by Sam Lindsey
Once Henry got hooked up to the machine, he’d be able to access any memory he ever had. Even the ones he didn’t remember. Not that it really mattered, because every time Henry got hooked up, he chose the same memory and relived it over and over and over, from multiple angles, studying every microscopic moment, trying to locate where he went wrong.
Every time, without fail, this is what Henry did. This was his everything.
But Henry wasn’t hooked up yet. He was still in line. He’d slept through his alarms, missed the bus, and had to take a later one—which, of course, crashed into a ravine. So now he was here, sweaty, late, and last.
A digital chime rang out, allowing Henry to take a small step forward as the line inched.
Even though he had done this dozens, if not hundreds, of times, Henry was anxious, captured by dread yet oddly comfortable within his discomfort.
Inevitably, while waiting in line to relive a memory, one can’t help but relive said memory. Henry, though, was different. He did his best to avoid the memory he planned to revisit—instead turning his focus to those in line with him.
Henry liked to guess what memories his fellow line members would choose. Accuracy wasn’t the aim. He strove for the most absurd explanations conceivable. The further from reality, the better.
For instance, the severely dressed man in front of him. Henry liked to think his name was Joey and he was here to relive the time he cursed his dying father out at Denny’s on Christmas Eve.
Or the gangly woman behind him—maybe a Meredith or Nicole—who wanted to go back to summer camp in upstate New York, where she learned she didn’t like boys like all the other girls… well, except one of the other girls who also didn’t like boys.
Behind her, there was a doughy dude whose name Henry thought was probably something dumb like Kyle, here to re-remember the first time he ate Taco Bell.
Of course, Henry didn’t know why any of them were here or what they were hoping to get out of it. But he knew exactly why he was here—and the ineffably precise thing he was after.
Three weeks ago, when Henry had to once again borrow money from his sister, she asked him the same old questions: Why? And what’s the point? What the hell are you thinking, Henry? But she wrote him a check anyway and invited him to dinner.
Henry lied and said he had plans with a friend. He didn’t have plans. And he didn’t have a friend.
Access to the machine wasn’t cheap, and Henry wasn’t exactly rich. More specifically, Henry was very, very poor. The little money he made from selling pictures of his feet online barely covered what it cost to eke out an existence in the city.
The chime rang and the line moved forward, as it always did.
Henry used to be embarrassed about the feet thing. But eventually, he reframed it: strangers making strangers happy—cheap and harmless. A clean, quiet exchange between two consenting adults. Sure, it was weird. Sure, he’d never tell anyone. But it beat working in an office.
Henry’s feet were average. Not big, not small. His toes were basic, little piggies, and he thought it was absurd that anyone would pay twenty bucks for pictures of them.
The chime rang again, and everyone took a step forward.
“Henry! Hey, Henry!”
He looked across the street and saw the last person in the world he wanted to see. The person he’d only intended to visit once he was safely plugged in—not here, not now, not like this.
And now they were crossing the street, beaming with a stupid smile.
Henry almost puked but somehow managed to twist his face into his own version of a big, stupid smile just as she wrapped her arms around him, then grabbed him by the shoulders, her big blue eyes swallowing him whole.
“Henry, it’s so good to see you!”
He couldn’t speak. He was frozen. He didn’t know what to do, what he should do, and then she said the words that made Henry’s heart stop every time.
When Henry was unplugged from the machine, he sat up, sweaty but relieved. “Can I go again? Just one more time, please?”
Henry’s whisper felt like a scream.
Sam Lindsey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer.