Earthed

[Aardvark]

Where am I?

 

Cold, wet and windy it is outside. Breeze through my open window fluttering my blinds against the sill, snapping me from an uneasy sleep. The only sleep I can manage, lately. Eyes open, I stare at the ceiling, trying to collect myself. I'm scattered, fragmented. Unwhole. Memories, thoughts, emotions, instincts, the unkempt playroom of my psyche is where I had awoken. It could use a clean-up. A woman's touch, I mused, somewhat ironically.

 

Lightless, noiseless, motionless. Even the simple molecules of air seemed unwilling to move, lest they disturb the scene. My eyes scan about, darting from object to object, chair to screen, coin to thread. All too familiar. Yet I cannot remember them. Where did they come from? The hat full of gold was a relic from an occupation long past, yet I cannot remember which one. Sifting through the debris of memories is no help, either. Although the figure $132.45 comes to me right away. The golden needle in an otherwise gray haystack.

 

Black sheets, black cover, white pillow. My choice? Or a choice forced upon me? Am I frugal or practical? Or do I just have odd colour coordination? The phone tells me practical, but I have no idea why. A computer, on. Messages from people I've never met, but know so much about. Or think I do at least. Who are these people? I cannot recall right now, try again later. Even they seem to help me not with my identity crisis. At least they help me down to a one in three chance, if it ever comes to a diceroll.

 

An hour has passed. I am still no closer to solving the important issues that seem to plague me. Short, mid and long term memory are almost sorted, but seem bare. The broken events of the past few days are laying out in front of me. Piecing them together requires a little more than glue and gaffa tape.

 

How did I ever come to the conclusion that those two items were the fix-all and end-all of everything? There are longterm memories of me offering that advice to people, but no original inception or interception of such a useful bit of wisdom.

 

No solid references to work with. No constant patterns of sleep to work the images around, only vague hints of a regular schedule. Events, people, ideas, a cerebral salad minus dressing. No help to me. Longterm is only mildly better. A schedule is there to work with, but it consists of blank chunks of time, with the occasional moment frozen in place. A few memorable events, surrounded by routine. I could understand why I wouldn't commit anymore than that to memory, but surely this wasn't the first time I had been through this experience. Wouldn't I leave a guide for next time?

 

More time ticks away. Thoughts and ideas are turning out to be the easiest. A thought occurred to me, an appropriate analogy, just moments before I found a previous though of the same thing. Sifting through chunks of gold to find grains of dirt. How this was appropriate, I couldn't figure, but I would come to that.

 

Events seemed mostly connected to ideas, the same way a pricetag is attached to an item. Desire for new vehicle, more robust and economical than current? Attached to event brakes failing for third time in six months. Unpublished theory of simple relativity? Attached to event saturday night party. A short story about me collecting my thoughts? Waking up, due to galeforce winds.

 

For the life of me, I can't figure out which saturday night party that was.

 

People. They're there. But so few, so infrequent. A few detailed and bright, many faded and dull. Do people disinterest me that much that I only remember them when I need to? Even most of the clear memories were tagged to events. Work, Jane, Justin, Joanne, Jerry. Which also seems to be tagged "Mild humour". Family life. A large event. With minor people tags attached. Even the saturday night party. Hundreds of tags, mostly dull, a few bright.

 

At present, it occurs to me that this isn't necessarily one saturday night party, but all that I've ever been to, mulled together. It seems to also include friday night parties, sunday lunches, barbecues, gatherings, drinks nights and other miscellaneous social events.

 

My final discovery. Event? Idea? Person. Single image of a person. Finely detailed. Could have been sculpted by a master, it is so detailed. Events aren't tags, they're novels. All closely tied to this person. Ideas as bookmarks.

 

Emotion.

 

Instinct.

 

---

 

As I hang up the phone and begin to type, replaying the conversation over and over again, before it has a chance to fade or scatter, I realise finally why there was nothing to index. Some memories need to be buried. Sometimes they're the best ones.