The Tavern of Forgetfulness

The Tavern of Forgetfulness

I sit, at a corner table, in the Tavern of Forgetfulness watching my mock quill pen move at the speed of thought across the pages of my memory log. I come here every night to make my diary entry, every night I sit alone letting my pen and my thoughts do the writing while I sip a synthetic nonalcoholic wine from a simulated quartz crystal glass. My thought pen flows across the journal’s blank pages writing everything, no matter how traumatic, which happened to me.

I do not have to look around; the patrons are the same people every night. Men and women who do not want to forget the war, but who the regulations forbid to remember the conflict while they serve in it. We are not the soldiers who wage the war; we are the service personnel waiting behind the lines for the wounded, the maimed, and the battle weary. We are the ones who get our memories purged, of what we do, so that the combatants can return to the fight. We have to feel compassion, and therefore responsibility, to assist the fighters properly.

The genetic codes of the soldiers themselves ensure that they neither forget nor feel accountable for the atrocities of war. If they die in battle, robots salvage their bodies and return them to us. We resurrect, repair, and reward them for their loyalty. They return to battle experiencing neither guilt nor regret, while we remain behind with the shame of our duties piling up.

Tonight I write about the attack on our complex. The robots inside the compound did their jobs, but not before harm came to us. I do not know what happened to the others; I know only what happened to me, so I write about my encounter with the enemy. I know when I leave the tavern, my memory will be erased and tomorrow I will wake up ready to serve without this horrible experience to deal with.

I was in the quarters assigned to me, waiting for the next trooper to arrive. The receptionist informed me that an officer, a lieutenant in the ruby brigade, had specifically requested me. Though I did not remember when we had last met, the lieutenant remembered me; indeed preferred me to any of the others, so I received the person’s name, picture, likes and dislikes. I chose the proper costume; in this case, it was a nurse’s uniform, dress and sit on the edge of the bed waiting.

The door to my room melted and three enemy soldiers came in. They did not look like the monsters portrayed in the video news I watched when I went to work. If they did not carry weapons, I would not have known they were the enemy. They ripped my cloths off and took me. They did not speak a word, they only laughed; their laughs still haunt me. Before they were finished, a robot entered the room and killed the enemy soldier who was on top of me.

As my pen writes this, I realize that they did no more to me then our own soldiers would do to their service personnel. I wonder if somewhere behind their lines one of their incentive workers is setting in a similar tavern making a similar journal entry. I will not read this entry again, until I retire; then I will receive my book and my memories.

Word Count = 573