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Sunday, June 7, 2015

Today's #flashfiction Forgetfulness Is Bliss

“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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