3 Acts of Perfect Recall



1.

The phone rang, he answered.

"Do you know what I'm wearing?"

"I wish I did"

"I'm wearing what I had on when you asked me out, so do you know what I am wearing?"

"I asked you out 5 times"

"The final time"

She loved to test him, he knew this so recalled every moment they spent together. He had an eidetic memory, perfect recall. Every moment was recorded in almost precise detail.

"Of course I do, I remember you wearing a black vest top with a black cardigan over it, your skinny jeans and underneath a purple thong."

"Ha, I'm not wearing the thong"

"Oh, that’s a shame"

They had been walking down a terrace street, it was a mild day, it finally seemed like winter was over. Shopping bags in hand, the receipt had come to £23.70.

"But you never knew what I was going to say, did you?"

"If I'd have known I would have waited till we were someplace else, a more romantic setting for you to remember."

"I didn't know either" she said.

"You were looking down when I asked you, I wanted to wait till you looked up so I could see your eyes but then without thinking it came out, so I asked you"

"I'll speak to you later" she said abruptly.

The phone went dead, the light went off and the room went dark again. The window shook as the wind and rain battered it, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.




2.

12:47 and the telephone rang, he was in the garden hanging out clothes. The phone vibrated its way onto the tiled floor and cracked. He came in and picked it up.

"What was my first meal of 2010?"

"That’s easy, I though you like to test me"

"Ok how many times have you ever said you love me?"

"Written or spoken?"

"Both"

He smiled.

"Now that’s a test, I first said it in secret sitting across from you at a table, we had been drinking cider, since then I'd told you five thousand four hundred and thirty times although I'd thought about it continually ever since"

He lied, the five thousand four hundred and thirty times had not been counting the 22 post-it notes he left hidden around her room. He didn't count this moment because she hadn't found them all.

"5430 times! Would you take them back if I punched your brother?"

"I'd never take them back, especially if you punched my brother"

He could picture her and his brother dancing together, it was in a restaurant just past midnight one New Years Eve. His brother looked at her like he looked at her, in awe. She stood out as someone that by no design or effort had been set above everyone else. She could set fire to a man’s heart and the flames would keep him alive.

He walked back into the garden to talk while he hung his clothes.

"Well lucky for you your brother is safe"

"Phew, that's a weight off my shoulders!"

"I've got to go I'll speak to you soon"

"Ok, well I'll make it five thousand four hundred and thirty one times and say I love you"

He looked at the cracked screen, only cosmetic now but the cracks would only start to grow. He hung out the rest of the washing.


3.

It had been fourteen of her birthdays since their last one together, a disaster at that too. He could picture every moment, he couldn't even try to forget them. More than anything he remembered never feeling more helpless in his entire life. She hated birthdays so he promised her the next on would be the best one of her life. Again that seemed a helpless task.

He called her up to see if she was alive but there was no answer. She always said she would kill herself at the age of 35, because what’s the point in growing old? He would always tell her that one day he would change her mind, another unfulfilled promise.

The phone rang twice then stopped, he called back and she picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Happy Birthday, glad to hear your alive"

"Oh hey, thanks.. yeah I decided to live past 35”

"How've you been? It's been awhile"

"It has, it really has. Can you remember what we had to eat when I turned 19"

"Easy, Pancakes"

"I can't believe you"

"What?"

"You'll always remember won't you?"

"I wouldn't even know how to forget"

"Have you tried?"

"I try every day"

He couldn't begin to describe to her how his mind wandered off into tangents every day, exploring the 3 years and 7 months they had spent together. His memories branched off into a million directions and now the brief time they spent together seemed almost infinite. He knew her now only as a collective bunch of memories and his perception switched daily from pure haltered to true bliss.

"I appreciate you calling, but I don't think we should be talking like this again"

"Yeah sure, I'm sorry I called, just glad that you’re alive"

The phone had gone dead, he felt numb.

It was the last conversation they ever had, he couldn't bring himself to ever love anyone with the same intensity again. Over time even his memories began to lie, they told a story of perfect love but only a rational man knows that there is no such thing.

He still kept dreaming of the moments they had spent together but now they were tainted and embroiled in an illusion of perfection. Even though he had the capacity to recollect all the pain and all the tears in such brutal detail, his only suffice was to forget them and think of the better times.

And who would blame a person to think of her beautiful smile and wicked sense of humour over lies and betrayal. There were no equal measures. In the end he had to bury all that was wrong with life, all the injustices in love or else he would fall apart. She never knew him, she didn't even come close. Yet for a fleeting moment he held his breath and tried to remember what it was to never forget.

Game Shows

A darkened age,
call up for the game.
once is enough to lie
twice and you might die
chains and rings, these farewells
blessing us at heights
someday the power will cut

Someday.

Scissors in hand - to mains
one last chance to break
the kitchen appliances for sale
defend infections at will
1 percent sure of everything
I want to know how it feels
to stop the beat of nothing
or fall short slow breathing

Holes

Fingers hold onto wire, love the dream and turn off.
The machine had been held up for a decade, fingers hold onto wire, love the dream and turn off. A relay message had been sent:
The date is 2156, we are stranded... 7 years of air remain.
Fingers hold onto wire, love the dream and turn off.
Her hull breached on asteroids, 23 men have perished. They swallowed the cold and braved the emptiness of space. The mainframe held the remaining 17 in carbonic status, wired in to a life support system. 7 didn't take to it and died, the others lived the nightmare of perpetually balancing between life and death.
Fingers hold onto wire, love the dream and turn off. 6 years later:
I am not alone anymore, I see her smile glowing in the mainframe. There is no forever, it ends when it ends... the ship is pursed into almost perfect darkness. Co2 scrubbing units are failing, upper ventilation areas 1 to 9 have been turned into shelters as the blackdamp has sank and filled the bunks and chambers on the lower decks.
3 died in the night, rolling power rationing has killed the co2 detectors. We thought at first our calculations had been wrong and that the air had gone. 3 of the weakest men died first, they had felt faint so we lay them down to rest in the tempra bunks. Unknown to us that we had dropped them into an invisible vat of carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas. Within hours they were gone, we have all began to get skull piercing headaches.. our mistakes have shed more lives but inside I think we are all glad. Now there’s 3 less pairs of lips sucking up the oxygen, we have reconfigured the pages. It's added another 6 months to our lives.
Finger hold on, wired up and plugged in.
I keep seeing a hunter sat on the back of an elephant, how balance of power is only an illusion. I've calculated in my head that I could live 2 more years at the expense of the rest of the crew. I feel no guilt as I'm sure they've all made the same calculations, I'm sure we'd be ripping each other’s throats out right now if it wasn’t for the simple rational that another two years would be hell. We've all come to terms with dying. There is no hope, now all we can ask for is a painless transcendence.
On another note Food and water are still in great supply, the reactor is still hot for another 6 cell burns.. we don't know when we'll cross the threshold of the black hole but once we do we'll be unburdened of it all..
Dream 1923
If only I could breathe radiation, inhale gamma waves and fill my lungs with its rich energy. If only I could suck up everything, process co2 and piss oxygen. If only we hadn’t strayed, if only we hadn’t gone searching for god. What chill this is, a forest of warped steel and only a 22 cubic meter room separating me from light years of nothing but inhospitable emptiness. If only I was an alpha particle, a boson, any beam of energy hitching a ride back towards earth.
Wired up and plugged in, we had crossed into the unknown. Time no longer existed... tied in, and locked down I started to count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5..

Notes, Codes, Cheaters.

The party started a long time ago, how long?? Everybody knows, nobody gives a fuck. We crashed it with hypodermic dirty dreams and the after party treats of hypnotic television, cross dressed nymphs and drugs.

Always drugs, kills for nothing types eyeing the tiny slick Redtaps, rolling bottle cases across the carpet. The music has subsided, speakers pointing to the floorboards. Love me and I will love you too.

Menzinone dripped in sugar water, RDA40 sipped from a gentlemen’s pipe by devilled faced free worlders.

And the king of them all, nicely tucked away in the dark fringes of the rooms and hallways in this sunken palace. It's soaking into the wall paper, the sweet vapour of ozone... junkies of all social classes plugged up, steamed inside an electromagnetic fuck... bonded with technology, twitching nodes attached to the temple, sitting in a grovel, attached to a socket, perfect.