There were memories that I WANTED to forget.
It also isnt all-encompassing.
You dont wake up every day completely forgetting the day before like Drew Barrymore in that Adam Sandler romcom.
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Its a lot trickier than that.
There isnt much we can do about it.
A. in between small talk about fantasy football and the differences in the guitars players of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
You really need to sign up with Folds downstairs, Tyler said.
What the hell is Folds?
I shot back with turkey sandwich in my mouth.
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You really cant remember shit.
The thing everyone was freaking out about three months ago.
They started this new department in the basement.
Its like a Black Mirror episode.
Its like the new Twilight Zone.
Nick went down to work on it.
He leaked everything about it to engineering.
I had a vague memory of what Tyler was talking about, but my brain lacked details.
My co-worker friend Nick filled in the pieces.
They were in beta phase and desperately needed test subjects.
I walked down to the basement and put in my tool.
I didnt tell my wife anything.
I wanted to be able to regain some memory and just naturally impress her with the progress I made.
The testing was simple.
Embarrassing losses arent complicated.
I did this silently a few times, without protest before I started asking questions.
Nick was more than happy to blow up the companys plan.
He promised to share my memories with me once the last 25 percent was taken in.
I was so excited I went home that night and told me wife about the whole thing.
I did the my last couple of sessions with Nick.
The day finally came when NIck was able to share my memories with me.
He said he could get me the next case when ready.
Only the good stuff.
I wondered how the hell this memory chip thing worked.
Nick promised me it would be just like watching a movie.
He died in a car accident just a few months later.
It was the last golden memory I had of him.
I went to the next memory.
My wedding day with my wife.
We married late in life.
I was 41, she was 36.
The ceremony was in her parents backyard in Oregon.
Next up, the birth of our son Eli.
I watched my wife hold him in her arms, the exhaustion of childbirth still on her face.
I saw my point of view give her a long kiss on the forehead.
I started to break down and cry in the courtyard of my office.
Looked around to double-check no one saw me, before I shut down my operation for the day.
I examined the remaining cards that I had later that night.
More of the same.
Cherished memories that had crumbled in my feeble mind.
I watched them before my wife got home from work and then surprised her with the news.
The next day wasnt quite as sweet.
I exchanged my memory chip box with Nick for a new one.
I started watching them at lunch in the office courtyard again.
I had to shut them off because I was overcome with emotions again.
This collection of memories wasnt the bright and cheery, sappy movie I watched yesterday.
This cluster must have sucked the pain and tragedy out of the dark part of my brain.
The next clip was one that had almost no context.
It was just of me crying my eyes out in an empty hospital waiting area.
I had no idea what the event was connected to.
The shot faded away into another setting I didnt recognize.
This one was much more dark.
Even just watching the footage on solid ground I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
Then I flashed back to that bridge and watched myself walk back off the edge.
I crumpled up into a ball before my wife got home.
I started to regretting gaining my memory back.
I thought about the ways my amnesia had been a slight blessing in disguise.
There were memories that I WANTED to forget.
My wife talked me off the ledge.
We watched some more memories.
The good ones returned.
All was right in the world again.
The memory program was a success.
He looked horrified to see me.
Um, something crazy happened last night man.
Did you see the police cars in the main parking lot when you came in?
Nick asked as he ushered me towards the bathroom.
Nick and I huddled in the single-toilet bathroom with the door locked with the fart fan on.
He said it was rumored to be a competitor looking for a leg up.
He said he ended up with all but about 10 percent of my memory.
I laughed and cried throughout the night by myself.
This memory collection featured more of the same mysterious element which haunted me from the first.
Painful feelings and images which didnt tickle the slight bit of memories in my head.
I felt more hollow than a dollar store chocolate Easter bunny.
The mystery of those memories hurt me more than the painful ones which I actually started to remember.
The unknown tortured that my brain and I couldnt handle.
I felt the answer may have been in that absent sliver.
Something was missing in that 10 percent I didnt have.
I needed to have it.
Unfortunately he heard they had zero true leads at the moment into the theft.
I was disappointed, but understood.
I started to come apart at the seams.
Then the day came that Nick delivered me the news that I wanted to hear.
He bumped into me in the urinal line in the bathroom and whispered to me.
I grilled Nick until someone else came in having to piss and we moved it to the parking garage.
Exactly who that local woman was, Nick had not learned yet.
I pushed Nick to find the information for selfish reasons.
His little memory chip operation was beginning to haunt my dreams.
Nick delivered just when I was running out of patience.
That was my wife Marys email address.
I sat speechless in my car without any oxygen rushing to my brain.
I felt I could pass out.
My wife was the one who spearheaded stealing the memories?
I didnt even really know what to do.
A shot of good news was that Nick was able to help me.
I got an email from him while I was in my car for an hour trying to recover.
I found them on the drive though.
Come into the office and Ill hand them off to you.
I said I was feeling sick and headed home to watch what I was missing.
The first video I watched was of me in high school.
It was my usual spot once the intimacy of slow dancing was introduced.
What played out before my eyes was different though.
She joked about how the guys in the forgettable hair metal band actually looked like hot girls.
I talked about how I actually liked my parents records from the 60s.
We waltzed out onto the dark cafeteria floor.
There was a cold to the scene that came from more than just the Michigan October afternoon.
I could feel the memory of being hurt and lonely.
I watched myself run up to her and wrap her in a hug.
This scene was a silent movie, but I knew the words that were there.
I felt the next memory in the gut the second I saw the opening frame.
It looked to just be my closest family at the ceremony and what I assume was her family.
Then the name came to me.
That was the lovely, gentle, sweet, kind womans name.
She was my wife at an earlier point of my life.
The space between these memories were still dark.
Things began to sink lower from here.
A doctor delivering news to Anne and I.
Her hand in mine.
I felt the power of the squeeze she shot into me through the screen.
I could tell it wasnt the first.
I felt it wouldnt be the last.
I felt Anne painful tears on my shoulder.
I couldnt finish the scene.
I skipped to the next.
Part of me wanted to just leave it to mystery, but another part of me had to watch.
I let it play.
I could barely feel a pulse in this one, and then I felt it slip away.
The memories came to an end.
I was almost shocked she arrived.
My wife picked up on the energy in the room immediately.
You tried to steal the memories of my first wife so I couldnt restore them?
I asked her the question which had burned in me for an hour.
They werent going to do you any good.
Do you feel any better now?
My wife immediately shot back.
I needed to know what happened in my life, I said.
Your brain was so shocked by the trauma it started erasing all of it, my wife pleaded.
It was what was natural.
Its what got you healthy enough to where we could meet and start our lives together, our family.
I just tried to save you from all of it.
My wife rushed over to me and collapsed onto me on the couch.
She started sobbing uncontrollably.
I just wanted to help.
I felt my wifes hand grip mine even harder than Anne had gripped mine in those old memories.
I sought out Nick as soon as I walked into the office the next day.
Did they make any movement with the woman who set up the theft?
Nick said that they didnt, but he didnt think the company was going to push anything.
Do they have any technology that can wipe those new memories back out of your brain?
Nick gave me a very-complicated answer that essentially boiled down to Yes.
I will always hold that love, and unfortunately sadness, somewhere subconsciously in my heart and soul.
Its that knowledge that will let me undergo the wiping procedure he scheduled for me in a few days.
I guess thats okay with me.
