lost in time

Every memory has a last person who remembers it. Think of that one night you went out with your friends five years ago, or the Halloween you all went trick or treating together. At first everyone remembers. You keep bringing it up for years. Someone says “remember when” and everyone immediately knows which night they mean. Every detail is ingrained in everyone’s mind, as if retelling the story were the same as reliving it. Then slowly it stops getting mentioned. People move on, everyone goes to different schools, new memories take its place, and people forget it ever happened; until there’s one person left who’s the only proof it existed. They might not even realize they’re the last one. They just know that when they think about it, there’s nobody left to say “yeah, I remember that too.” And one day even that goes, either because that person forgets too, or because everyone who lived it is gone. Nobody wrote it down. Nobody photographed it. Nobody knows about it anymore, and the memory is lost forever with no way for anyone to find it again. So was the memory meaningless if it holds no value after the people who lived it are gone?

~ nazeef 10/14/2026