Memoro

“Nothing Lasts Forever,” a book by Sidney Shoulder written in 1994. A relic of the past whose creator had long since turned to dust. It was Elaine’s favorite book though, so Ace had it printed for her 27th birthday. The year is 4060 and physical books were almost entirely obsolete. There are only digital libraries these days and the only way to get a physical copy is to order it to be printed. “Nothing Lasts forever,” the saying itself was outdated. For in this age of technological and medicinal enlightenment, there is no such thing as life expectancy. It is almost impossible to die outside of freak accidents. Almost. If someone truly wants you dead, it’ll happen. In this age where humanity has figured out how to collect and manipulate dark matter and has conquered the stars—where they’ve mastered the art of terraforming planets—it never occurred to him that the things he takes for granted would one day be beyond reach. When he got the call that there had been an incident at her work and she had been pronounced deceased, he didn’t want to believe it. A disgruntled former employee sabotaged the nuclear reactor that powered the building causing all its occupants to be incinerated instantly. The guy felt as if they’d fired him to hire Elaine simply because she was pretty. Now while she was pretty, it wasn’t the reason he was fired. He simply wasn’t a good employee. He was mediocre at his position yet acted as if he knew everything. He wasn’t a team player; always doing his own thing even to the detriment of the people he worked with. But they couldn’t let him go lest they be understaffed. So when Elaine came along and proved to be much more competent and pleasant to be around, they hired her right away. He blamed her for the loss of his job and cursed his coworkers for “letting it happen.”

A few years later, Ace heard about a new company on one of the planets in the Delta colony that claimed to have developed a machine that allows you to revisit any moment from your life for an hour. The procedure isn’t cheap though and only about .0001% of people who apply are accepted because the machine links to the brain and uses radiation and dark matter to connect your mind to that of your past self. But even a slim chance was a chance nonetheless, so he packed his bags and set out for planet D-097 on a whim. After months and months of interviews and rigorous testing, he was finally accepted. After being cleared, the scientists told him he would have 120 sessions before he’d have to be cleared again. In his first trip using the machine, he went back to the moment he first met Elaine. He and a friend were talking about the weather right before the steps of the landing pad for the Intergalactic Flight Academy, barely shielded from the rain. He could never understand how something so removed from the human condition could influence emotions. He argued that the idea of a phenomenon as common as rain showers making one depressed is patently absurd. He was in the middle of that rant when she chimed in with, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”Ace was taken aback. He had never met anyone who spoke Shakespeare before, let alone in the context of weather. He was intrigued and so was Elaine. They talked and talked until they realized they were both headed in the same direction. From that moment on, they were inseparable. As Ace relived that moment in the machine, tears streamed down his face. He missed her so much. The memories of their happy moments together were now bittersweet, and the pain of her loss was unbearable. As the hour was up, he knew he had to go back. But he was left with the realization that no matter how advanced technology got, it could never replace the human connection. It wasn’t enough but it had to be. He started to visit the facility every day, scouring his past for memories of Elaine smiling—too painful to remember yet too important to be forgotten. He remembers visiting planet C-137; Charlie colony, system 13, planet 7. A place where the sun never sets and has some of the most beautiful views in its star system. He remembers proposing for her to be his wife, a vintage custom she adored. Life is too long to promise it to one person and monogamy had long since fallen out of practice, but he couldn’t imagine himself with anyone else. He ran out of sessions fairly quickly, with 120 days passing by in a blur.

Far away from the facility in a newly purchased apartment, Ace reaches for her in the middle of the night. His hand comes up empty and it burns. There’s an overwhelming sense of grief and loneliness. In the middle of the night, clutching the covers as sobs wrack his body, he wonders if this is his punishment—the memories they shared haunting him for the rest of his days—for wanting it to last forever. Even outside of the machine, Ace’s time is spent chasing ghosts. Memories of her haunt his dreams, and when he awakes it’s an endless search for them—things she left behind. It’s one of those days, as he’s sitting on the living room couch rewatching her favorite movie. “At the End of the World,” a tragic romance set almost 3000 years in the past. It follows a couple from the initial meeting to their untimely split. The couple falls in love young. They get married and fail to have children. The spark in their relationship fades and they drift apart. He gets to the climax of The movie. The couple gets into a huge fight and the wife storms off and drives away. She is gone for hours and the night eventually falls. Worried, the husband calls her and asks where she is. After a beat of silence, she responds, "I'm here." Ace is saying the iconic line along with her, just like Elaine used to do, "at our place.“ In the still of his apartment, next to him, he can hear Elaine whisper, "at the end of the world." He hears it as clear as day. Springing up from the sofa, he scans the room frantically for any sign of his beloved. Weeks passed like that, the past haunting his present, driving him mad with grief. There are moments when he walks into a room and Elena's standing there so, so close he can touch her he calls her name and she turns around startled as if she's heard him. Sometimes he'll blink and he's back in their place together. He plays again and it's gone. But he was there, he knew it deep in his heart as soon as he was clear to start using the machine again he told his guy what had been happening. They pulled him in and in a hushed voice said, "What I'm about to tell you is highly confidential, but you're not crazy. I can't say more than this. Just meet me beneath the facility after our session here today." Then his monitor leans back and goes into his usual spiel before turning on the machine. The hour passes seemingly as usual. And his monitor goes through all the usual emotions. He relives his first-year anniversary with Elaine. As the monitor is hooking him from the machine, he sits perfectly still but his heart is pounding. The feeling that has been growing for the past few weeks, the feeling that the past is not so far away has reached a head. It threatens to make his heart beat out of his chest. He leaves the room and takes the elevator down to the B4 parking floor.