It must have been something on the table that triggered the flashback. Or, it was a combination of a flashback, and the feeling of having forgot something, I’m sure you know it. 

I had just carried a table out of our garage for our garage sale and was thinking whether it was too early to leave, but stayed there, my mind wandering. It must have been that dream stage that made my brain dig up old memories, or maybe it was the fact hat we had been cleaning up our basement and all that old stuff on the table made m go back in time. 

Or maybe it was the combination of things. 

Anyway, there I stood, minding my own business when I suddenly remembered a sofa. 

A sofa bed, to be exact. A brownish sofa bed, in which I, after a hard day’s work,  could lie with my legs dangling over the armrest while listening to the Manic Street Preachers or Lenny Kravitz every once in a while reaching for a bag of winegums on the floor. 

That was the image. That was the sofa. I had originally got it from a friend who had moved in with his girlfriend and found himself with an extra sofa. I didn’t know then how many years of service the sofa bed had already in it, but it worked perfectly for me which is why I brought it over to Sweden when I moved here. 

It was my favorite piece of furniture. Perfect for the after work and pre gym relaxing – although, sometimes it was too good and there was no going to the gym – but also for watching Formula 1 on Sunday afternoons, or the 1995 hockey World championship final between Finland and Sweden, and it even made a nice movie couch. And now that I really think about it, it was that sofa, or one just like it, that I had in mind when I wrote a chapter about Peter watching Back to the Future in his apartment in Someday Jennifer. 

So, you see, I liked the sofa. I really did. 

It’s just that when Wife and I moved in together, she sort of had a sofa, a bigger and newer one, one so big you could sleep in it, so we didn’t really need a sofa bed. Besides, we were going to buy a new sofa anyway. In short, I found myself with an extra sofa bed. 

The move went well, better than when I helped Devin move once, and our van got stuck in the parking garage and I had to stop incoming traffic so that he could back it back out again. I got my red laundry hamper that i’d had since I moved out to go to college – still in the basement, now filled with kids’ toys – and my bed and all the records and the stereo and the plates and my clothes, and we had pizza afterwards, like you’re supposed to. 

Some of the stuff, such as the sofa bed, we’d planned to take to the Salvation Army’s second-hand store. 

I looked at the stuff on the table, and wondered what we’d do with the things we couldn’t sell. 

“Like that pink sequin hat or that old hockey helmet of mine,” I said.

“We’ll take them to Myrorna [the store],” Wife said. 

And that’s when I was suddenly transported back to my old apartment building. And as I turned around at the elevator, looking back, I saw my old sofa bed sitting outside my door, next to the garbage chute in my old apartment building.

I’m afraid I may have just left it there. 

Not only was it stupid and bad manners. It was also cold. He deserved better.

Then again, the sofa is still out there somewhere, soldiering on as the perfect after work place.

At least we sold the pink sequin hat. (Not the helmet).