The Choice
Alma awoke, rested and energized, remembering the lovely evening she and Curt had spent with their friends. Lying there in the warm covers, with the rays of the early sun just reaching the windows, she could hear Curt, a man too good to be true, out in the kitchen, making coffee and laying out her breakfast on the tray he, gifted woodworker, had made and she had painted with indigenous motifs, to bring to her with his big morning smile. So many challenges awaited her today at her job, here in—what was the name of the city? . . . No, maybe she would just stay in bed today . . . was that a scratchiness in her throat? . . . maybe she hated her job . . .
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Actually, Curt wasn’t really what he seemed. Was anything? She knew about the young Vietnamese housekeeper. Why hadn’t she confronted him? Because she didn’t like confrontation—though she knew she could do better—should do better—why was it so hard to believe in her own worth? . . .
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Yes, forget about Curt . . . Elgin—everyone said he wasn’t right for her, but with a heart of gold, who cared what he looked like? Especially being a brilliant scientist, whose work might change the world . . .
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Alma’s beautiful children . . . no, there weren’t any children . . .
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Alma’s mind was a minefield of worries, regrets, fears, embarrassments that she lived over and over. Why was human life so convoluted? She had achieved most of what she had dreamed about, yet there was always something restless in her mind—things unfinished, unknown, lamented, dreaded that—not the material facts of life—constituted the essence of consciousness . . .
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No, human life was actually simple—an illusion, a dream . . . It was arrogant to think she had achieved anything—it had all been handed to her . . .
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Seeing what she saw on the street as she rode to work—people absorbed in their own worlds, seeing nothing—but she had the gift of forgetting herself, of seeing the miraculous pageant of life. That, not getting, having, protecting the goods, was happiness . . .
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Surrounded by grandchildren—a teenager—middle-aged?—she didn’t even know how old she was . . . she didn’t even know if she was real. But how absurd to ask if you’re real—because if not, who’s asking?
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Real? What is real besides this?
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I don’t know if I’m remembering, inventing, or simply have never been anywhere else. Maybe it’s not that I haven’t been anywhere else, but that anywhere else doesn’t exist. But you have to wonder—where did all this clutter in the brain—where did the brain—come from? Surely I can’t be the entirety of anywhere else—surely I’m not the only reality there has ever been—even more surely not the only reality there can or ever will be.
Is this forever? How did I endure the eternity of the past to get here? What does forever mean? Or, what does time mean? If this is all there is, there is no time. Or maybe there is nothing but time. Which is worse? Do I desire to escape, or enter, time? That’s how much I don’t know what time is. Or maybe time is a single thing, once it’s done. Even while it’s doing. Why, when you unravel anything as far as you can go, do you always reach some irreconcilable paradox? Some contradiction? Like a time when there is no time—which is what I want! Not an entrance or an exit but an absence.
At least I can want something. Maybe it’s my throat that’s scratchy. And maybe, in spite of what they said, one death will bring a death for me. Somewhere in, or out of, time.
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Cold, dark, no room to move, no hope of getting out—no! Don’t think about it!
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But the memories come—if they are memories—but they must be—the human mind can’t make the something that gets remembered—it can only do the remembering, and build on it.
And there’s one memory, that persists, and returns, over and over—like a wave rippling through the space of time, forgotten, from some source—never anything more than the latest remembered remembering—and yet I can remember, I can be there again:
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A room—a room with space to move—but that would be true of any room but this—of no real features. Just gray walls, a table behind which the man sits, and the chair where I sit, and another by the wall where the girl, call her Alma, sits. I can hardly bear to look at her face—just a glance, long enough to know I know her, or if not, I do now—stricken with fear and confusion, looking mostly at me, waiting. Somewhere between girl and woman.
How had we even come there? What came before? I don’t know. If anything, it’s lost in the ocean of time before time.
I can’t say that I remember humor, or know what it is, only that the man had none. He had no emotions at all, really—and there’s nothing more blood-freezing than that. Not cruel or threatening, just fixed, impenetrable. Just doing his job. Banality. There was nothing about him that would give you any hope.
He said, “You will be presented with a choice. You will have five seconds after you hear it to decide. If you don’t decide, the choice will be made for you. Do you understand?”
What could be gained by saying no? A bit more time when time is meaningless?
“Either you or this girl—it’s your choice—will be imprisoned in a cavity of rock for eternity. The one chosen will not be able to escape or die. They will be able to sleep, if they can, but not go mad. If you have any questions this will be the only time you can ask them.”
“What will happen to the one not chosen?”
“That one will go on and live their life with the knowledge and memory of the other completely erased. Are you ready?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me know when you are.”
But I knew. Over and over again even the idea of considering it was too horrible and made me loathe myself. I sensed the importance of keeping self-loathing to a minimum in what was coming. A bad bedmate. Of course there was really no choice at all.
I wanted to look at her, but I was afraid she would already not know who I was. And I sure didn’t want to take that with me.
I’m trying hard not to believe I’m all there is. So how can I hate them? I’ve learned all too well I become what I think in here.
August 27, 2023