Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Accuracy

I'll admit, I harbour this unattractive tendency to remember everything. If that wasn't unattractive enough, I strive to remember everything more accurately than you do. I prefer to have that sort of information on hand, for if I'm ever challenged about the nature of a glance, gesture or suggestion, I can trump you and I will win. Because I can remember and you can't.

There would have been a time when I would have been upset by this notion. I would have been harpooned by the thought that it wasn't important enough for you to remember, whatever it was exactly. While I had endlessly rhapsodised about various plagues, you'd struggle to recall the scarcest detail of my existence. Once I would have been offended, now I don't particularly care.

It would have been fine except I recently realised that I'd convinced myself of personal truths that were fraught with factual defects. I don't know how but lust and intent became whitewashed with years of coffee-drinking, journal-writing and story-telling. I only realised when you admitted to remembering something: "Come on Elle, you know it was never like that!"

I've never had to account for the veracity of those personal truths, my stories on the Plague or otherwise. Even as I attempt to craft and create and honour those moments of consequence, even as I faithfully recall any number of phantom glances and gestures, the moral of any given memory is diluted by the fact that I refuse to face the truth. I refuse to admit what it was and why it hurt so much when I lost it.

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