Nine Years Removed
When the years seemed to be getting shorter, Eleanor spent most of her faculties thinking of memories; not any memory in particular – it was the idea of memories that she obsessed over.
Eleanor had collected a lifetime of memories – content so vivid and detailed it couldn’t possibly be recorded in a different medium. But as the years had passed, her prowess at recalling specific memories had failed. Her memories had all blended together like watercolour paint on a wet paper canvas – the multi-hued glob was so muddy it was impossible to tell the constituent colours apart.
The question of where memories were stored constantly vexed Eleanor. To her, memories were not stored tangibly – they were physically ephemeral. Sure, one could point at the human brain as being the storehouse of memories; but could you point out the neuron in which a memory was stored, Eleanor wondered.
“Is it just me or are memories not as robust as one would have hoped they’d be? As the years whizz by and the yesterdays outnumber the tomorrows, I can feel my memories changing“, she’d written in her journal. “What was once a lived experience is just a hazy blob in my mind’s eye now.”
She’d remind herself that it wasn’t even that long ago. A tiny voice in the back of her head would shout “9 years!”, but she could never be sure about it. Despite the uncertain provenance, Eleanor occasionally engages in flights of fancy where she replays one of those memories from so long ago. The memory is extant but it’s only the broad outline of it that she can recall, none of the fine details register. Fortunately for Eleanor, the gist of it all still exists, and a flurry of neural activity fills in the gaps for her.
Eleanor is reliving an experience, but it is also a confabulation of sorts.
It doesn’t strike her as paradoxical though. Eleanor spends a couple of hours wondering about this. Had she become so jaded with the world outside that she didn’t mind white lies her mind crafted for her? Or had she lost all attachment towards a memory – something that was undoubtedly a part of her? She cannot say for sure.
The only thing Eleanor knows is that some day 9 years ago, she made out with a girl on an overnight train. The broad outline is there; the fine details, not so much.