Wednesday, 01 October 2003 | Static

In my head, my parents stopped aging at about 40; they don't have gray hair or many wrinkles or any of the other signs that bodies display to announce their place on the deterioration timeline.

Whenever I do notice that they are, in fact, no longer 40, I subconsciously transform them back into the airbrushed versions, the people whose health and appearance are stubbornly static. (I'm pretty sure I reserve this habit exclusively for my parents.)

Of course, people I no longer know—such as the boy named Ricky who busted his head on the elementary school playground, or the girl named Paula whose brown eyes and dimples I admired—have cheated time as well; they are permanently children, not successful or married or fat or tall or dead. In fact, Ricky still has stitches in his forehead, and Paula is always sitting on a bench in the cafeteria, talking, smiling, exercising her dimples. If I ever went back to that cafeteria, I would half-expect to see her there.