“Certainly memory is a curious machine and strangely capricious. It has no order, it has no system, it has no notion of values, it is always throwing away gold and hoarding rubbish,” Mark Twain wrote, in his unpublished work, Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes. “Out of that dim old time I have recalled that swarm of wholly trifling facts with case and precision, yet to save my life I can't get back my mathematics. It vexes me, yet I am aware that everybody's memory is like that, and that therefore I have no right to complain.”
It’s the third week of June and we’re hearing writing along the theme of memory this month. Today, Rebecca Evans shares some of her own writing, a flash essay called “Afterwards.” A memoirist and poet, Evans’ work has appeared in Narratively, The Rumpus, and Passengers Literary Journal, among other outlets. Her latest book, AfterBurn, a memoir in flash essays, was published by Moon Tide Press in January of 2026.
Something I Heard is supported by Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
