TFS: Burnt Earth

Molly – 35 years ago

“Take this.” The woman thrusts something at me looking like coloured glass.

“What the hell is it?”

“It’s your memories,” she claims.

“My memories?”

“You asked me to remove your memories, and I did that,” she explains. “I extracted the memories negatively impacting your desire to be here, leaving the ones with a positive impact.”

I’m quiet for a moment, while I try to piece together what the fuck she’s talking about.

“I’m Asteria, by the way,” she continues. “We haven’t been formally introduced.”

“I’m Molly,” I state, “or at least I think I am.”

“You’re Molly,” she confirms. “You’re just a different Molly now, the Molly that might’ve been.”

“The Molly that might’ve been if what?”

“The Molly that might’ve been if history took a different route.”

“A different Molly for a different future,” I reason.

“Something like that,” she hedges.

“I asked you to fuck with me like this?”

“You did,” she affirms.

I hold the gemstone in my hand. “This is what’s left?”

“It is.”

“I find it hard to believe all that time fit into this little stone.” I shake my head. “I know how much time has passed…I remember it passing. It’s just…fuzzy.”

I’m confused. More than confused. I’m right the fuck out to lunch. How could I forget something, yet remember the time passing? It’s not like forgetting at all.

“I’ve extracted your memories. They reside now in that stone. It’s yours to keep with you or give away, but you must never destroy it.”

“Why?”

“Because what’s inside will return if you do, and I can only capture it once.”

“All my memories are in this little stone?”

“Not all of them,” she asserts. “Only the ones causing you pain.”

“So, mostly all of them,” I note.

“Yes.” She frowns. “Mostly all of them.”

“I reckon that makes this an emotional suppository. One of those enema tablets you just jam right up there to get all the asshole feelings working properly.”

Her frown deepens. “A precious stone.”

“As in a gemstone?” I look at the stone in my hands. “Right…”

“How exactly do you think gemstones are created?” she presses.

“They’re formed in the earth’s crust.”

“Expand your thinking. What if they aren’t formed by the earth but by the people residing there? What if they’re born of memories, precious when held, then discarded by people ill equipped to hold onto them?” she contends.

“You honestly expect me to believe the earth doesn’t create gemstones? They’re people’s memory turds?” Fucking lady is crazier than a shithouse rat. My faculties might be out to lunch, but hers have fucked all the way off.

“I don’t expect you to believe anything,” she rebuts. “It is what it is. People forget. They just do. New memories replace the old. Why do you think people are so fascinated with technology capturing memories? Pictures. Videos. These are things meant to prolong something the mind can’t retain on its own.”

“You have the ability to capture those memories before they’re lost?”

“Yes,” she agrees.

“While separating them from the emotions making them real.”

“To solidify them. To keep them as the treasure they’re meant to be,” she counters.

I lift a challenging brow. “Are you not afraid my having this stone will trigger an emotional response thereby negating your efforts?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Why didn’t you just flush the fuckers entirely?”

She seems offended by my question. “I extract memories. I don’t dissolve them. That would be cruel. I displace them. You can watch them like a movie, but they’ll never be interactive for you again.”

I look closer at the stone. I feel hollow when I do. Grossly empty. Everything’s been scooped out from inside me except for Connor. The memories I have of him are brought into focus, no longer diluted by the volume of everything else filling up my brain since the accident. It’s all been purged but him. Beyond the accident, time passes. I watch myself within the stone as though it’s a black and white, silent film. I grow and live a life not truly mine.

I should feel something. This is my first love. My only love. Do I feel anything? Fuck no. I’m looking at a stranger’s life through a screen, and it isn’t sadness I feel at the loss. Not even empathetic sadness for the character being represented. What I feel is simple curiosity as to how the storyline flows. It touches nothing deeper. There’s nothing deeper to touch. Just a shallow well. Fuck, it’s not even a well. More like a ditch meant to funnel rain water away from a gravel road. That road? That road is Connor.

“Did you implant the memories I have about Connor?”

“No, I can’t do that. All I can do is extract memories. I displace them, but false creation isn’t in my wheel house. He appears more clearly to you now because he isn’t lost in the clutter. You had a lot of things floating around in there. Focusing on him was hard with all the distractions,” she clarifies.

“I’m putting this away,” I report, “in a safe place.”

Asteria smiles.

Holding the stone in my hands, precious as it is, makes me uncomfortable. I place it under the bed pillow for safe keeping. I don’t want it close to me. I don’t trust myself with it, like I might drop it, and it’ll shatter into a million irreparable pieces.

Then I hear his screams again. Connor’s in pain. I want to help him. I need to help him. His wails wind around my heart, constricting it with brother boa strength. My brother. The snake. He could choke the life out of me, yet I want nothing more than to go to him and calm his cries.

“Can I see him?”

“That’s why you’re here.”

“Can I help him?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Well, I’m ready to give it a try,” I offer.

“We have to take you somewhere first,” she declares.

“Where?”

“To see the Archives.”

“The fuck are the Archives?”

“They’ll give you all the answers you need to understand all this.”

“Like what?”

“Like why I can affect your memories to begin with, where you are, what we are, and who you’ll become.”

“To fill the gaping cunt of a hole you left in me?”

What she took from me left me hollow inside. There’s no pain. No remorse. No loss. Just an empty space that can never be filled. Anything of importance was extracted and placed in the memory stone.

“To fill some of it anyway.”

I nod, numbly following her down the hall with the walls moving as we pass them.