OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest.
"The devil's dictionary", A. Bierce
Sometimes I remember things that have never happened.
It's odd, really. They're like little flashbacks out of my past. People I've known. Places I've been. But they don't fit together right. I remember events that could not possibly have taken place.
Of course, this is the fault of our Guardian Forces. Nowadays, that's the default explanation for all the mental problems, we SeeDs are prone to, but it's still true. They are the cause. The G.F.s, feeding on our memories.
Over the years, we have acquired more and more of them, as their worth is immeasurable for our never ending battles. We went collecting them, like others stock up on weapons. We sought them out, went hunting for them in the deepest jungle of the Grandidi Forrest, dug them up from the sands of the Estharian desert or faced them in icy caves under the top northern mountains of Trabia.
Time after time, we junctioned them to ourselves and to our minds. Selecting them by their skills, elements and strength. We are making a science out of balancing our junctions. Battle strategy doesn't solely mean troop movement and equipment anymore. Now it means finding the right equilibrium of G.F. and magic junctions.
We have a great choice to select out of. They come in all flavours, I used to joke.
There are wild beasts of enormous physical power, little helpers to strengthen our defenses and ancient beings with wisdom beyond human capacity. And surely, we bind them to us, summon them and use them, but I never quite knew, whether they come out of goodwill, because they have to or something completely else. I have a good guess, though. They are, above all, beyond our control. And by junctioning them, we are giving them free reign in our heads, for them to do as they please.
We rely on their strength. They offer it generously. In exchange for past words, smells and images. We once called the process coexistence, but I revised my view on that. In truth, it's the perversion of symbiosis.
Still, I do it wholeheartedly. And suffer the consequences.
I think my mind tries to compensate the loss. Just like phantom pains, coming from a severed arm or foot, my mind tries to bring forth the pictures, cut out randomly out of my memory. And it does it by filling the gaps up with - with anything really.
Have I really gone and fought beasts five times the size of me? Really fought a sorceress? A sorceress like in those fairy tales? Have I followed the Tonberry King to his kingdom underground? Or was that just another story I've read? Have I danced in the middle of magical thunderstorms, as the wars raged and debris clattered around me? Seen the evergreen tree tops of the Grandidi Forrest bathed in snow? Seen the moon spread out beneath my feet?
Can such things be? It's too unreal to believe.
Nothing makes much sense, anymore. I can't tell what of my past really happened, and what are just - well, call it belated hallucinations or figments of my imagination.
Sounds bitter? It isn't.
For so long I've been struggling to keep the memories, writing everything down in my diary, minutely, taking care to go into great details.
But, to be honest, I no longer see why I should want to remember.
That little pink book tells me stories, gruesome and kind. But they don't matter anymore. They don't touch me, as they are the recollections of a stranger. Now, when I open up the diary and skim over the - heart and flower ornamented - pages, I don't recognize any of it. Now and then I feel compelled to close the book and read the inscription on the front page to make sure it is mine, after all. It makes me wonder, what will happen, once I forget my own name.
The things in this book are an odd collection of events.
There are fierce battles opposing festivals
there are flowers and horses and ancient frost
there are crushes and graveyards and missiles
and wars and battles, I feel nothing for.
And friends.
Friends, I have lived together with.
Friends, who died, and for whom I sometimes had to help digging the graves, makeshift, because we were in the middle of a battle as they fell and we couldn't drag their bodies into safety.
Friends, I depended on.
Friends, I can't even remember.
And from my distant vantage point, all I can do is notice how bigger events seem to fade faster and little details linger just a bit longer. Unconnected fragments, like remembering the shape of my old Garden's entrance gate triggered by the smell of a Trabia snow violet, that used to grow there. Or my recollection of all kinds of cliffs and building ledges I have been standing on, because I love heights. And I think always did.
Jumping from high above is an incredible feeling. For a split second it just feels like flying. It's even better than piloting that red dragonship.
But I know, eventually these small pieces of fond personal history will fade, too.
All I have left, lies in front of me, now that the past has almost slipped my fingers. And so I am waiting. For something, I know is not far from now, as I can feel the G.F.s already stirring in my mind.
It will be subtle, I guess. Happening under ordinary circumstances. Perhaps one day I will walk down a road and -
and the pages in my diary will be blank again. I will be freed of the last bits of persistent memory. It will be the moment when there's nothing left for the beasts to be feeding on. When our G.F.s are finally satiated.
It's inevitable, but I'm not afraid. I'll be toppling over the last edge, and I think it will be just like flying a tad longer or jumping from a greater height.
It will be my biggest leap
The leap into ...