The Map of Our Old Street

When their childhood street was about to change, friends Val and Denise decided to draw it from memory. They had not lived there for twenty years, but both claimed to remember every doorway. They met at Val's kitchen table with large sheets of paper and coloured pencils.

Within ten minutes, they disagreed about where the sweet shop had stood. Val placed it beside the bus stop; Denise insisted it had been opposite. Then they noticed that they had both drawn the same narrow space between two houses. That was where they had hidden during a childhood argument.

Val remembered crying because Denise had chosen a different partner for a school project. Denise remembered bringing her a biscuit, which Val had refused. Neither could remember how the argument ended. They only knew that they had walked home together the following day, sharing an umbrella that leaked.

They stopped trying to make a perfectly accurate map. Instead, they labelled the places with memories: first secret, terrible haircut, borrowed umbrella. The sweet shop appeared twice, with a question mark beside each version. When the drawing was finished, Denise took a photograph and Val kept the paper. The street outside their memories could change. On the kitchen table, there was still a route through the years they had shared.