The World Forgot

Amanda Thorne had nothing left. No family, no boyfriends, lovers, husband, children, friends…nothing. All she had now was this job and she hoped to fucking God that she wouldn’t lose that too.

Lacuna Inc. seemed to just have all the answers to everyone’s problems.

Bad breakup with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Lost someone you really care about? Just want to forget anyone in your life who has caused you some kind of pain and/or grief? That’s what Lacuna was for. Walk into that office and you’d be on the fast track to forgetting.

Lacuna provided a way to forget those people who had hurt you. It was a way to move on and start all over again.

Of course, Amanda felt it all just seemed like a big lie. After the procedure was done, you never knew you had part of your memory completely erased. She wondered how people would react if they found out what they had done to themselves. Would they be fine with it? Just accept it and move on with their lives? Or would they regret it? Was it a decision that they were right in making or did they want those memories back even if they did sting a bit?

Honestly, who knew.

Amanda worked as the secretary, and every time someone came to that desk to let her know they were there for their appointment she always ended up asking herself these questions. And the cards. Those stupid, fucking cards she had to print out and mail to people related to whoever was getting their memories erased… what about those people? What did they think of all this? The memories of that individual may be gone, but not everyone else would forget so easily. She often wondered if people got hurt in these circumstances.

And it wasn’t like the procedure was easy. The first step to all of this bullshit was talking about who you were having erased and your feelings connected to that person. And then after that you had to look at objects related to said person while hooked up to a machine that measured your brain activity in connection to the memory attached to said object. And last but not least, you had to take sleeping pills and then allow strangers into your home to finally erase these memories. It’s all worth it, though, right?

Amanda wasn’t just a secretary at Lacuna either—she had firsthand knowledge of the procedure, because when you had nothing, there was really nothing to lose in regards to memories. She was Lacuna’s go-to test subject to test the limits of said procedure. It just didn’t seem as big a loss to her.