Yes, it was simple and complicated, and it was all reported where you might expect. Oh, yes, something had happened — slowly and then suddenly. That much was clear. Or, others noted, maybe it was just something returning in new ways after taking a break from fleeting in-between moments. Minds, it seemed, were made up, one way or another. Anything could be said.

     "Let's go sit," she said. "Where we used to sit."

     So they did. They sat over there.

     "Didn't there used to be a tree right about here?" she said. "Above us."

     "Yes, I think so," he said. "Just behind us. I remember. Yes."

     That was good.

     "It was an apple tree," she said. "The blossoms. Those I remember."

     He thought. But he thought it might not have been an apple tree.

     "Pine," he said. "I think — I think it was a pine tree. I remember the needles."

     She looked back through what she was sure she had not forgotten, through that unchecked divide that seemed to have otherwise settled in. But still, she remembered apple. Yes, there behind them. Apple, no doubt.

     So they sat there, these two, remembering apple and pine, blossoms and needles, what was or wasn't in the air. Both were equally certain, which might make things less possible in some kind of return to what was if that itself could ever be decided upon.

     There was a tree — that much they believed.

     "You know," he said, "the tree can't have been gone that long."

     "Why do you think that?" she asked.

     "Because of the pine scent, which I can still just smell, probably from all those years of needles dropping to the ground, with the ground taking them in, turning them into soil."

     He took a deeper breath. "Yes," he said. "In the air." He was pleased that it was still there. And (of course) it made him feel just that more certain.

     She looked around, sat back, took her own deep breath, searching, it seemed, for the scent she remembered.

     "I can't smell it," she said, quietly.

     She really couldn't. He could see that she seemed to try her best, but she said she could not catch anything of the pine scent. She even took one more breath, in and out. He watched, sideways, then looked away. He wanted to search the ground, to see if any old pine needles might still be there. Show her, if he could. See? But he didn't. What would that do? Anything? Everyone seemed to be trying to make everything so utterly this way or that way — prove things — but little good that did anymore. The apple blossoms had held their own scent, and that's what came back to her. And that was what would be.

     They sat there, these two, where they used to sit.

     "I can still feel the wind, that soft breeze," she said. "At least that is the same."

     For him, the air was still. Almost too still, like it was waiting. He didn't say so. He could have nodded or murmured a faint agreement. After all, it was just a breeze, and there was no harm in just a light breeze, there or not there. But he just sat, looking out.

     "I do remember the shade," he said. "The shade, from the tree."

     "Yes," she said. "I do, too."

     That was something, it really was — so they both thought. Maybe that would be it. Remembering shade. Maybe it would move them. Put them on the same page, as they say.

     "Let's take a walk," she said. "Maybe go around to the old place. Take a look. See what it is like."

     So they did. It wasn't too far.

     They walked not too quickly, not too slowly. Their natural pace was not all that different. And, after all, it was not a race. And they didn't have to direct each other, either. They knew the way to the old place just up and over the hill.

     At the top of the hill, they stopped, if only at first, to catch a little of their breath. From here, they could see the old place below. The years could have taken it away, but they hadn't. An old place was no longer a sure thing.

     "It's there," he said. "Still there."

     "Yes," she said. "It is."

     Their eyes searched in their own ways, looking down and around.

     "That roof, over there," she said. "I remember the roof. See it? Looks the same, after all this time."

     He knew which roof she meant. It was the largest roof, the highest roof, and it had always stood out above the other things in the old place, even if other things may or may not have changed.

     "Yes," he said. It did look the same, and he wondered how. Had it been cleaned or fixed? Maybe a recent storm had pulled it away, and it had been repaired (but by whom?) so that it looked the same as it had from the very beginning when it was built to rise high above the old place.

     He shared the thought. "I wonder," he said, "if it is the same roof."

     She didn't know exactly what he meant by this. Of course, it was the same roof. Looks just like she remembered. Why would he think it could be anything else but the same roof?

     "I wonder who is in there now?" she asked. "Or takes care of it if it is in use. They must have moved on with the changes and all."

     "Yes," he said. "Many did. It was the time." He vaguely thought that if it were empty, maybe he would go in.

     His eyes kept searching, and he added, "But until then, it was good, playing as children in the same places, playing some of the same games. Here and there."

     She remembered the games and picking sides, but it was hard for her to keep her eyes off the high roof.

     Their eyes wandered together as they surveyed the old place, seeing it as it now stood and seeing it through what they could remember or were told. There were always accounts, speeches, songs, and gossip, talk of greatness and weakness and causes of the past and the changes, all running together.

     "I remember that wall," he said. "Over there, just beside the high roof. There. Running along the side. I remember not being able to see over it. It wasn't something we knew about. The other side, I mean. And no one would say."

     She looked too, and she remembered, but with a question. "Is it a wall, or is it a fence? I think it was — is, a fence. And yes, it was tall. We all wanted to know — what it was for."

     Their eyes strained in looking at the line — the line of the wall or the fence before it sharply bent. The same difference, or maybe not. Impossible to tell, but both were sure.

     "I always wondered what it hid or held. There were stories. What it kept in," he said.

     She wasn't so sure. "I remember hearing about what it kept out," she added. "What it kept us away from."

     "Well," he said, "there's nothing there now. Inside, just there. Just a space. Maybe there never was anything — to keep in."

     "Or out," she added, but not too quickly or too loudly.

     They looked at the space that now, they agreed, held nothing.

     A wandering thought came to him. "Maybe — maybe it was always just a space. Nothing more. Nothing there to keep hidden, and nothing there to keep in — or out. From the very beginning. Maybe it was just needed to point to what the difference might be, or make differences for purposes that came and went."

     She didn't like the idea so much, and, in truth, neither did he. There had to be a real reason to think differently about what the wall or fence was for and for the space that line made. The reasons for the difference, and what they had been told. At least a reason to explain both sides of it. The space on both sides.

     "We always find something," he said.

     But she had to ask: "So, what do you mean it was 'needed'? That it was 'needed'."

     He had to think. This was a question that questioned him. "It means, if we think it was needed, or is needed, then that is what we doing here, to see. To see that it was or wasn't what we thought it was."

     Needed, she thought. Needed, he thought.

     "Maybe," she said. "But it's not like we're waiting for anything or why we're here."

     "But still," he said, "I suppose it is all enough. Two sides and a space. A line."

     "There never was a lack of something for nothing," she added.

     They wondered, looking out, separately and to themselves, if they should go down to the old place.

     "Well, much was made of it, that is for sure," she said. "Before it was too late, or forgotten — and while strength was up and while things were — were more plain."

     He almost agreed. "And there won't be any kind of" — and here, for once, he was stuck for the best word — "any kind of airing."

     She thought about the word, too. Airing. "No, probably not," she said.

     And they looked some more and stood — looking a little beyond the old place from the hill. For the moment, there seemed little to move them beyond, together.

     "There was a winding road, too," he said at last. "The road that went to the old place. It's gone, mostly. Tracks, traces, almost gone. Just over there."

     She agreed. "Yes, it's barely anything now, but the road — the road was not to the old place, but away from it. To the east. How they left."

     They looked just a little more. Just in case. Coming or going was never easy to tell in this light, now that the sun had crossed much of the sky.

     Finally, in the passing of the day, he had to say, "I still can't see it, in the air, I mean."

     She wanted to repeat that it was everywhere, but she had said that before, and it went nowhere.

     She thought, and then wondered out loud, "Do you think there will be another, well — you know — "

     "Another?" he interrupted, though he did so with some care. "No, I don't think so, but there is some talk of it. There always is."

     What did this leave them with, they both thought. What was in the air, if anything, to see or not see, smell or not smell, feel or not feel.

     They stood, stilled, looking.

     And then, up from the other side of the hill, came a bear. A large one, a hungry one. It had been on the lookout, given that this was the season. Seeing them, those two, seeing them on the top of the hill looking down below, and seeing that they were not moving, the bear crept up and killed them both before they even knew it. They never saw it coming.

     Overhead, soaring in the clear air, a falcon glided and saw it all.

     And the bear, having now satisfied its reason for climbing the hill that looked over the old place, moved on to look for other unmoving questions and rooted answers.