And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,42
as much as possible from whatever information is needed. But even so, we don’t stand a chance of accessing all of the information programmed into our 130-year lifespan.
Stash, let me plant a question in your dream. What do you think of the statement that all of human memory is visible to us? Isn’t it a kind of self-deception, aimed at making us think that since the information is out there somewhere we don’t have to look for it any more?
A braid of tails...
When I hop to the right, you hop to the left.
You’re in front and I’m in back.
The tails are intertwined between my legs.
I’m falling.
You hold out your...
I can’t grab it.
I know I’ve disobeyed the rules, but I couldn’t help using insights I gained in my attempts to break through the defenses of Ju-Ideah. Of course, legal permission to be beamed to other dedicated submemoryfolders is beyond brainability. Only people whose brains have been preselected or who have been programmed to withstand conditions of information overflow have that opportunity, and their brain operates under continual supervision, to avoid collapsing. I’m not one of the pre-selected ones. My brain is defined as normal.
What’s this strange part inside me? Something that is not a chemical conductor, or an electrical one, or an electro-biological one...
Carrying some secret information, with no name and no shape...
Sorry, Stash. A glitch in the control mechanism. My mind is throwing up...
Y-mee Prana. Is that really my name?
What’s happening...
Chaos. Tohu...
Like the day before the Creation.
Furthest down
Children
Of Jews...
I beam you to The Holocaust, a huge submemoryfolder. Yet only a handful of people are allowed to enter, and even fewer take an interest in it.
The Stefan...
Who is the Stefan...
Are there many more Stefans?
I’ll spare you the polemic about the Holocaust. It started during the lifetime of those who actually experienced it. A large part of the submemoryfolder is devoted to question marks, casting doubt on the many testimonies within. Most of the films are presented as reenactments, and many of the documents as forgeries or misrepresentations. With the gradual disappearance of the survivors and the dwindling of the Remembearers, the controversy surrounding the authenticity of these testimonies has died down.
Stash, the last documented interview with a Holocaust survivor took place in TheIsrael in 2039. The man was over one hundred years old and he is referred to as “the last witness”. You would naturally expect a human wreck, someone ignited by hatred and revenge. But you will be surprised, Stash.
It’s an unusual recording. For some reason, nobody has bothered to make it beam-enabled, so that I’ve had to use an external apparatus to decipher the sights and sounds step by step. The smells could not be reconstructed though.
I am retrieving the deciphered version for you.
The old camera is shaky, and the imaging is uneven. The hands holding the primitive instrument are the hands of the last witness’s granddaughter recording her elderly grandfather. At some point, the camera swerves towards his three great-grandchildren and nine great-great-grandchildren. They’re sitting motionless at his feet, listening to his testimony face to face. Towards the end, he says: “You will never understand”, and performs an obstruction. If they’d been using modern technology, he wouldn’t be able to do that.
It’s just as well...
The eyes of the last witness... like black holes...
Lucky I was watching this man through the digital shield.
Stash, at last, I found the courage to plant my heretical thoughts into your dream, those I didn’t dare mention during our first mind-conference; if we were to excise all the horrific events from human consciousness, what would our memory consist of?
Yes, we would be trapped in a never-ending loop of murder, hatred and fear, with each generation starting the terrible cycle anew, having learned no lesson whatsoever.
True, a historical scar does not guarantee that the horrific events will never happen again, but the very existence of memory – the detritus at the bottom of our pit – might still leave us some room for hope.
I’m so tired, Stash. I would never have imagined that dreaming for another consciousness demands such an effort. Your eyelids are moving. You’re struggling to wake up. And me, I’m using every ounce of strength in me to stop you from awakening. The dream-time is running out.
A canopy of angels is circling over you, hovering above with their colorful wings. This is the most popular dream. Billions choose it every night. Years ago, I instructed the REMaker to tailor the dream to me, and it replaced the angels with a black-cloaked creature