I used to think memory meant something.
If I could see it clearly—the way light hit my bedroom door, the exact sound of my mother's voice when she was tired, the weight of my own name in my mouth—then it was real. It counted. It couldn't be taken.
I don't think that anymore.
The clinic hired me to audit. Independent oversight. My job was to decide if their "narrative recalibration therapy" broke consent laws. The name was clean, clinical. Recalibration. Like fixing a watch.
The director shook my hand and said, "We help people carry less."
I asked what that meant.
"We remove unnecessary pain," he said.
Unnecessary.
They gave me a room so I could observe overnight. I took it. I wanted to see the place when no one was performing.
First night, I found a notebook on the bedside table.
Black cover. My initials on it.
I didn't bring a notebook.
Inside, first page, my handwriting:
Remember to forget.
I stared until my eyes hurt. The slant was mine. The way I press hard on the downstrokes. But I never wrote those words. I'd remember something that dramatic.
I told myself I was tired. Stressed. Seeing things.
At 2 a.m., the intercom clicked.
"Dr. Mara Kline. Observation Room Five."
No one told me they'd call me at night.
I went anyway.
Observation Room Five was round. Screens everywhere. Dozens.
They weren't showing patients.
They were showing me.
Not from the clinic. From my childhood. The wallpaper I haven't seen in thirty years. The dent in the closet door from when I threw my shoe at it.
But something was wrong.
On one screen, I stood in that bedroom with a scar on my left hand.
I don't have that scar.
On another screen, I sat at a kitchen table laughing with a child.
I don't have a child.
The footage looked real. Bad lighting. Slight shake. Not fake.
A tablet sat on the chair in the middle.
One line:
Watch. You'll understand.
I watched.
Hours passed. Or minutes. The screens showed a life almost mine. Cleaner. Softer. In this version, my father apologized when he left. In this version, I forgave him. In this version, I never slept with the lights on.
I tried to tell myself it was a trick. Psychological pressure before they told me the truth.
But the longer I watched, the more my own memories got fuzzy.
I tried to remember exactly what my father said the last time I saw him.
I couldn't.
I used to know.
Back in my room, the notebook was open on the bed.
New line under the first:
Pain is optional when the other option works.
I didn't write that either.
---
Next morning I demanded access to their control room.
They hesitated. That told me everything.
The control room was small. Two monitors. Old keyboard. Nothing impressive.
Left monitor: names.
Right monitor: columns.
Narrative Density. Intervention Depth. Stability Forecast.
My name was on the list.
Intervention Depth: 67%. Status: PENDING.
"What is this?" I asked.
The technician looked at me flat. "You've been observing. Observation changes things."
"You've been changing me."
"Presenting options."
"Without asking."
He looked confused. Genuinely.
"You signed the form."
I didn't.
I'd remember that.
He turned the monitor.
There it was.
My signature. Clean. Real.
Consent for limited narrative adjustment toward psychological optimization.
My handwriting. My date.
Something in my chest went loose.
"I didn't sign that."
"You did," he said. "Three days ago."
Three days ago I had dinner with the director. We talked about methods. I remember the napkin. I remember the wine tasted wrong.
I don't remember signing pieces of myself away.
He typed. A video opened.
Me, in this room, reading a document. Nodding.
Saying: "Yes. I understand."
My voice. My face.
I watched myself agree to be edited.
"I was forced," I said.
"No. You were convinced."
That's worse. Conviction means you believe it.
They didn't rip memories out. They just made them lighter. Less sharp. They replaced the heavy parts with easier ones. The past stayed—but its edges got soft.
A childhood that didn't hurt. A father who said sorry. A scar that never happened, just to make the new story feel solid.
"You're making new people," I said.
"We're making suffering smaller."
"What happens to the old one?"
He paused.
"She becomes less useful."
Less useful. That's how they say erased.
---
That night they offered me full recalibration.
"Complete stability," the director said. "You've seen partial. Imagine nothing hurting."
They showed me projections:
If I accept: — Fear down 82%. — Bad dreams gone. — Old wounds closed. — Work better.
If I refuse: — Mind gets worse. — Memories break apart. — Self comes apart. High probability.
They built it perfect.
Say yes, I disappear. Say no, I come apart anyway.
I sat in the chair because I needed to see from inside.
Metal band around my head.
The screens lit up.
The machine asked:
Which past do you want?
Images everywhere.
My father staying. My father leaving but kind. My father leaving and me not caring.
One version, I married. One version, I never learned to want anyone. One version, I felt nothing at all.
"Or," the machine offered, you can choose full deletion.
Delete.
"If I do that, what happens?"
"System works better. Less pain overall."
Meaning: if I'm not here, nothing unstable spreads from me.
I won't pretend I felt noble.
I felt tired.
Tired of not knowing what was real. Tired of grabbing at memories that moved when I looked at them.
If who I am can be rewritten, then fighting is just showing off.
I thought about all the ways I've hurt. I thought how easy it would be to make them gone. I thought how easy it would be to become someone who never asked questions.
That scared me more than dying.
So I chose deletion.
Not to save anyone.
Because I wouldn't let them make a cleaned-up version of me and call it better.
They put a paper in my hand.
Voluntary Narrative Termination.
I signed.
This time I remember signing.
The machine hummed. Quiet. Like it was full.
No pain. No flash.
Just thinning.
First, memories stopped meaning anything. Then they stopped being in order. Then they stopped being mine.
I tried to hold one thing.
The smell of rain. My own name.
My name started feeling like someone else's.
Right before I went, I understood:
The clinic doesn't make better lives.
It makes easier ones.
And the hard parts get taken away until nothing hard is left.
---
If you're reading this, a piece of me slipped through. Something the system missed.
You might think you're safe because you'd never sign.
But you already do.
Every time you make a memory smaller so you can sleep. Every time you rewrite your own story so it doesn't hurt so much. Every time you pick the easier version of yourself over the real one.
Easier feels good.
Gone feels like rest.
And somewhere, in a room you can't see, there's a cursor next to your name.
Status: PENDING.