Tag: memory

The Walking Dream (A Short Story)

I woke up groggy from a long night, my muscles sore and my head still tired as if I never really slept. I felt the dream cascade on top of me. It’s feeling looming over my mind with omnipresent vividness, but I could not remember exactly what happened.

I was there when he did it all to me. That’s what I could feel. Who was he again, and what did he do? My memory retreated like a wave. I just had the feeling of standing there. 

Except I couldn’t move. I just stood. I just remember standing at attention. For what though? I stood in some kind of line; that’s what it was. A line of other bodies. 

While standing there, I woke up for some reason. Well, sort of, I became aware of my presence, of my body, but I could not move. He controlled my body; he controlled all our bodies. We stood in formation at his command. But who even was he? 

The part of it that doesn’t make sense is that it felt like I was actually there. It didn’t have the fuzziness that dreams normally have. I felt like I was seeing with my actual eyes, feeling the sensations of my actual body, and moving with my actual limbs. I could still feel it in the way my muscles twitched now from exhaustion just thinking about it. It didn’t feel like a normal dream. No haziness in my perception. I swear I was actually there. 

And who were the others? They were countless other bodies; other drones to his will. I guess the more important question remains, who was he? I have a vivid impression in my mind. Of him looming large before me. He did it. He felt like an evil monster bearing down at me from above. But I have no face, no body for him. 

And what did he have us do? I can scarcely remember that either. He had us march. He sent us to do his bidding. As he did so, I saw that he saw that I could see him; that even though my body was still under his control, that my sensations had somehow woken up. He brought me back into a deep sleep, and I lost the ability to remember anything at all. 

I felt like I had barely slept at all. My mind rushed trying to remember it all yet the air of my memory is quickly evaporating. How was I going to go about my day today? How would I survive work? Exhausted, I feel like I can barely move, even though I just woke up. If I had too many of these restless nights, I would have to see a sleep doctor. 

Who was he? I couldn’t get this thought out of my mind. My thoughts felt like ropes that I pulled and pulled until they faded away into nothing. Whoever he was, I did not like him. 

I got up and followed the rhythm I had always known to get ready for the day. I was on autopilot, too tired to do anything else. Eventually, I skated out the door, and the dream just remained as a faint feeling. I could not decipher any details. When I thought back, I only felt a looming terror washes over me. My body convulsed with anticipation. I felt the sensation of standing, of marching, of someone staring down at me. Nothing more.

Life, Death, and the Dance of Memory (A Short Story)

Photo Credit: CDD20

Title: Life, Death, and the Dance of Memory

There was once a society that discovered how to become immortal. They lived their lives for decades, but as the decades transitioned into centuries, it did not feel the same. They lost their wonder at new things. The first time they experienced something it was fresh and novel, but overtime, they started to realize how cyclical the universe actually was. It just endlessly repeated itself every several decades or centuries in a cycle.

Some tried to experience difference by having children. This was strictly forbidden in their immortal society to keep the population down. The children provided a sense of newness. They could vicariously see the world afresh through their children’s eyes, which gave them a type of innovation that they craved.

This, though, eventually began to fade: after so many new generations, the experience of begetting another round of children becomes routine and boring. Having children became another thing they got used to.

Others tried building their own business empire, but that too did not last. One can only build or expand so much before one reaches the limit of one’s space, and the vitality of competing against other businesses in the industry also starts to fade.

Others tried to create their own art, but creativity can also only go so far. After one has explored one’s style to the furthest reaches and delved into other styles one might be potentially interested in, art too loses its novelty

So, the people of this society made a bold decision. They decided to learn to forget. Every few decades – 8 decades seemed like the best number – they would induce the ability to forget.

That way, they could relearn the world as a new space each time. They cascaded which decades people forgot so that each decade there was always still a knowing group who could train the ones who had forgotten. Thus, the community could maintain itself over multiple generations of forgettings.

Through this, each experienced the wonder of the universe without seeing its novelty fade into the lethargy of endless iteration.