I won.

I remember the feel of silk slipping away beneath my fingertips, the rough weave of raw cotton, the Braille of knarled pills on my old polyester comforter. I remember the feel of warm breath ruffling my hair, raising anticipation of a rose petal kiss on the back of my neck, a stroke along the curve of the muscle of my arm, one perfect nail catching my skin, teasing it. I remember the feel of a hand fitted into mine, so tiny, so trusting, damp with little boy sweat and flaking away bits of the inside of a first baseball glove.

I remember the taste of nighttime cold medicine, twisting my face and rolling my stomach. I remember the taste of seafood gumbo in a little restaurant by a dock, frozen cheesecake served straight from my freezer, beans soaked in a canteen and cooked over a wood fire but served without salt because someone forgot to pack it. I remember the taste of my wife's lips, sometimes fresh and minty, sometimes fuzzy and sour from sleep, but always her. I remember the taste of recipes mixed by five year old standing on a chair in the kitchen, dishes with pepperoni and whipped crème and cinnamon, fit for a king.

I remember the smell of bleach in a public bathroom, fish and shells and sand rising from the ocean, bread dough rising in a warm oven. I remember the fine distinction between the smell of horse and cow and pig manure, and how these fragrances combined with wafts of cotton candy and the diesel of the midway to spell county fair. I remember the smell of a perfume that many women wore, but only one woman owned. I remember the smell of paste, left in traces on my clothes after sticky hugs.

Now I stand, a solitary figure in a blackened landscape that stretches before me, behind me, to either side. All I touch is charred rubble, hot and dry. All I taste is myself as I gnaw my lower lip. All I smell is a faint, sweet odor that my mind circles round like a vulture, but refuses to settle on.

I won.

I wish I had lost.