The Fourth Seat

I always wondered how could she forget. I feared she had amnesia. But she couldn't. She was the smartest, I always believed. She would have had reliable memory otherwise how could one explain her rank in the merit list? But now that I was a student of Psychology and true to its image, it indeed held a lot of answers concerning human nature. I learnt why people forget and it finally dawned upon me. It was all in the Interference Theory. All those times when she never called. Because she was suffering from Retroactive Interference. Newly acquired information competing with already known information for recall. And it also wins all the time. But then when I managed to speak to her, she wouldn't like it and asked him to stop. Why would she do that? Maybe because now Proactive Interference was at play. Already known information prohibiting the recall of newly acquired information. And there in those hallowed pages of his Psychology textbooks, I imagined hearing Saundra Ciccarelli...

You are tired from the day's work. You lie down in bed but you can't sleep. You are waiting for the call that never comes through. You twiddle with your phone to make sure it is working. The glow from the small screen brightens up your face. But that's artificial. You are not really glowing. Your eyes twitch at the sudden brightness.They are tired. For you work all day and you don't sleep at night. You turn the phone over and try to doze away. But the conversations start to play. They are quite clear. No static, no call drop, as sharp as your senses. But they are unreal. Like all the good things in life. Not to be confused with surreal. Surreal exists, a surreal evening for example. Unreal is fake. A fake evening can't exist. However, a fake conversation can. The fake conversations seem so real because you have had them for as long as you can remember. The voice is distinct. Even the pronunciations you remember correctly. They echo in your mind every time you clo...

There was a time when he looked forward to being in the photographs. He was a stickler for them. He always believed that they captured memories. Those moments that would soon become past would live on through the photos. Flipping through the photo album, he would often pause and stare at some of the photos. The photos of them. Him and her. It would seem like such a long time ago if he looked at himself in the mirror. He was ageing. His temples were graying. But his jaw was strong. He had circles under his eyes but the eyes still carried the old glint. He was never considered good looking, he was a regular old man. Those photos had kept him company. The albums were a treasure trove of memories. The eyes that he had longed to see for 20 years were in there. Smiling at him. He could never picture her old. To him, she would always remain young and lithe. Laughing like a kid and crying like one too. But assuming the role of a mature woman when life demanded. She was naughty too but would...