In a not-so-distant future, a new era had dawned for humanity on a small, reddish planet. It was an age defined by rising consumption, profound laziness, restlessness, and impatience… and a decline in hope, faith, love, and other seemingly insignificant virtues.
In this age, people lived isolated in tiny houses they purchased with loans that would take generations to repay, perpetually seated in uncomfortable yet expensive chairs. They managed every aspect of their lives online, rarely leaving their positions.
Everything, including humans, operated through the Internet. From refrigerators to sofas, from toothbrushes to underwear, every item required an internet connection to function properly. Everything was just a click away. People could easily handle anything without getting up from their seats.
And of course, there were robots. They cooked, fed, cleaned, and even put people to sleep. It was truly the golden age of human convenience.
Yet, nothing is perfect. This era had its own flaw, chief among them, an intense obsession with consumption. Sitting passively all day fueled perpetual boredom, driving people to consume endlessly. They consumed without stopping, without caring about quality, and without allowing their bodies time to digest. They existed as viewers in a virtual world. There was nothing left in their lives except sitting. Naturally, their brains turned to mush, gradually losing the capacity to distinguish reality from fiction.
This situation became a profound problem for people, particularly those on their deathbeds. When they looked back on their lives, they saw nothing. Because there was nothing.
Entrepreneurs saw opportunity in this void.
“People shouldn’t have to bother, we’ll write their memories for them!”
Thus, memory writing was born.
A synthetic memory was implanted into people’s already melted brains, and affordable fake memories were uploaded into them. People could now load any memory they wished into their minds. As they fell asleep, they would recall beautiful memories and dream sweet dreams. At the time of death, they would watch an impactful, meaningful life unfold, not a boring one, and peacefully depart from this world.
Everyone, even if it was fake, was happy.
Except for one person.
A young man who insisted it was all a lie, who found it absurd, and who was determined to save humanity from this falseness.
Like everyone else, he had been living in his chair, never leaving home or disconnecting from the internet. Years had passed since he last saw the sun, and his body had begun to merge with the chair itself. But now, it was time to rise. The world desperately needed a hero.
He looked at the superhero figurines in his closet. Becoming a hero had been his childhood dream. The moment he had been waiting for had come. It was time for him to act. After careful thought, he made a detailed plan. The first step of the plan was simple: get up from the chair.
The young man’s leg muscles, severely weakened from inactivity, and his belly swollen from junk food, lacked the strength to lift him. He had to start slowly. He began working his legs, one after the other. He continued this agonizing exercise for a long time. At first, it was deeply uncomfortable, but gradually, he felt marginally better. In fact, as he moved, his own real memories began to surface. He recalled his past, his childhood, his friends, the games he played, the trees he fell from, the clouds he dreamed about. Each genuine recollection strengthened his resolve, and he pushed harder.
After a while, distant siren sounds could be heard. The young man continued to work, ignoring them. However, the sirens grew louder and closer. He put on his headphones and kept ignoring them. The sirens drew nearer, and finally, they stopped abruptly outside his house. Then, with a deafening crash, the front door was shattered. In an instant, a group of figures in sharp suits flooded the house. The young man was so scared that he froze mid-motion, one foot suspended in the air and his headphones resting around his neck.
While some of the suited agents examined the young man, others searched the house. When they finished their tasks, they held a brief, silent meeting in the kitchen. After the meeting, some of the agents left, and the others gathered around the young man, beginning their interrogation.
“Hello!” one said. “We detected an issue in your brain and we’re here to fix it.” “All our conversations,” another added, “are being recorded according to quality standards.” “I don’t have any problems,” the young man stammered, terrified. “Absolutely!” said one. “You’re as healthy as a horse. There’s just a small issue. We received a warning from your artificial memory. It seems new, unstable memories were attempting to overwrite your existing ones. Have you purchased artificial memory or something from another company?”
“Artificial memory?” the young man asked in shock. “No, there are no artificial parts in my brain. My memories… They’re all natural. They’re all real!”
One of the suited agents handed him a piece of paper bearing his signature. “You’re one of our most valued customers,” he said, smiling thinly.
The young man looked at the paper in shock. Then, fueled by anger, he crumpled it up and threw it away.
“It’s no problem,” said one agent smoothly. “That was just a copy.”
“This is nonsense!” shouted the young man. “I… I don’t want it. Take the artificial stuff out of my brain!”
“We’re sorry, but the contract hasn’t expired yet.”
The young man buried his face in his hands. “Was it all fake?” he muttered to himself.
“If you’re not satisfied, you can replace your memories with new ones,” offered an agent.
“I don’t want it!” shouted the young man.
“Tell us what kind of memory you’d like, and we’ll write it for you.”
“I don’t want your fake memories.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re fake!”
“What does that matter?” asked one suited agent, tilting his head.
“What do you mean, what does it matter?!” the young man yelled. “What’s the difference between a person and a puppet without their own memories?!”
“The brain is a complex organ,” said one. “The memories you call real are not entirely real either. They have many flaws and imperfections.”
“Better to be completely fake than imperfect,” the young man shot back.
“What’s the actual difference between real and fake memories?” added another suited agent.
“How can you trust that your brain isn’t fabricating false memories right now?” asked another.
“What else do you have, besides what your brain has presented to you about the past?” asked yet another.
The young man felt utterly cornered. It was impossible to answer these questions with his fake memory. Though, even if they weren’t fake, he realized he still wouldn’t have been able to answer them. He had been an ordinary person living passively in his chair. He had never dealt with such fundamental philosophical questions.
“Also,” said one suited, his voice devoid of judgment, “there’s nothing outside worth filling your memory with.”
“What do you mean?” asked the young man, confused.
Two suited agents lifted the young man’s chair as if it were as light as a feather and carried him toward the shattered front door. The raw sunlight was blinding. After years, the brightness painfully hurt his eyes. When he finally adjusted, he saw a horrifying sight. He couldn’t tell if the world of his returning memories was real or not. The world before him was so different from the artificial comfort he knew, so ravaged and terrible, it was almost too awful to be true.
“Fake or real,” said one agent, “does it matter as long as it makes you happy and keeps you safe?”
The young man thought. He compared the bleak, horrifying reality to the beautiful, compelling illusion.
“Some have memories of palaces, others of prisons,” said one.
“Isn’t a fake palace better than a prison?” said another.
The young man thought for a while longer. Then, he thought a little more. And a little more. Eventually, he couldn’t find an answer, and he chose the fake palace. After all, he had no beautiful world to offer people. He couldn’t write real, beautiful memories for their minds. This was a job much bigger than he could handle. And besides, if the past is all we have, does it really matter whether it’s fake or real, as long as it’s beautiful?
The suited agents carried the chair back to its original position and corrected the young man’s memory problem. Since he was a loyal customer, they wrote him a free hero memory and fixed his door.
As the suited agents left the house, one of them asked the other, “Why do you think this error happened?”
“Because he’s human,” said the other. “We sometimes run into problems like this.”
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