A Memory Unbound
This morning I found the photograph in the attic. I hadn’t been there in years. I don’t know what took possession of me and made me climb up the stairs, but I did. A layer of dust covered everything, but it didn’t bother me. Somehow I remembered the box in the upper cupboard shelf, but I didn’t expect what I found in there.
There must be an explanation.
The notebooks I set aside for later. The odd souvenirs, weird small things whose purpose I couldn’t discern, I didn’t touch. The photographs, though, I picked up anxiously.
Many of them were of Clay and Anna. Most were black and white. Often there would be other people as well, people I didn’t recognize. I could do a search, but I preferred not to. I don’t know why.
And then I saw the photograph.
It was the three of us. Giancarlo, Hugh and me. I extended my fingers and touched it.
And I remembered. It was the fall of 1981. Giancarlo and Hugh were twelve. They listened to listen to Depeche Mode’s Speak and Spell album secretly; they felt older. I had met them one month before. It’s all the time it had taken us to become the best of friends. They didn’t mind my aspect; they simply took me in. Psychologists weren’t sure of that, but I only learned of it many years later.
At first everything went well. We were always together: we played together, we studied together. I had to study and learn the hard way; it was made so on purpose.
I guess the feelings were the problem.
Back in the eighties, I didn’t have proper ones. I don’t think I can honestly say they rushed me, but later I reached the conclusion they did all they could have done. But in short, when Giancarlo and Hugh started dating girls, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to.
That’s when the accident happened.
All of it rushed back into my mind when I touched the photograph.
And that could only mean one thing. I scanned the image. Nothing. And the paper? Ah, there it was. A palimpsest that only I could read: Clay and Anna had to know that my brain would process both the image and the underlying UV-sensitive layer at the same time.
But then… then maybe everything up in the attic was there just for me: triggers in waiting. I dropped the photograph and didn’t touch anything else.
It’s already dark outside, but I’m still sitting here, surrounded by dust and long dead memories that await me. And I consider my options. Obviously, they reduce to two: I can choose to remember, or I can choose not to.
I cannot weep. I’ve never been able to. But my heart hurts because of the accident. An accident I had no memory of before this morning. Is that absurd? Maybe it is.
Maybe it is even weirder, because after all, Giancarlo and Hugh have been dead for centuries now. As Clay and Anna have. As every person on the planet has.
I can choose: I can get all my memories back and know. I could mourn for each of them, I suppose. I imagine not all memories are sad, but I check my memory banks, the ones I thought were perfect until this morning, and I cannot find anything bad in there. Or I could also stay as I am, ignorant of the past. My past, but also the past of the world.
I’ve lived a lie.
I must choose. But there’s no real choice, is there?
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This is my accompanying entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: June 19–25, 2017 at the Writer’s Discussion Group on Google+. I am responsible for creating the prompts for the Exercise, so I don’t take part, but I still like to write a story each week.
I usually start every flash fiction with a brainstorming session. I toss ideas around and pick. This week, however, I only had the idea of telling the story from the robot viewpoint. On Sunday afternoon I sat down and wrote it, following that idea.
