The Seductiveness of the Memory Hole

“He crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.”

– George Orwell’s 1984.

 

We have an invention. We

invented it. What you do is,

you email us the thing

that you want to forget.

You list every detail. You

describe in full. When we

get the email, we delete it.

We don’t just delete the email.

We delete the thing. The thing

never happened. No one involved

will remember it; no one

who heard the story will

repeat it; even you yourself

will forget it.

We have done it already.

We are doing it right now.


(originally appeared in The Magazine of Speculative Poetry)