me in a rapid and barely useful manner.

I cracked open an eye and decided the answer was something else entirely.

I was in 'my room'.

Not my apartment, but my bedroom on our family farm.

Where 'I' had grown up. I looked at my arm. No wrinkles and liver spots.

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It was my arm as a young man. Thirteen? Fourteen? Yes ... I was only 13 this year ...

I threw back the covers and looked down at my body. Well ... this is 'me' but ...

Head... aching...

This 'me' was no longer Austin. 'I' didn't own a store. 'My' bed was smaller.

I was simply Sarpa now. I had no siblings. No sister named Helen.

A twang of pain ... loneliness ... before more information made itself known.

My father owned a library. 'The' library. No wait... not 'own' ... he was in charge of it on behalf of a lord... Yes. A collector of rare first editions and unique writings alike ...

My mother was dead again ... no no no ... not again. Dead once. Both of them... but dead only once each. Not 'again'.

This on- ... my late-mother died upon exposure to a rampant plague. My current self. I. Sarpa... was locked in the library and tended to by my father once it was evident my mother was ill.

She smiled at me as he took her away. Her scent lingering a solid day before he burnt everything she had held dear. He should have burnt the two of us as well...

Father and son.

A solitary tear passes before composure is regained.

She wasn't gone though... simple moved to an underground room where they tried to treat her like they tried to treat the others and like they would try for centuries more to treat those this plague touched. I would curse myself for not having studied more about these plagues in the years to come. As if I could have done more to prepare ... to help ... if only I'd have known.

No ... all I had were stories and lessons.

Morals ... no techniques or great value nor schematics of revolutionary proportions.

Just a child with a head full of stories.