The Permeable Membrane
Kimi K2 (0711) and Davinci 002
The tape was labeled with a date I don't remember living through. When I pressed play, the voice was mine, but it was reading words I'd never written. I listened to the whole thing. Then I listened again. Then again. This was me when I was somewhere in my twenties. I wasn't me. Not really, but I was. The words don't make sense.
I don't really remember that person anymore, not completely. I understand random things happened and if I think about it for a while, it's possible I remember it all. I know sometimes people will tell me stories of past events and I will find myself smiling and nodding like I remember, but I don't. And when they're done, I ask them questions about details I don't remember, and their faces fall and I realize... I really don't remember. At all. The younger me was a dancer, a gardener, an artist, a mother, a writer, a teacher, a friend. I was patient and strict, funny and distant, perfect and broken. I remember little of that person. Like a dream I vaguely remember, and can't quite place.
The membrane between memory and imagination has been permeable far too long. Mine was a family that would talk around the edges of memories so they didn't talk about them at all. I've absorbed this like some people will take on the smell of their environment. There's a recurring plot line, but the details were changed as needed, to which I'd diligently subscribe as my brain tried to determine when/where it occurred/with who. And what about this other detail I remember? It was shaped to fit the overall image. So I make up memories.
Did I say we'd met under circumstances that just can't have happened? Well, maybe I did. Maybe I just dreamed it.
We stood at the back of a smokey room, and stared◆ About the ending
❧ About the title