The booth was comfy enough, enclosed for privacy from the main room of the Mind Palace and lit with a dull blue glow. As instructions follow, Charlie acts without question, no doubt in his mind or concerns towards how these small futuristic tools were going to pick through his brain deep enough to make memories resemble as his current reality. They were cold on his temples, metal latching onto warm skin and before long he’d fallen under. No longer awake but certainly not asleep. The place he awakens to is infinite, unsullied white light that had no beginning, middle or end. A place where his own physical form had ceased to exist, all that was left was his consciousness, his and another which was somehow identifiable as Sunny’s. She’d felt like an afterthought to him here, a detail that rings in the back of your skull but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Had this device created a virtual reality or was this really the phenomena that was the human mind? A blank eternal space, empty and utterly incomprehensible to their understanding. More importantly, had this meant that Sunny would be dragged down his trip down memory lane with him, if so, he’d really had wished they mentioned that part in the advertisements outside. Before his physical form can take the pods from his temples to question their actions, it’s already too late, scenery shifts and nothingness suddenly morphed into shapes and surroundings in a warp-like speed.
The memory, due to little preparation was selected at random and he was left to spectate from his former self’s point of view. He was sat in the kitchen of the student accommodation, a severely underwhelming environment with stacks of unwashed dishes adorning the countertops and an inescapable redolence of stale beer. Not much had changed in the past five years, he notes, his posture still slumped over the screen of a second-hand MacBook Pro and taste of Redbull lingering on his taste buds. The tapping on his keyboard overrules the music playing on his wireless speaker next to him, ‘Edge of Seventeen’ by Stevie Nicks only just identifiable after his index finger furiously hits the ‘enter’ key. Charlie had reached his limit, you see, absolutely dumbfounded in how he’d been attending one of the most prestigious universities in the country and yet it’s student body was constructed of monotonous idiots. To him, even in Oxford, he felt suffocated by them. Sheep that followed the crowd and would only make a somewhat interesting claim if it came with praise towards their intellect- this applied to everyone with the exception of Jin who was happy to open up and theorise the unfathomable with him. That frustration, with people who only ever considered spoon fed information and held it as law, is what prompted him into recording his first podcast episode that evening. It had taken him days of research, listening to other’s discussions on what he regards provocative topics worth his while of exploring and then writing a loose script that would hopefully intrigue and open up all these closed minds that had driven him to near insanity. And he had known this moment well, a pivotal step in his life that took place at 4:46AM on a Saturday morning in 2015. With that final press on his keyboard, the first episode of ‘I Want to Believe’ was live, titled AREA 51 and why I’d willingly be abducted by green dudes. He’d leant back in his chair, finally, contempt, voice a little sore and hair a lot messier than usual as the palms of his hands grazed up over his face to the back of his neck. Had he never hit ‘UPLOAD’ that morning, at the time, with that title or with the same pent up resentment, Charlie would have never of been sat here right now. His physical form, that was, the one that was unquestionably draped unflatteringly in the chair of the booth and likely with his mouth hung open.
“Sunny?” his voice was distorted, ringingly loud. The noise sent ripples of waves into the picture of his memory, what he could only presume was his consciousness disrupting the direct stream from the hippocampus where memories were formed and kept. The vision blurred and warped into something new, a place he’d certainly never witnessed until now.
It hits her like sleep and feels like dreaming, shapes forming in her mind, becoming things she knows she’s never seen. Her lips part to speak but, instead of forming words, Sunny finds herself speechless. She feels frustrated, she thinks, but perhaps it wasn’t her that felt it but-- Charlie? It dawns on her, the circumstances: they weren’t alone in viewing their memories but together, forced to bear witness. At any other time, this would worry her but the ability is overridden by the sensation of the young man’s feelings. Her eyes, his eyes, feel dry from lack of sleep, staring at the laptop screen. Simultaneously she’s both watching him and is him, waves of his consciousness from the past lapping at the periphery of her mind. The weight of being misunderstood, of not being listened to, of being pushed aside, feels like a lead weight in his (their?) chest, rattling against ribs until it hurts. Sunny knows she’s made him feel that way before; doesn’t need a memory of her dismissing him to guess as much. She’s freshly aware of how that feels now, too. Ibrahim had been crystal clear in pointing out that she was replaceable.
The relief of watching the audio file upload is a brief respite. Sunny hears her name, the syllables slipping through her fingers like sand as everything shifts. Becomes more familiar. She hears her name again, this time the tone girlish and lighter, bright with youth. The room is dark but she knows from the shapes of the furniture that it’s her childhood bedroom that she shared with her sister. There’s movement in the darkness, a small silhouette by the window illuminated by a faint amber glow from a street light outside. It moves, disappearing in the dark, resurfacing as an abrupt weight on the bed. Five-year-old Luna scrabbles to get under the covers, hands clammy. “Sunny I saw one!”
“Saw what?” Sunny responds, just as she remembers doing, blinking blearily at the wide-eyed expression looking up at her excitedly.
“A spaceship! It was in the sky and had flashing lights.” Luna settles her head on the pillow without invitation and Sunny can smell the fruity scent of shampoo, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark plastic stars scattered across their ceiling. “That’s going to be you one day,” Luna declares. “Making friends with aliens. Promise you’ll wave at me when you fly past. Okay?”
“Sure,” Sunny responds with a tired yawn, giving her sister a playful push. Above their heads, the Boeing 747 continues on its flight path to Heathrow. “Now go back to bed.”
Luna clings to the sheets, giggling at the mild thrill of teetering on the edge of the mattress before rolling off the edge and disappearing.
In a heartbeat, reality returns.
