Memorycemetery

I think that memories travel through our mind in loops, just like celestial bodies traverse the Universe. Probably I can even predict when some of them will return. Some, even as I write, are crossing the point of no return and are being sucked in black holes of my consciousness. They can not disappear: it is in contradiction with laws of physics and common sense. So there are most of my hours, days, weeks and years had gone? Why memory is so random?

 Scientific data shows that Matter accounts only for 10% of the total mass of the known Universe. 90% is Dark Matter, “dark matter” in the direct sense, as we know nothing about It. I guess 99,99999999999999999999999999…% of my memory is also Dark Matter.

Only one memory is omnipresent: the everlasting memory of now.

Memories of my past just cycle in my mind in orbits and change their traectories attracted by owerhelming gravity pool of our imagination. Imagination as a factor of chaos creates.

For a change, let’s see memory loops in the different perspective. Loop memories.

Memory loop 1. (Rain loop)It was raining all the evening and the rain is still on. Rain always brings memories of other rains back: my childhood’s first tropical rain, thick with magnolias’ smell in Gudauta, still USSR then. It’s raining again, so I stuck in friend’s place; instead of going home talking all night long. Dancing in the rain in love, drawing rain in pain, escaping rain on different occasions. Hating rain for the flood in the house. Little London’s rain. Rain between ruins in Hampi, rain outside taxi’s window, hard rain again and my shoes are full of water. Rain is a perfect loop. It always returns what it contains. It always returns.

Memory loop 2. (One more time loop)

 Playing with my son in bath tube, splashing his toys from a watergun. A bottle of shampoo can’t stand on a boat: hit again. I suggest: let’s go out, the water is getting cold. He laughs, puts his index finger up and says: one more time…and this is his first phrase containing 3 words; he seems happy with it, so we repeat: one more time shampoo bottle hit, he asks me again: one more time… he never bored with it and so it goes for 20 minutes.

Memory loop 3. (Chess loop)

It brings me back most of my childhood friends.

My father taught me how to play chess when I was 3; I was so fascinated with the game that I learned how to read soon, so I could read about chess and replay master’s games.  Chess pieces were my trusted soldiers when we played war with my brother. I slept with black king. My father lost to me when I was 5, and haven’t played with me since then. I quickly started to challenge his friends coming over to our place. At 6 I joined a chess club. The same year I played with my club in our city chess competition and came 3rd. I played  in the club every Wednesday and Saturday since. They took me in a team. There were 5 of us, 4 boys and a girl. With time we won a couple of local competitions and were about to challenge  4 other cities teams, so we could make it to  our dream: country championship, players under 18. I played the second board. My opponent was a  strong player, a boy 5 or 6 years older. I watched few his games before. He never lost. We had 45 min. per player time limit. He played white. I played Petrov’s defence. 20 moves later we were: me a bishop and he 35 minutes down. My position was hopeless, but advantage of it could be taken only  in a long positional game. My teammates had already finished: we played 2:2, two wins on each side. Everything, as it seemed at that moment, was depending on me. The mental pressure was unbearable. I didn’t watch the board anymore, holding on my position as good as I could. Most of the time I was glued to the second hand of his time, ticking his precious minutes away. I was 2 more pawns down in the addition to the bishop when he started to panic. Less then a minute was left. He lost his confidence and finally the game on time. 3:2, we were through. I cried in the bus all the way back to hotel, and in our hotel room. I couldn’t sleep. I cried all night long. I was mentally exhausted, drained, burned, dead after that game. Ticking second hand of the watch stayed in front of my eyes. I broke. I couldn’t see chess anymore: for me it was a torture. I quit my chess loop, never making it further that table.

Memory is a chess game on time.

Boris Kislitsin

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