I brought up my Pocket Secretary and saw the balance change on my account. It was enough to feed my family for another couple of weeks, I suppose. I dreaded coming here, lay on that cushioned chair, feeling the helmet being placed and being told to “remember”. Remember whatever good moment I would want to sell. It’s painful. More than just the idea of losing something you care about, you actually feel the memory getting pulled like it’s something glued to you being forcefully ripped. You feel the memory becoming less and less clear as the machine does its work until, for the next minute, all you sense is… emptiness. You can no longer remember it, but your brain still knows something is missing. You always look for it, but the machine is flawless; there’s no trace of it. Not even if you’re told about it afterwards. That memory is no longer yours. It’s gone.
“Well, “ admitted the technician in charge of the memory extractors “that’s the last one, for now. You still haven’t found a job?”
“No.” I sighed as I rose from the chair “No one wants to hire you when they find out that you worked for Hyperion.”
“Damn.” He commented. I guess it bothered even him to see me every few weeks here, just slowly falling to depression “Do you think you’ll be able to come back here?”
“I don’t know. It’s getting harder to find stuff to be happy about.”
“I suppose it must be…” the technician said with a tinge of sadness. “I wish I could help you.”
“I know, and I appreciate the sentiment, but for now, I’ll just go and buy some food for my family”. With a mutual farewell, I made my way out.
Not even my house was a place of comfort for me. More than just the numerous graffiti on the front wall of the building claiming things like “Fuk off Hyperion ass” or “Just die” or the broken windows on my floor, I just no longer felt like I belonged here. After the fall of Hyperion, me and a woman whom I can’t even remember marrying during my time there, as well as our son and our daughter, got stripped of all we had and were forced to move to a place with the lowest rent we could find. And the only reason why we even managed to get the landlady to rent it to us in the first place was because she couldn’t bear to see our children on the street. Neither me or my the woman legally considered to be my wife had employment anymore, and leaving the house was always a source of worry because most of people’s lives here were just as bad because of what Hyperion did to them and their planet and were looking to return the favour. I had simply been a Human Resources Manager. I wasn’t even part of anything, but the people didn’t care. I had been part of Hyperion, and that is all that mattered.
Holding both my bags of groceries the best I could, I took a deep breath and unlocked the door. I should feel like I’m coming home to my wife and kids, but I simply feel like an intruder. They don’t feel like family to me. Just average people. Acquaintances at most.
As I closed the door with my shoulder, this little girl, no older than ten, with short light brown hair and eyes of the same colour, pale skin with lightly reddened cheeks and a simple military green dress excitedly came running from across the house’s single room towards me with a huge smile on her face and hugged my leg, greeting me as “dad”. Shortly after, a woman, this one with entirely black, but curly, hair and eyes of a similar brown as the child walked, more calmly, towards me. Helping me with one of the bags, she greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and the designation of “dear”.
I made the effort of pulling a smile as I accepted the woman’s help, and lightly ruffled the girl’s hair as I asked her to go back to playing so I could go help “mother” take care of the groceries. I had yet to get used to it. The hollowness of such gestures. I know they were supposed to be my wife and daughter, but at this point, I felt no connection whatsoever to either of them. I stole a saddened glance at the woman in front of me as we both organized the food I had bought. There were bags underneath her eyes. She too had yet to find a job and she too had had trouble sleeping because of it. Noticing my stare, we both looked at each other knowingly. We had agreed only one of us was to sell our memories so the other could take proper care of the kids, but she knew that, every time I saw her, I no longer remembered being the father of our children, I no longer remembered her pregnancies, I no longer remembered our nights together, I no longer remembered our wedding, I no longer remembered the time we used to date, I no longer even remembered why I loved her in the first place. And yet she strived to keep a smile on her face, to try and keep the relationship between us as close to normal as she could. She made small talk, she treated me affectionately, she still tried to have me look at her as my wife, but it was of no use. I simply knew that she was my wife as an objective fact. No other feelings were attached to it.
“Where’s Michael?” I asked, trying to move my mind somewhere else
“He’s on the couch, taking a nap. He fell asleep shortly before you arrived.”
I looked back and saw him curled up in the couch, fast asleep under a blanket. He was five years old. Black hair and of pale skin as well. He looked so peaceful.
“How much was it?” She ended up gaining the courage to ask as both of us finished with the groceries, unable to hide the frown.
“Enough for two weeks, if we stretch it.”
She didn’t say anything, but we both knew I had been making less the more times I went to sell my memories. I may no longer have a connection to any of these people, but I still felt responsible for them, and knowing that they counted on me left me unable to just leave them. The notion that I may soon not be able to provide for them left me with an unconcealable feeling of worry and guilt that did not pass by unnoticed by my wife.
“Sarah, please don’t-” was all I could say before she embraced me, her arms well wrapped around my neck as she affectionately whispered into my ear:
“Please, call me “honey”; call me “dear”; call me “sweetheart”; anything. I’ll make you remember. We’ll get through this. We’ll find something so you won’t ever have to go back to that place. Just… please keep going, for now.”
This sensation I felt, created by those words of encouragement, this trust, this hope she placed on me. To know that, despite the idea that I no longer felt the same way, she still cared for me that deeply, it… left me happy. It made me want to treasure this moment. But at the same time, what quickly crossed my mind, was a question about how much I could make from it. And at that point, I embraced her as well as my eyes watered and soon overflowed. I cried. I cried knowing that I, for as long as this situation remained, could no longer truly feel happiness and yet, if I wanted to support my family, until I found someone willing to hire a man who had worked where I did, I had to feel just so. Both of us simply stood there as she too started sobbing and we conformed with just wetting the other’s clothing as we tried to think of something to help us along.
