With effort Rick kept his face flat, but he couldn’t believe that Mr. Carlson was back again.
Sheepishly, the middle-aged man in his poorly pressed suit shambled over to the reception desk of Memories, Incorporated.
Rick couldn’t allow reception to get a hold of him again; he intercepted the man and brought him to his desk, unnecessarily telling the robot-receptionist that he had this one.
Mr. Carlson seemed at a loss for words.
“Have a seat, please.”
That seemed to help break the log-jam between the man’s mind and mouth. Still standing, he blurted out, “Yes, well, I’ve never been in love.”
“Yes, you have.” From the corner of his eye, Rick saw that Ben at the next desk over was eavesdropping.
“I have?” Mr. Carlson said.
Rick nodded. Hadn’t they milked this poor bastard out of enough money?
“Please, sit down.” When he had, slowly and tentatively, Rick said, “Here’s how it happens, Mr. Carlson.” He noted with satisfaction how startled Mr. Carlson looked that Rick knew his name. “You came in almost a year ago and asked us to erase your memories of all your past relationships. You said that the weight of all your lost loves was too heavy to bear. You wanted to start fresh, to be rid of all that emotional baggage.”
“I did?”
Rick nodded again. Now Ben wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he was listening to their conversation. It was a slow day, and, yes, Ben had worked on some of Mr. Carlson’s contracts. Still, it was rude.
“We did as you asked,” Rick continued. “We went through your phone and cloud accounts and deleted emails, texts, photos. We came to your house and helped you purge everything that could remind you that you’d loved and lost. Then, finally, we masked the memories of those past relationships in your mind.”
“You did?”
“Yes. A few months went by, and you walk through our doors again, as nervous as the first time. But now you say, ‘I’ve never been in love.’ You tell us that you’re middle-aged but you’ve never had a serious romantic relationship. You tell us you don’t know what’s wrong with you, you have no confidence. You want us to implant memories of a few failed relationships, so at least you can think that someone somewhere was interested in you.”
“That can’t be.”
“It’s the truth.”
“But I don’t remember any of that.”
“Exactly.”
Mr. Carlson shook his head, a little violently. “No, no,” he said, his voice much louder than it should be. “I never paid for any of that!”
“Check your credit card statements,” Rick said, trying to stay calm. He was doing Mr. Carlson a favor, but maybe it wasn’t worth it. If Mr. Carlson didn’t lower his voice, Rick’s boss would come out of his closed-door, tinted-windows office, which was never a good thing. “I don’t know what we did in your case,” he went on. “But typically we distribute the charges across a bunch of bogus companies. Maybe you were charged for flowers you never sent or dinners and lunches you never ate. Either way, you’ll find an ‘MI’ buried in each of the invoice numbers. If you’re really curious, I can pull your file and tell you the specifics.”
“No,” Mr. Carlson said, seeming to deflate, his voice back to a reasonable volume.
Rick couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. What could you trust when you couldn’t trust your own mind, your own memories?
“Stop coming in here, Mr. Carlson.” Ben tried to catch his eye, but Rick ignored him. “This is the fourth time we’ve seen you. We’ve already erased your memories, given you new ones, and then erased those.” Rick leaned forward. “Forget about the past. Don’t allow your past to define you. Failed relationships, no relationships—it doesn’t matter. Just go out there and try to meet someone you can talk to, someone you enjoy spending time with. Don’t overthink things and just let them happen as they will.” He settled back into his chair. “The alternative is to see you in here every couple of months, a little poorer each time.”
“I have to think about this.” Mr. Carlson stood up.
“Check your statements,” Rick said, standing up and shaking Mr. Carlson’s hand.
When Mr. Carlson was gone, Ben said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Rick shrugged.
“Your job is to sell contracts,” Ben said.
“What, you haven’t taken enough of the poor man’s money?”
“Me?” Ben said. “What are you talking about?”
Rick stared. “Mr. Carlson—you sold him two contracts, one to implant new memories and the other to erase them.”
“No way,” Ben said. “Today was the first time I saw this Mr. Carlson of yours. You must be remembering wrong.”
Rick turned around. His boss was standing at the door of his dark office. He brought up his left hand and motioned with his index finger.
Come here, the finger said.
About the author:
Karl El-Koura lives with his family in Canada’s capital city and works a regular job by day while writing fiction at night.
Find Karl:
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