“Hey Lamont! The Sand Snowman should be done today. They finished the Sand Christmas Tree yesterday.”
“You don’t see anything strange about that? Consider how many people passing that creation have never seen a real snow man?”
“Yeah, so what? Have you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been wondering about that, how many iterations I don’t remember and why I just remember those I, well, those I do. I do remember the Ice Age, a couple of times. The good time and the bad time.”
“Oh I guess the ‘bad time’ was the one where my family took you down at the Tar Pits?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Oh Lamont. Sometimes it’s difficult enough with the memories we DO have. Think about it. Because of the persistence of memory, you, for example, you look askance on all human revelry. It might be fun to go out there and enjoy the lighting of the Sand Snowman or the Sand Christmas Tree. Just because it’s NOW doesn’t make it less of a party.”
“You’re right, Dude. I don’t dispute that at all. If I could enjoy it, I would. But I don’t. That kind of facile, systematic, seasonal joy seems contrived.”
“It IS contrived, but it still might be fun. It’s a human thing to have these traditions and seasonal way-stations.”
“Signaling the ever closer approach of our mortality. Do they think about THAT when Santa throws candy from a parade float? No. All this — whether it’s sand or snow — is just a reminder that we are temporary fixtures on this planet. Before long, Mother Ocean will come in and undermine the Sand Snow Man and the Snow Tree but long before THAT they will have been forgotten. Humans are fickle.”
“Joy is in the moment, Lamont. Drag it out too long it just becomes an orgy or a war.”
“Good point, Dude.”
“But, since you’re such a downer this morning, I’m going to catch some waves. Wanna’ come? It might cheer you up.”
Lamont and Dude are characters I came up with a few years ago. They have the uncanny ability to remember many of their past incarnations which gives them a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything.
“Summer is the season of inferior sledding” - Inuit proverb 
Lamont and Dude are national treasures.
There’s really important point here that people should focus on. If they did the world would be a much better place. How many times in the past did Dude eat Lamont? Or Lamont eat Dude? Yet here they are, the best of friends. No grudges, no re-litigating the past. It happened but that was a different life. Oh well. Nothing to be done about it now, so let’s go surfing.
OTOH, how many family get-togethers disintegrate when middle-aged and older adults spiral out of control over childhood slights? How many countries are locked in hatred and warfare over slights that happened long before anyone today was even born?
Lamont and Dude are absurdly mature, you know… 😉 and there’s a little resentment, though not much because they get it.
Dude is so good at living in the moment and balances Lamont’s fatalistic views… I have a silly question but how do they keep running into each other through time and lives??
That’s not a silly question. Well, first they’re probably lived many more lives than they are aware of — separately and mutually. They both realize they don’t remember all of their lives, and in a couple of earlier stories they remind each other of lives in which they knew each other but one or the other had forgotten. And, they run into each other only a tiny fraction of the number of lives they’ve probably lived, and it’s probable that some of the times they run into each other they don’t recognize each other. I think they’ve only uncovered the velociraptor, the oak trees, the bear and the salmon, the mastodon and the Smilodon, and this one in California living on Pacific Beach in San Diego. That’s not a lot of lives.