“Look lively!”
The Grim
Reaper* #quote
Today I went
out to lunch with the parents and much fun was had. Anyway onto the
flash fiction!
Forgetfulness
Is Bliss
Science unlocks
more and more parts of the universe over time, and eventually it
unlocked control over the mind. Though people had to be hooked up to
a machine memories could be wiped with a new discovery on the “mental
market”.
Originally by
law the machine could only be used for trauma. But people wanted to
wipe more than just traumatic events like the memories of war. The
creators of the machines lobbied the government for allowance of
their machines to be used on the mass market. It took time but with
enough money put into enough pockets the laws changed.
Wilson was one
of the many people who paid to use the machines regularly. Eventually
getting his own for his home that he plopped his round, heavy body
into the chair of while putting the brain-connect helmet on his
large, bald head. Like most people he wiped the memories he wanted to
from his mind. The machine kept a log of the kind of memories it
erased, in case the person ever wished to look back, but few people
ever did. The memories Wilson wiped started with that car accident
where he got injured and had to spend all that time in the hospital
and progressed to the arguments he had with his ex-wife. Soon he
erased practically the whole marriage, all he could without
forgetting to pay the few alimony checks and remember where those
years he wiped went. He erased old memories embarrassing and painful
from before the marriage all the way into the childhood. When his new
marriage came his wife and him erased anything like nasty arguments,
bad days at work or any new unpleasantness in their relationship or
lives.
And many people
did this. Less mental pain existed in the world, at least that
lasted. Without regrets mistakes repeated again and again. People who
documented things became in annoyance. But at least those people and
the robots built to help run society kept the blissfully forgetful
afloat. The death rate and injury rate rose alongside domestic abuse
and many other terrible things. A loss of regret from lack of
memories damaged human progression.
But people simply went to the next day forgetting all those troubles with
a smile on their faces, Wilson included.
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