Title: The Ministry of Safe Memories
Excerpt:
On the day the forgetfulness began, Ora found a note in her own handwriting—addressed to someone she couldn’t remember, about a world she barely recognized.
The Ministry of Safe Memories had once been a small government branch, the sort of agency most citizens forgot existed. It handled small things—correcting clerical errors, synchronizing public records, and helping the elderly reconstruct muddled histories. But now, in the city of New Pyra, with forgetfulness spreading through the population like a gray fog, the Ministry was the final bulwark against a collapse of identity.
Ora Soren worked here, cataloging files as she always had, but she was aware—sometimes sharply, sometimes only as a dull ache—of her collection dwindling. Still, she arrived early every morning, passing rows of memory cubicles and vaults labeled with birth years. She greeted her supervisor, Minister Dolin, who nodded, eyes rimmed the color of old salt.
One morning, as rain ticked against the Ministry’s glass roof, Ora found a note lying on her desk. She recognized her own handwriting, but the words twisted themselves strangely:
“If you are reading this, you have already forgotten. Trust the turquoise stone. And do not believe everything she says.”
Ora held the note so tightly it crumpled. She turned the paper over—her own small, neat script. No signature. No date. She checked her bag and drawers: nothing turquoise, nothing unfamiliar. Yet the sense that something vital was missing grabbed at her. She hid the note in her sleeve and began the day’s files.
That afternoon, a client arrived. The log called the visitor “Maris,” but when Ora looked at her, she saw her own shape reflected: curly hair, uneven posture, coat the color of new leaves. She blinked, and the face was Maris’s: narrow brown eyes, a nervous jaw.
“Welcome,” Ora said shakily. The echo of her own voice unnerved her. “What… what brings you to the Ministry today?”
Maris’s hands gripped something inside her pocket. “They told me you could recover things—things you’re not supposed to lose.”
“That’s what we try to do,” Ora said, glancing at the forms. “Is there a particular event, person, or feeling you have lost?”
“It’s not a thing. It’s… myself, I think.” Maris’s lips twisted as if she’d tasted metal. “Two days ago I woke up with a ring in my hand. Turquoise stone, silver band. I know it’s important, but I can’t remember why. I think you gave it to me.”
Ora’s heart squeezed. The letter. The stone. Faint, like a message under water, she saw herself and Maris on a rooftop, trading promises as blue dusk thickened around them. She had promised Maris something. But the memory slid away, like rain on glass.
Later, in the archive’s dim glow, Ora unlocked the “Personal Anomalies” drawer and found an entry for herself. The paper said:
“SOREN, ORA—Subject to progressive amnesia; reinforced by external intervention. Object attached: one turquoise ring (case unresolved).”
Beneath the sheet was a jewelry case. Ora released the latch with trembling hands. The ring gleamed inside, deep blue with specks of green.
She slipped the ring on her finger, expecting a rush—a sudden restoration of herself. Instead, a chill fluttered up her arm. She saw flashes: a broken bridge, Maris laughing in morning sun, Minister Dolin’s voice: “It’s safer, Ora. To forget is to survive.”
Memories blinked in and out, skipping years at a time. Sometimes she was herself; sometimes, she was watching herself from a distance. Events scrambled. She spoke to Maris—sometimes as a colleague, sometimes as a lover, once even as a stranger.
The Ministry was supposed to preserve, but Ora’s records now revealed more redactions than truths. Nothing made sense anymore. Names belonged to faces she recognized but could no longer place. Sometimes, she wasn’t certain if she was Ora or Maris, or if those two names marked two people or one fractured whole.
Late that night, as artificial lamps pulsed in the storm, Ora confronted Minister Dolin. He looked staggering-tired, older than the documents declared.
“You lied to us,” she accused. “This forgetting—it’s not a condition. It’s a program. You erase, you rearrange. For what? Safety?”
Dolin gazed at her for a long minute. “Do you remember what happened before you came here?” he whispered. “Who you were with?”
Ora tried, but the memories stuttered. She half-remembered hands—the warmth of another, the chill that followed. A tower, a crowd, a city reshaped overnight, and a choice: to keep memory, or to lose it for the promise of peace.
“You were both chosen,” Dolin said. “We can’t let the old war resurface. Memory is dangerous. People who remember too much start to hunger for what’s gone. They call it the Burden. That’s why we keep you here. Safe. Together, at a distance. You chose this.”
“I don’t remember choosing.” Her voice broke. Ora looked at the ring. “And if I did, would I do it again?”
Dolin shrugged. “Nobody remembers regret when it’s been taken away.”
Somehow she escaped his office, thinking she would never come back. Yet next morning, she woke in her Ministry quarters, the turquoise ring on her nightstand and no memory of leaving at all.
This cycle became her life—flashes of pain, joy, loss, protection—always followed by that granular blankness. Sometimes Maris was by her side; sometimes, across a desk; more often, simply a name repeated in her records or a passing reflection in a window.
Little by little, cracks opened. Sometimes, when she touched the turquoise ring, the city would flicker: she’d see faces in places they couldn’t belong, forgotten songs drifting up from the archives, laughter that didn’t align with anything she knew. In those moments, she understood why the Ministry was afraid: to truly remember was dangerous, infectious. Grief and rebellion could spread just like the amnesia.
But the cracks also let other things through—a warmth, a driving ache for connection. She began writing herself new notes, every night, in the hope that some future version would catch the thread she herself kept dropping.
Do not choose safety over love, she wrote. Do not let them erase you. Find Maris. Hold on.
In the Ministry’s sterile halls, they soon called her erratic. A memory-breach; a risk to collective stability. Dolin called Ora in for a final review, his eyes wet with exhaustion.
“Ora, this is your last chance. You can be emptied, and healed for good. No more longing. No more Maris. Just peace.”
She shook, dizzy from the weight of her own, stitched-together self. “I don’t want peace if it costs me everything real. I want love. I want the pain that comes with it. I want to remember.”
Minister Dolin took her hand, so gentle it was almost a kindness. He pressed something into her palm—the turquoise ring.
“Then put it on, and keep your memories. Even the hard ones. But I can’t protect you from the world’s consequences after this.”
She slid the ring onto her finger, and suddenly, the world clarified around her—the grayness receded; the sterile order shattered. Maris was there, in front of her, tears already streaming down her face. The city’s edges bled with the color of returning memories. It hurt—aching and sharp and beautiful.
Ora stepped forward, to Maris, feeling the risk of it all. She held out her hand, and Maris took it, solid and alive.
“We might be forgotten,” Maris said softly, “but we’ll remember each other.”
The old world trembled outside, uncertain and raw.
But Ora remembered. And somehow, that was enough to begin again.
###END###
