It was often just past tea time and slipping into happy hour when Tristan first remembered for the day that his wife had been reclaimated. It had been months now and like the gentling of any addiction, the surprise was never in how much you missed something(one), but in how you momentarily forgot that you ever had the cravings to begin with.
He’d slip away, imparting clinical good-byes to the afternoon regulars, and make his way to the elevator. There he’d hit the up button, wait for the door to open, and then hold it to the side for Marie to go first; an archaic gesture to be sure, but one which nonetheless made her smile and become impatient with his imperious gallant–but there was no Marie here, was there? That was before. No need to hold open the door, of course. Silly of him.
The hum of the elevator brought one to Tristan’s lips as well, but as Margie had once told him while bathed in candlelight, looking out from their apartment view at the fireflies of Friday night dates from the windows of the city towers, in order to properly hum, the lips must close and the mouth sing a muffled, “ah,” in order to bring forth the full resonance of the tune and not that incessant noise that someone should have told you to stop years ago and—-
True, Mandy could occasionally be harsh, but she meant well. We all mean well, after all. He had so many good memories of her, but why did they always lead into something bad? Yes, she held them back. Contrition and belonging were not her strong suits to be sure. Glasses would be broken. Walls punched. Yes still, there wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t miss her, or her impish grin when she was about to pull him into the bedroom. She’d take his hand but even that didn’t happen often, did it? You weren’t aggressive enough; you weren’t enough of a—
The elevator opened, and made a left, another left, and a right, back home. Returning to the apartment was difficult, but his entry triggered the programmed voices; the cocktail party of the invisible.
The fireflies were taking wing outside his window, the evening blossoming into a full-screen cinema of the lives chosen to exist in the clouds. Easing himself to the floor, Tristan caressed the cold granite where Maisie had lain beside him those years ago, dreaming and thankful for the eternity they couldn’t imagine. He didn’t know what that looked like, but he knew that it smelled of her; gentle sea mist over coffee. Airy. Earthy. Dank. Unnatural and fake and—-
He loved her. Well. Fully. Her warts existed simply to amplify the fact that she was indeed real, and that such perfection must also be real as she’d otherwise be impossible. She’d live in his memory forever, of this much he was certain, his Maya, his wife, his jailer, his anchor.
He would love her forever.
But tears would not flow.
THE DIRECTIVES: CLASSIFIED ARCHIVE
In the world of The Optimised Future, the State demands perfection. The population is neatly divided into ten Categories. At the top, the elite are rewarded with the suffocating, biological permanence of the Sacrament. At the bottom, the working classes are quietly recycled, their memories wiped to keep the machinery of Central running.
You are entering the shadows of that machinery.
These Directives are weekly dispatches from the unseen corners of the State. They are not the grand political struggles of the Bureau. They are intercepted transmissions from the periphery; micro-tragedies, analog rebellions, and the quiet, devastating cost of surviving in a world that has weaponized human biology.
New dispatches are unsealed every Saturday. Read them carefully. Central is always watching.
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