The café-bar was bathed in sunlight that day, and perhaps that is how I will forever remember it. When I consciously try to recall any kind of detail – what beer I was sipping, what clothes you were wearing, what the barman looked like, what was showing on the ridiculously big screen above the bar counter – everything is washed out in gold.

And maybe here is the beauty of memory; it forgets all these things that are pointless to retain in our brains – distilling, filtering all the useless noise so that we are only left with what matters. It is as if the bright sunlight that day had bleached everything unimportant, much like an overexposed photo, that in the end we have only shadows of lingering essences.

I can't remember how we got onto the topic. Perhaps it was about what books we typically read. You said you didn't read non-fiction. And I paused, swallowing a flicker of panic.

What if I couldn't tell you a story? Would you still listen?