Forgive Memories
By Markus Iofcea
Originally written in 2024, updated in 2025 with assistance from Copilot AI
“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” – Pablo Picasso
For the past few days a strange, glowing sphere appeared in the sky. As the days went by the sphere had grown larger and larger. No one knew what it was or could explain its origin.
There is a cave.
A lone figure stands in front of the entrance.
The smell of wet iron and cinnamon is in the air.
A trail of footsteps disappears into the darkness.
The man follows the footsteps into the cave.
A sound of water drops can be heard in the distance.
The long and humid corridor leads to a chamber.
A voice spoke from the shadows.
There is something ancient waiting.
“WHAT ARE YOU BRINGING?”Being puzzled, the man answered. “Nothing. I have questions.”
Silence.
“WHAT ARE YOU BRINGING?”“I am wondering. Am I the last one to come?”, he asked.
Silence.
“WHAT ARE YOU BRINGING?”“I am looking for answers. What is this shiny thing in the sky? I am concerned.”
Silence.
“WHAT ARE YOU BRINGING?”“Is it dangerous? Can we do anything about it?”
Silence.
The man kept trying to ask questions for a while but never got any answers. The voice only kept asking back.
“WHAT ARE YOU BRINGING?”He gave up. “If you cannot answer my questions then let me tell you a story instead.”
Silence.
“PLEASE…”“I remember a time when we had everything we needed and wanted. When we were striving to become better, to progress.”.
His eyes closed as he drifted back in time.
It was the beginning of a sunny day, a long time ago.
There was light rain during the night.
Water drops still on the grass.
A soft wind was blowing.
We lived in an era defined by the accumulated knowledge born of millennia of discovery and inventions. Our ancestors had worked hard to ensure we lacked nothing, while nature had created a beautiful home for us to live in.
There were countless ways and opportunities to reach our goals and plenty of activities we could spend our time on. Everyone's life was full of possibilities and we felt grateful for that. We lived in peace.
Researching and generating new knowledge, while preserving and respecting the past was seen as the path to progress. This belief was rooted in the understanding that progress wasn't just about creating something new, but also about building upon the foundations laid by those who came before us. To draw inspiration from our roots.
And so the wheel of time kept spinning, we continued to push forward at an unprecedented speed and the mountain of knowledge grew ever taller.
This is when the first divide happened. The man opened his eyes for a brief moment and looked at the ceiling, pausing for a moment and then continuing with the story.
It all seemed so effortless, so convenient. But nothing felt easy anymore. We could no longer deny that all the progress we achieved had come at a price. Everything depended on countless others and factors beyond our own control. We realized that there was hardly anything simple enough for us to fully comprehend anymore. The depth of understanding that once empowered our world began to overwhelm it. As if it was hiding the truth from us.
People no longer trusted what they were told, what they saw, or even what they thought they knew. Some outsiders began speaking about the past as “the good old days”. Offering a sense of nostalgia, this perspective provided comfort and stability in this time of widespread doubt and uncertainty.
As society struggled a quiet shift took hold. The idea of abandoning progress and returning to a simpler life started to resonate with more and more people; a life their ancestors had lived. They longed for days when the world was smaller, faces were familiar and nothing needed to be explained. Taking long breaks in nature became more than just an escape. People sought balance in life, renewal of spirit and peace. Life in the cities, once synonymous with opportunity, was quietly left behind.
And so the wheel of time kept spinning, progress slowed down and the mountain of distrust continued to grow.
This is when the second divide happened.“Why didn't we see this sooner? Were we too comfortable with the way things were?”
Communities living in nature became sanctuaries from the steady pace of progress. Avoiding involvement, not caring about the complexities of modern day life and the refusal to serve the engine of progress became a new form of personal growth and wellbeing. This was not an act of surrender, nor was it a passive act. Quite the opposite. It became a conscious pursuit.
Despite the shift toward simpler living of many and reduced participation in society’s core infrastructures, there were still enough individuals who pushed forward to keep things running. These steady hands believed that humanity was far from its peak and that even greater achievements lay ahead. Now tasked with solving society’s greatest challenges, they became the new outsiders.
Although they were fewer every passing day, they stretched the scarce resources at their disposal to keep essential systems running, safeguard humanity’s welfare and expand on the collective knowledge. However they couldn't stop progress from slowing down. Society started to reach a point where almost no one cared enough about the systems that supported their lives. Society was in a tight balance between stability and collapse.
In response, this small group of knowledge-keepers developed a new philosophy. Based on their insights they concluded that humanity's slow progress was not due to the fact that fewer contributions to knowledge were made, but by the excess of knowledge. According to this new philosophy this excess was what was keeping humanity back – hindering innovation and leaving no more space for new ideas. The solution they found was simple: forgetting about the past makes room for the new.
So they launched a campaign to strip away needless complexity by getting rid of knowledge they deemed no longer important. They believed that restoring clarity and making things understandable for everyone again would prevent a crisis and set humanity back on a straight path.
The people sheltering in nature's sanctuaries watched and observed these developments unfold. This new philosophy proved even more compelling than their long-held vow to connect with their roots, turn their backs on progress and live solely in harmony with nature. They bought into the idea that by shedding the burden of past knowledge, creativity and invention would spring to new life. Free from the weight of the past.
Even the remaining inventors and researchers started to wonder whether their drive to discover more, to learn more, to expand the world’s knowledge was misguided and is part of the problem. In time, they too adopted the new philosophy, convinced it offered the only sustainable path forward.
And so the wheel of time kept spinning, a few kept going but the path forward shifted.
This is when the third divide happened.A council of 3025 people, drawn from across society, was formed to come up with a plan for how to best remove the obsolete knowledge. The council came to the conclusion that discarding the unnecessary knowledge didn't necessarily mean destroying it. They concluded that the dangers of simply erasing knowledge were too great, and that no one should hold the authority to decide which knowledge deserves to be permanently lost.
They settled on a compromise: any knowledge marked for deletion would be rerouted into a sealed, secure archive. Anything sent to this archive could never be retrieved by anyone. To make that absolute, they designed and built the most powerful, sophisticated archival system the world had ever known. Once completed and activated, the archival system would remain untouched by time, preserving the knowledge as a testament to the future.
It was a colossal monument that defied the laws of geometry, logic and reason. A fusion of crystal and stone crowned by a three sided pyramid.
The day had come to begin with the great purge.
“DELETE IN PROGRESS… 0.1%”…“DELETE IN PROGRESS… 0.2%”Little did they know what they started when they powered the system on. As knowledge slipped beyond reach, society lost the ability to preserve, repair and keep things running. Infrastructure began to crumble and urban life grew increasingly difficult. Drawn back to the wild, people rediscovered the forests as places of refuge. In a surprising twist, the age-old dream of earlier generations, to live in harmony with nature, had become reality.
And so the wheel of time kept spinning and the purge reached 47.91%.
This is when the fourth divide happened.
This is the time when people knew very little about anything anymore. The only surviving link to their former world were their memories.
One day a group of people stumbled upon a mysterious cave. Its existence was unrecorded in time. They could not tell if it was natural or created by some long-forgotten hand.
Curiously and bravely, one of them entered the cave. Following a long, dark and humid corridor she discovered an unnaturally cubical chamber. In the middle of the chamber was a pyramid-like black stone. Water drops running down, like tears, from all three sides.
“WHAT ARE YOU BRINGING?” “Who are you? What are you?”
Silence.
“WHAT ARE YOU BRINGING?”“psst, wIu, duA mrmLmRml”, she whispered.
A short while later she came back with a faint smile on her lips. She invited the others to also enter the cave. When they returned they looked seemingly unchanged. Yet, on closer look there was a new calmness about them and their shoulders lighter. As if they got rid of something.
Over time it could be witnessed how more people, from all over the world, visited the cave. None of them spoke about what happened inside, but all of them were eager to tell everyone else about the cave. Visiting this cave became a communal rite. A pilgrimage embraced by young and old. For those who hadn't yet made the journey, there was a sense of social pressure, as if failing to go meant severing a tie to the community itself.
It turned out that people brought memories they longed to forget, laying them on the cave’s stone as offerings to clear the way for something new. For a while everything appeared normal in society but over time, something changed. Eventually the little things that troubled people became a distant memory.
Once they ran out of obvious memories and regrets to bring, they began actively searching for any scrap of memory to lay on the stone. It was an almost addictive ritual to go to the cave regularly and to contribute again and again. They brought everything they could remember. In due course their contributions included the little historically and scientifically significant memories they still possessed. The days of bringing simple, harmless and insignificant memories were over.
“DELETE IN PROGRESS… 99.99%”In a remote corner of the world, far from the main currents of society, was a place untouched by the obsession with contributing to the stone. A place that was still tending to the needs of its inhabitants. The last pioneers of their time. They belonged to an ancient order of knowledge- and memory-guardians.
Eventually, even this secluded place couldn’t escape word of the mysterious cave, and as with the rest of humanity, its promise and temptation was irresistible. Before long, the purge had spread to that place as well.
One person, however, resisted. Holding on to his own thoughts and memories, he was determined to safeguard them for the future. He refused to abandon progress, believing it was his duty to protect and preserve as much knowledge as possible. He felt a responsibility to past thinkers and to humanity itself, to carry their legacy forward and honor their quest for knowledge.
His name was Albert.
He was a keeper of records.
He was the last scientist of his generation.
He was alone.
“My name is Albert and this was my story. Forgive me. Forgive memories!”
He turned around and left the cave.
“DELETE FINISHED… 100.00%.”“STARTING STAGE TWO….”The celestial sphere grew larger by the hour. Everyone watched and waited.
- THE END -