by James Gunn
Now that Achilles is dead, the war has shifted in favor of the Trojans. Helen once more is mine, and every night is like Cranaë all over again. But Cassandra continues to scream her prophecies from the pyramidal prison on the citadel, and in the palace of Priam Helenus echoes her forebodings.
Let Hades take them! I will not be depressed. I, too, have powers.
Yet word has come that Odysseus and Diomedes have sailed for Lemnos to fetch Philoctetes.
Philoctetes! The name fills me with obscure terror. I have a vision when I hear it of arrows flying at me through the sky, poisoned arrows that strike my wrist, my right eye, my ankle. And I have begun to dream of hollow horses.
The Mnemonist IV
Now, Thetis had warned Achilles that if ever he killed a son of Apollo, he must himself die by Apollo's hand; and a servant named Mnemon accompanied him for the sole purpose of reminding him of that. But Achilles, when he saw Tenes hurling a huge rock from a cliff at the Greek ships, swam ashore, and thoughtlessly thrust him through the heart. The Greeks then landed and ravaged Tenedos; and realizing too late what he had done, Achilles put Mnemon to death because he had failed to remind him of Thetis's words.
—Robert Graves
The Mnemonist flinched as if he, too, sensed the imminence of poisoned arrows. “Are the dreamers, too, the victims of their dreams?” the Mnemonist asked. He stirred uneasily on his pallet, unclenching his hands and stretching his legs, as if the butterfly within his cocoon of withered flesh was anxious to emerge. His eyes inspected the room with more awareness than had come to them for many cycles. Questions still pounded against the inside of his skull, but now they were tinged with statement.
we
are
such
stuff
as dreams
are
made on
and our
little
life
is
rounded
with
a sleep
a new experience
is perceived
it initiates some kind
of reverbatory
electrical signal
among a set or web
of neurons
as the short term
memory signals
leap across thousands
of synapses
they begin to activate
chemical processes
at the synaptic junctions
check
all
blood
analyses
for
inclinations
toward
information
storage
and
curiosity
about
the world
of facts
Now he remembered where the door was. His gaze sought out the spot on the wall where cracks had been sealed by the dust of time. If he gave the command, it would open, to let him out or to let someone in. To let him out! He could not imagine leaving this place. Where would he go? What would he do? He had given too much of himself to his passion, and there was nothing left of him but a husk stuffed with memories. “Had there ever been another choice?” he asked. “Is there a choice now?"
footfalls echo
in the memory
down the passage
which we
did not take
towards the door
we never opened
into the rose garden
within a few seconds
or minutes
Chemical changes begin
perhaps the synthesis
of rna
perhaps the construction
of complex molecules
in the form of peptides
close off
rooms 3412
5367 2943
and 4618
and install
temporary bypasses
on the lift
and drop shafts
The Mnemonist also could not imagine anyone coming through that disused door into this skull of a room where dreams and memories swam like misshapen fish and nibbled on the cellular fragments that were all that was left of his humanity. The door was useless, he thought. And his search for a successor—was that, too, useless? “Should I stop thinking about it?” he asked. “Can I stop?"
i am tired
of tears
and laughter
of men
that laugh and weep
for men
that sow to reap
i am weary
of days and hours
blown buds
of barren flowers
and everything
but sleep
the chemical material
forms a longer lasting
but still temporary
memory trace and
perhaps in hours or days
it induces profound
anatomical changes
in the cortex
of the brain
later these
physical chemical changes
become the soldered wiring
of long term memory
check
all
other
centers
for
an increase
in the
death rate
and
a decrease
in
the
birthrate
Historians, volunteers, dreamers—all had proved inadequate. Everyone was weak in his or her own way—an Achilles heel, a chink in the armor, all the old phrases came floating up to his consciousness out of the crowded cellar of his memories. Everyone was weak but the Mnemonist himself; there was not another like him. And yet, he thought, wasn't his own love of the knowledge that flowed ceaselessly through his head a weakness as great as theirs? Didn't it seduce him from life just as their dreams seduced them? And was his conviction that he dealt with reality indistinguishable from illusion? Was his sense of his indispensability only the lie to which he gave his personal faith, the essential lie that supported his dream?
and meet it is
that over these
sea pastures
the waves should
rise and fall
and ebb and flow
Unceasingly
for here
millions of
mixed shades
and shadows
drowned dreams
Somnambulisms
Reveries
all that we call
lives and souls
lie dreaming
dreaming still
tossing like
Slumberers
in their beds
the russian psychologist
alexander luria
described a man
whose memory seemed
to have no limit
a mnemonist whose mind
was so extraordinary
that luria wrote of him
in terms usually reserved
for the mentally ill
he could commit to memory
in a couple of minutes
a table of fifty numbers
which he could recall
in every minute detail
many years later
his greatest difficulty
was in learning
how to forget
the endless trivia
that cluttered his mind
check
other
urban
centers
to
determine
if
mnemonists
are
still
in
charge
or
if
each
has
a
possible
successor
in
training
A great weariness reminded the Mnemonist
of his long-forgotten body. Somewhere within it was a heart that pumped something other than memories to his brain. He was more than an extension of the console, of the computers, of the urban center; somewhere inside this shell of flesh was a creature that was more than the sum of its memories, that had needs and desires. “What would it be like to forget?” he asked. No more the rush of memory, the flow of information, the remembering river that surged through his head leaving behind its detritus of data, its delta of detail. What would it be like to have a mind as bare as a bone? How would it feel to experience the darkness of unknowing? The thought was like a blasphemy, and yet it was only the opposite side of the coin of his life.
adieu
adieu
the
plaintive
anthem
fades
past
the near
meadows
over
the still
stream
up the
hill side
and
Now
Tis buried
Deep
in the
Next
Valley
Glades
Was it
a vision
Or
a waking
Dream
Fled
is that
Music
do i wake
Or
in 1968 krech testified
before the senate
brain research
is immeasurably
more significant
for the future of man
than anything else
going on in science
within five to ten years
a regimen will be available
which will permit us
to exercise a significant
degree of control
over the development
of man's intellectual
capacities
this can mean a future
of enormous promise
chemical therapy for many
of the mentally retarded
and senile
chemical release for those
who suffer
from crippling memories
teamwork among chemists
psychologists and educators
for the first business
of society
the development
of the mind of the child
the shaping of its
strengths and
surely
there
is
no
compulsion
for
one
man
to
try
to
reverse
the
course
of
events
all
by
himself
turn
all
operations
to
automatic
and
let
loose
the
dark
flood
of
forget
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
“The Volunteer,” published as IF I FORGET THEE copyright © 1980 by James Gunn, originally appeared in TRIAX published by Pinnicle Inc.
Copyright © 1980 by James Gunn
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-2498-6
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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