12 — Memory

Ask five people what happened and you'd get six answers. Usually, the version that allowed them to continue functioning. Disasters become useful once they're old enough that nobody can verify them anymore. Everybody starts hiding different answers inside the same event. The strange thing is that nobody was really lying. Something had happened. A great many things had happened. The problem was that no one had lived through quite the same version.

The governments remembered stability because it sounded better than improvisation. Corporations remembered the losses. Investors, on the other hand, have a remarkable ability to discover morality immediately after profits disappear. Hospitals remembered exhaustion. They'd earned that one.

Real history leaves scars. Fake history leaves consensus. The people who lived through it rarely agreed on anything except being glad it was over. Assuming it was over. That part remained under active discussion.

I always found that reassuring. If humanity can survive catastrophe and still reserve enough energy to argue about definitions, extinction is probably not imminent. Just running behind schedule.

The story continues on September 20.

The Geometry of Choice: Book I of The Equilibrium Strain.