Tag: Love

They told me it would be painless. They always tell you it will be painless.

I was seventy-three when they fitted the first interface. A volunteer, they called me. Pioneer. That word tasted sweet once. Now it sits in my throat like old copper wire. They needed someone whose mind had already softened at the edges, they said. Someone whose memories had grown loose, easy to pull free like teeth from rotting gum. The young ones held too tight. Their thoughts fought back. Mine, they said, would cooperate.

I felt the first extraction on a Tuesday. I remember that specifically because after Tuesday, I stopped remembering Tuesdays at all. Just gone. A clean white space where a lifetime of small, ordinary Tuesdays had lived. My wife used to make soup on Tuesdays. I know that fact now only because I wrote it on my hand before the next session. The hand, at least, they hadn’t reached yet.

There are seventeen of us in this facility. Were. There are fewer now. The others went quietly, one by one, the red lights on their headsets dimming to nothing as the last useful material was drawn out and catalogued. I watched Genevieve go three weeks ago. She smiled at the end. That is the worst part. The smile.

They tell me I have perhaps four sessions remaining. They are very precise about these things now. They know exactly how much of a person constitutes a person. They know the exact gram weight of a soul.

The light on my headset is still red.

I find that I cannot recall my children’s faces this morning.