forget me not

In my house there’s a hidden passageway that leads to a set of stairs.

 Many books are stored on the staircase and it’s quite a hazard if you do not pay attention or forget what place is safe to place your feet. Some days even I, the creator of the staircase and placer of the books forgets what place is safe to stand on. If I'm going to be honest, I've created multiple holes in my floor by accident. There’s a hidden guide on the left side when you enter the passageway which can be revealed by candlelight on a low flame. But like I forget what I ate the day before, I always manage to forget where that guide is. 

My name is Mnema and I forget everything because I suffer from long term memory loss. 

But before you get bored, let me continue explaining. Every single day without fail after dinner, I go up the secret passage and catalogue my interactions, my thoughts, what I ate and what I did so I don’t repeat myself or forget important events. 

The one day I did forget to do this (rather ironic, isn’t it?) I ate potatoes three days in a row apparently. How do I know this? When counting my stock of potatoes I realised there were way too many missing for that night's dinner. After a bit of wondering, I noticed that the lock on the passageway hadn’t been opened in a couple of days, which raised my suspicious feeling after counting my potato stock. 

Maybe it’s a good idea if someone checks on me because of how often I forget things. Most times I manage to find it somewhere on a piece of paper or in a message, but there's a chance where it just slips my mind and I forget it again. 

Upstairs after the passageway staircase there’s a lonely red chair in front of the window. Most days, there’s paper and pencils all over the floor because of my inability to clean up after myself. ( Trust me dad, I’m working on it!) and there are books all over the room just like the staircase that hold my life. I write the day down, explain in detail what I did and that I rinse and repeat every single day. Most days I just reread the books that hold my memories and look at interactions with my best friends who help me remind. If I forget something again, they’ll remind me if it was something they said, we would do together or an important event like the mayor’s vote that happened…. Last week? I can’t quite remember. 

Anyways, tonight i’ll be meeting with my friend Tilu who I’m going to lunch with. My last entries say that he’s very friendly to me and likes to hang out in an old dinner called “Westside Chicken” and apparently my favorite meal is a “Cherry Comet” soda with a BLC sandwich. 

What does BLC even mean? I’m not sure because I forgot.

Apparently, this friend wants to talk about who won the mayor election and why that other guy died on that day. 

Wait, somebody died…?

Maybe I should make a book about everyone’s death date because it’s getting confusing. Words and dates are forming together already and I’m not even halfway through the day so I decide to bring a temporary memory journal with me. This way I don’t forget conversations when the memory starts early for whatever reason. 

Whenever this happens, there’s something big going on in the next couple of days. Sometimes, I get awful headaches that confine me to my bed and then a couple of days later something major happens like a death or event.

It’s the second reason I catalogue everything that happens besides the whole “I forget everything” reason. I warn people when my headaches start to be weary of anyone their path crosses with. Even friends or family can pose a threat in a bad situation. 

When I walked out the door to meet with my friend, I paused for a moment. “What if something happens today?” but as fast as it crosses my mind it manages to disappear again with no intent of coming back.

And so I walk. I walk to the diner with the jacket tied around my waist and looking for Tilu. There is a photo in my hand for reference that should have an updated appearance from the last time I saw them. And it didn’t take too long for me to find him sitting at a table in the back.

He waved me over and we ordered. I ordered the same meal from my memory book and when the food arrived he started a conversation. 

“” How are you today Mnema? “ His voice sounded sincere as he dug into his side of fries.

“I feel a headache coming on Tilu. Something is going to happen and it’s gonna be a major event. I feel it coming on and it got worse today. “ I confessed and started on my cherry soda. It was indeed good and Tilu laughed at my amazed reaction.

“ It’s still weird watching you every day. You drink and eat what you always do but the first time your eyes still light up.. Anyways yes, I’m starting a revolution against the mayor. I don’t like who they choose so i’m opposing them.” There was a look in his eyes I didn’t quite like. Something was going to go wrong and I was not in the mood to find out.

“ Ah.. good for you. “ I played with my own fries as if not interested in his idea. I was in fact interested but if he got caught I would be a suspect and if they found my books.. 

Well that would not have a good ending for me and everyone involved. 

So when I got home, I decided not to write this down. It felt like an error in my system and I knew how confused I would be the next morning. Tilu would hate this but I can’t risk it. If they found the books they’d catch me and expose my secrets. 

“Let’s just disrupt the system for one day. It can’t have that bad of a consequence can it?” But when I closed my eyes that night I knew I had made a terrible mistake.

The world was changing and I was going to forget an important event. My system was going to be disrupted and my catalogue would not fit in that system.