The Eternal Room

@unknown: Things will continue to get weirder and weirder, beyond comprehension. People will drift away from your life, never to be seen again. But all roads lead to the same place. This room. Flipping through a photo album, some faces familiar, some not. You don't question anything about your circumstances. Where the room is. Where this furniture came from. Who brings the meals. It seems things had always been this way, for as long as you can remember. What do you remember? A life well lived, a long life. The faces in the photo album recalling memories of friendships long passed away, past lovers, enemies. You see someone eerily familiar, staring intently. Confusion creeps in. "Oh wait!" you exclaim. "That was me." You remember that time vividly now, days of your youth. The ins and outs. How you were misunderstood, labeled as evil, manipulative. You see another familiar face, scrunching your brow again at it. "Wait," you say, "no, wait. THAT was me." A different time, a different country. You keep paging. Faces familiar as friends and lovers start bringing back memories, visions, of that persons life, too. Memories, you think. Your memories? Ah. You realize. You were also that person, too. Yes, thats it. That was one life. This was another. And another. They were all you, all along. You page on and on carefully through all the memories and experiences collected over all lives lived in the entire universe - the humans, so dramatic, so full of hope, feeling alone in a crowd, and all the countless other civilizations that came before and after them. Every heartbreak, every betrayal, every stunning victory and great defeat. You wonder how things might've gone differently. It's hard to see how, given how interlocking everything all was. No matter how you think through things, you don't see any different outcome. Everything fits just so. All those interactions, fights, squabbles, affairs. Each conversation. Each cataclysm. The great awakenings and the great resets. Small rememberings and forgettings. But no matter how you played your cards, you were always playing against yourself. And in every single possible shuffling of the deck, every possible deal. This was the room you always came back to. A growing awareness of the big picture as you collect, recount, relive each timeline of experience. They're all there now. You can see them all. Fitting together like the grandest most intricate geometrical mandela. It was beautiful, of course. The contrast of the fear and the love, blending together. But there was something you had meant to remember, something important, rising to the forefront of your mind, this thing - you were supposed to remember it. It was important. What was it? The room is fading away, fuzzily disappearing into blackness. Of course, you think. You were just imagining it after all. The room was never there in the first place. Just an aid, to help you remember. Remember what? Now you're truly alone. Alone with your thoughts. Floating in the eternal blackness outside of time and space. Everything remembered, everything accounted for. Except this one last thing. You think about how silly it all was, in hindsight. Just a big unraveling, really. It seems like one long diversion after another, distractions, games, keeping you from remembering this last thing that you just know is important. It's there. Tip of your tongue. Almost have it. Was it all really necessary? But why not. It was fun, in a way. Hell, it was terrifying. It was thrilling. Now that its over and you know you're safe. That you had always been safe. You recall it fondly. You built the stage. You wrote the scripts. You acted all the parts. You had to forget the ending, you tell yourself. Otherwise where is the suspense? But now this is the end. And there's only one thing left to do. One last thing to remember. Part of you is terrified. Part of you already knows. This thing is important, something you've been avoiding, some terrible truth. But you have to remember it. Then it comes. Complete awareness. And this last thing: You had remembered to forget. The room comes back. The photos come back. It all comes rushing back, but that singular awareness is slipping away. The beginnings of a thought become fragmented into conversation. The first illusion, perspective. "This time will be different" one voice says. "Just like last time?" says another. “Like every time,” comes the reply.