Sci-Fi Short Story
Mr Shiny Shoes (Epilogue)
Forgetting the Biggest Mistake
This is for you, Malic.
Jim, Doris, Violet and I (Pete) reside in an Aged Care facility on the East Coast. In part one, we were introduced to a new three-stage service by Mr John St Michaels (Shiny Shoes John), a Sales Executive from a company called Recollections Remodelled. The service allows people close to death to explore alternative lives by changing (remodelling) some of their past decisions (their biggest regrets). The company offers to implant these renovated memories so people can go to their graves with no regrets or guilt — to die happily. The catch is the memory rewriting process is a one-time deal — it destroys the brain if repeated.
We pick up the story after Jim and I have completed Stage One — the memory reading phase.
I didn’t buy into any of this “remodelled decisions” crap — it was pure fantasy. What interested me were the refreshed memories that Shiny Shoes John had pitched. I needed to find out what that was like to experience, first-hand, from someone I trusted. I wondered if any of my buddies from the West Side had signed up for it.
Jim arrived at the breakfast table and distracted me from my reverie. He was carrying a Recollections Remodelled report in his hand. He noticed I had mine with me on the table.
“Anything interesting, Pete,” Jim asked, “Mine was fascinating but unsurprising.”
I motioned for him to join me, “Nah, it only highlighted some lady I knew forty years ago — I wouldn’t change a thing in my life.” I poured Jim a coffee. “But that didn’t stop old Shiny Shoes trying to upsell me on renovating my decision not to have an affair with her. He had the gall to suggest I would have been 20% happier.” I raised my eyebrows and rolled my eyes, “How can you quantify happiness? The whole thing is bullshit if you ask me!”
Jim was sitting across the table and had helped himself to some of my toast. He was buttering as he listened. “Well, this generation seems able to put a number on anything these days. But, Pete, I am sorely tempted by the offer.” Jim looked dead serious.
“Wow, that report of yours must be great!” I wondered what the AI had calculated. “What did the all-seeing oracle of Recollections Remodelled have to say, Jim?” I’d stopped stirring my coffee. I was genuinely intrigued about what could cause someone to turn their back on part of their life and replace it with a mirage.
Jim had taken a bite of his toast and chased it with a sip of coffee, “You remember me telling you about my start-up venture?”
I wished I could forget!
Jim was always bitching about how he had to sell out cheaply from his start-up business to look after his sick wife. That business went on to become a household name worth billions. What made it worse was that it was all based on his original idea. He had been working like a madman for several years to get the business poised to where it was about to take off. That’s when he exited. I knew Jim loved his wife, but he was very bitter about the cruel choice life had dealt him. The decision the AI homed in on was suddenly apparent to me.
I nodded.
Jim continued, “The AI says I would have 100% more happiness if I’d ditched my wife when she was sick.”
“Well, duh!” I exclaimed, “Of course, the AI will tell you to take the money. A billion dollars is a good reason to forget about the lady you adored who gave birth to your children,” I added sarcastically. Then I whispered, “This machine has no idea about love.”
“Yeah, yeah — cold and calculating. I hear you.” Jim looked at me with haunted eyes, “But it’s a tantalising opportunity — it would give me so much closure and satisfaction to be at the helm when the business became such a runaway success.”
I shook my head, “You mean you’d be willing to trade away your memories of your wife and kids for this…this…illusion?” I was starting to plead with him. I could see he was close to making up his mind. “That nice daughter of yours, you know, the one who always drops by with her kids — what’s her name?”
“Susan.” Jim offered.
“Yeah, Susan. Are you prepared to have her and her wonderful kids — your grandchildren — become strangers to you?” I looked him straight in the eye, “Because that’s what they’d be after the process. Anything that AI dreamed up to fill in the blanks would be rubbish. No one from that make-believe world will be coming to visit you. Do you want to put the people who love you through that? Do you want to be that alone?”
Jim smiled weakly, “Well, I’d still have you guys.”
I shook my head, “You cold and selfish bastard. Who are you, and what have you done with my friend!”
Jim leaned forward and whispered, “One way or another, your friend is already slipping away — I have Alzheimer’s.” He nervously looked around to ensure no one was listening, then pleaded with me, “Don’t tell the others — especially Shiny Shoes. They don’t allow people with dementia to have the procedure.” He explained, “It’s only the drugs that are holding it at bay. Doctor says I have less than two years to live.”
Suddenly, Jim’s calculus was clear. The disease was going to rob him of the memory of his loved ones anyway. Why not make a selfish choice so he could enjoy it while he still had a little time?
I awoke, fresh as a daisy. Did the procedure fail? No. There was a slight ringing in my head — a reverberation. Time to try out my memory. But what to remember? My Mother.
Her face was so young. Then it disappeared behind her large breast — full of milk. I was a baby and was about to drink. I must have been six months old.
This technology was fantastic. Stunning!
I spent the next half an hour jumping through a cavalcade of recollections. They were so vibrant and detailed. I could remember any scene from my life — it was like watching a super high-definition video. I could read the newspapers that people were holding fifty years ago. Utterly incredible.
Shiny Shoes John warned me that the memories would be clearest over the first couple of months after the procedure and would slowly fade. But he assured me that my power of recollection would be superior to anything I had previously experienced for the remainder of my life.
He was right. It was the best three hundred bucks I’d ever spent!
I became obsessed with sketching, ending up with hundreds of beautiful portraits of my wife from across our fifty-two years together. There was a picture of her as a sixteen-year-old girl in that short white tennis dress when we first met. My favourite was of her, naked and seductive, wrapped in a sheet on our honeymoon. That naughty smile still makes me melt!
It was like falling in love all over again.
But it wasn’t all good. My clarity of memory shattered the illusion of friendships I’d once held with several of my work colleagues. I replayed conversations and could read documents I’d briefly glanced at all those years ago. They had befriended me only so they could defraud the company. I was filled with anger and embarrassment. How could I have been so naïve and trusting? But they were all dead now. I had to let it go.
The most surprising side-effect was my ability to recall conversations with my grandfather from when I was seven. His words were so wise, lost on the boy back then, but bright like a firework to my present self. Family wisdom from the past crossed four generations when I shared his words with my grandchildren.
It was a gift.
I’d not spoken with Jim since his Stage Three procedure. He’d become a little withdrawn. I guess being a billionaire means you don’t associate with the riff-raff any more. I did occasionally see his daughter, Susan. She never brought her kids. The last time I saw her, she had tears streaming down her cheeks and was heading briskly towards the front door. I heard that Jim had refused to see her.
She was a stranger, after all.
He was patiently waiting for a call from the President. Given Jim’s wealth and power in his imaginary world, he had become a confidant of presidents and prime ministers across the globe.
The calls never came.
I only found out the ultimate irony — karma — later. Before the procedure, Jim had been given less than two years to live. However, the memory-rewriting process is so brutal on the brain cells that it cured Jim’s Alzheimer’s. He was now destined for a long and lonely life.
“Hey, Pete!” The voice came across from the other side of the Common Room. It was Shiny Shoes John, waving to me, “I wanted to say goodbye before moving on. You know you are my greatest success, my friend. You have the highest level of recall of anyone in the program.” He shook my hand, and then a sly smile crossed his face, “Hey, would you mind if I refer some of my prospects to you? I’d love for you to share your experience. I’d even kick back a little something for your trouble.”
“Sure. It’s been a blessing for me,” I shrugged, then asked, “What about Jim? Is there anything you can do for him?”
Shiny Shoes John drew in his breath, shook his head, and a hint of sadness filled his eyes, “Well, Pete, the remodelling process is only meant to last for six to eighteen months. Any longer than that, and we risk paranoid delusions setting in. Our process cures Alzheimer’s, so we don’t offer it in those cases. Unfortunately for Jim, he lied to us. For the remainder of his life, he will be tormented by the disconnect between his reality and everyone else’s.”
At least Recollections Remodelled kept its promise. Jim would never remember his biggest mistake— getting the procedure in the first place!
Copyright ©2024 by Andrew Dart. All Rights Reserved.
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