A little bit of fiction

Before I began my career (huh?) as a booger writer, I used to dibble and dabble in fiction writing. Since I haven't posted for quite a while now (and will not be posting for quite some time in the near future also) I thought I'd let you readers admire my fiction writing skills (if any!) :-)

My apologies for depriving you of a fantastic source of humour (I am so self centred, aren't I?) Egotist? Nope, the word you are looking for, you silly person, is egocetric. There is a subtle difference in the two words, about which you would have known, if you weren't wondering in your literature class in the year of 1923 at Dhobi Talao Municipal High School, what sort of thrashing you were in for if the cleaner realized that the girls bathroom had been choked by none other than yours truly when you were fiddling around with the cock (not that cock, you moron!) that handled the waste flow to outside the building!

Anyway, here's a story I wrote around two years ago. (Whew! Finally. I thought he was never going to end! How the hell did he know about the cock incident?) Read through and let me know what you make of it. The title of the story is "In the future"

“I’ve got extreme bad news”

“What is it?”

“Your friend, Abhay, has expired. He met with an accident while he was travelling on his astrocycle.”

“Oh dear! What an unfortunate event. May his soul rest in peace! His parents must be devastated.”
So saying, Vinay went and met Abhay’s parents. The next day, all the people, who were friends, relatives, distant & close acquaintances of Abhay, gathered at a common place to pay their last respects to the deceased. Then all of them went to the Memeraser.

The Memeraser was the place in the future where one could wipe out selective parts of one’s memory. In the fast life, no one had time to grieve over the loss of someone near and dear. The Memeraser was quick and efficient. All instances of a person/being in your memory were wiped out in a flash. All that remained was déjà vu. All official records on computers were also removed. The person became a non-entity. Like he/she had never existed.

The same was the case with Abhay’s acquaintances. It wasn’t as if they didn’t care. It was just that life had become too fast. People had forgotten that emotions were the basic fabric of being humans.

Elsewhere in the world

“I say, all this is rubbish. How can you allow the Memeraser to function? It goes against the fundamental concept of being humans.”, said Mark.

“Now, now Mark! You know how fast life is now a days. People simply don’t have time to rue over the loss. Its easier to forget than to wait for the so-called ‘time – the eternal healer’ “, said Anthony.

“How can you say this, Anthony? Do you remember how shocked you were at the demise of Neville? And the very next day, you return to work as if nothing has happened!”

“Stop reminding me of Neville. You always do that, although I have not the faintest idea who he was!”

“See! That’s the whole point! You don’t even remember your own dear cousin! What a time we are living in!”

“Please don’t make life difficult for me. You know I have to operate the Memeraser come what may. Go and whine somewhere else. All I care about is to make people happy”

“Happy? You don’t know what happiness is. You and everyone else on this planet is selfish”

Mark was seething as he left the Memeraser building. Within months of the technology being introduced, Memerasers had sprung up all over the world, ‘helping’ people lead their lives without the memories of someone who “had been”. Mark could not stand it. It was the memories that made man. Memories of childhood, of good friends, places, things and what not that differentiated man from animals. And now, human beings were transforming themselves to animals. In the jungle, the death of an organism did not matter much to anyone else.

People had tried to explain to Mark how the Memeraser was right. They used the famous “Don’t Care Ratio” talk with him. The Don’t Care ratio was ZERO. It was the ratio of the number of people who are affected when someone passes on to the number of people unaffected. In a population of trillions, this was bound to be zero. But Mark was adamant. He could not believe that people had become so insensitive. He wanted to change the world to the way it once was. To a time when people mourned the loss of a near and dear one & time, and time alone removed the sad memories and replaced them with happy memories of that person.

Mark started a discussion forum on the internet. He began lobbying against the Memeraser. Very soon, he had a sizeable amount of people supporting him. He realised that all was not lost & that few people, like him, still believed in the old time ‘rituals’. He decided to wield his prowess, to swing public opinion against the Memeraser. And then he was killed in a freak accident involving his car.

Do you remember Mark?

Mark? Who?

People who are short on internet time can mail me at gsumarji[at]hotmail.com for this story in a pdf format. Mail me at the same address in case you liked this story and would like to read other stories I have written. Substitute @ fot [at] in the email id provided!

P. S. I read about the cock incident in the newspapers. I still have a cutting at home. If ever I need some money from you, something to the tune of a few crores of rupees, I will threaten to mail photocopies of the cutting to all the females in your school. And the cleaner too for good measure. Looking forward to getting in touch with you!