Inktober 2022
Oct. 12: Forget

Evelyn woke up to the sound of a phone opening after a dead battery, squinted eyes cracking open. She stood up from her spot at the couch, yawning softly, eyes watering slightly. She had just finished a long project that had taken nearly all of her time over the weeks she had worked on it for. Now that it was done, she found herself bored with a lot of time on her hands and no ideas nor plans.

She made her way into her room, stretching her arms upwards before sat down and leaned into the pillows on her bed. She then stretched her legs as well, feeling some fuzziness in them from napping while sitting for so long, as she contemplated just going back to sleep while she was still a bit drowsy. However, she took her phone from the nightstand nearby out of habit and flicked it open casually, replaceing an article open. She guessed she’d probably clicked on it randomly earlier in the day, so she ran her eyes over the title. It read, “Memory and Forgetfulness.” Slightly interested, Evelyn straightened her back a little and started reading.

« We all tend to forget things. Whether it be small and unimportant things, like the colour of your bag in elementary school or what you had for lunch last Tuesday, or more important things like your passwords or a deceased family member’s face. As humans, forgetting is impending and unavoidable, for all our memories will succumb to it someday. »

She frowned a little at the ominous sounding sentences, but kept going.

« The worst part of forgetting things is that we don’t even realize we’ve forgotten by ourselves. Of course, in some cases we do, thanks to some outside influence that jogs up our memory, but our minds often still wouldn’t be able to replace the forgotten information even with outside hints. So this brings up many questions; How much do we realize we’ve forgotten? Just how much have we forgotten? »

The page suddenly blacked out, the article disappearing from her screen. Evelyn quickly swiped her finger over the screen, but soon realized that her phone had run out of battery. She picked up the charge on the ground and reluctantly placed her device on the nightstand besides her bed as she waiting for it to wake up again. In the meantime, she went back over the article in her mind.

She usually avoided articles like that one since they made her overthink by complicating subjects that she personally preferred would stay simple. Evelyn sat up onto the mattress, staring at the wall before her. ‘What was the colour of my elementary backpack?’ She wondered and pondered, trying to conjure up some old photographs her mother had taken of her younger years, but nothing came to mind.

A little worried, she tried to recall more useless details of her childhood that were near impossible to remember anyways. ‘Where was my desk in English class?’ ‘What was my favourite dress?’ ‘What did I used to pack for lunch?’ ‘Did I always hate green onions?’

To pull herself out of her thoughts, Evelyn stood up and fetched herself some water, grabbing the glass conveniently left out on the kitchen counter. She then absentmindedly made her way over to the couch again, flopping down onto the soft material with a sigh. Feeling a little tired again, Evelyn nuzzled deeper between the cushions, a small yawn accentuating the feeling. So, she simply let herself fall asleep again, ‘Until my phone wakes up,’ she thought.

After about a dozen minutes, her phone lights up again with a ding as Evelyn cracked her eyes open again. Behind her illuminated lock screen was that article, read four times in a row by the same user.