#sofnir

My dearest friend was always fascinated by the world beneath our feet.

Once, while cradling a handful of earth, much to my profound humiliation, he loudly proclaimed to hold in his palms the seeds of the very origins of our universe.

I couldn’t help but be charmed by his ardour, though.

A lifetime ago, I dreamt of a great city of stone.

Traversing his latest excavation project, I realised these streets were the same ones I walked in my dream, the same spiralling patterns I saw then, now crumbling and lain to waste.

He told me the people who lived here kept no records.

They had no need for them.

He believes they communicated telepathically, and that a disease that ravaged their minds spread throughout their population like a plague, leading to the downfall of what could have grown to be a civilisation so grand that it might have rivalled our own, had it only had the chance.

I felt a great sense of loss, the melancholy absence of the unrecoverable, deeper than any sorrow I had known in life thus far.

I don’t know why. In another life, was I perhaps among their number? Was that why this place held significance to me?

I couldn’t answer those questions, but I was moved by the experience.

From this moment was the notion of Mneme born.

🌒︎

Aether congealed and took form. Vestigial limbs without dextrous extremities extended from the creature’s central mass, and several sets of delicate wings held them aloft. Bright, curious eyes of varying number drank in a vibrant world, opening and closing asynchronously, and four tall ears stood to attention.

Ethereal and otherworldly, the being settled into their shape and examined themself. They were barely there.

He knelt down before them, and immediately regretted making them so small, for he intended to set them an immense task.

“Mneme,” he intoned gently. “This is the name I gave you.”

I am… Mneme.

They spoke directly to his mind with the voice of a child. They had no mouth, for it would only hinder their objective.

“I am Hypnos,” he told them, hand pressed to his heart.

Hypnos…

“There’s something I need your help with, if you would lend me your aid.”

I will do as you ask.

“This vast world is home to many people. All of them unique, precious. Each of them has a story to tell.” He smiled fondly. “They harbour hopes, desires, and dreams in their hearts. In their multiplicity, they represent countless cultures, volumes of unwritten histories. For a tragedy, they are fated not to last. They will expire, and the ink they penned their tales with is doomed to fade to time.”

The weight of sentiment pulled at him.

“I ask you—I plead, I beg: Seek out these treasures, and remember them. See to it that the pages never crumble to dust. Hold fast to what time will forget. Your habitat is the heart. Your domain, dreams. Your empire, the mind. You are eternal, Mneme.”

I must do this alone?

“No, my dear work. That would be impossible. There will be many like you. You will be as a living library. I will be your steward, your archivist, for as long as I shall last. Together, we’ll dream of what we mustn’t allow to be lost.”

🌔︎

There is a part of me that knows I am a twisted shadow of what I was and could have been. That part is me.

Cruel, selfish, spiteful. 🡒This, I won’t deny.

Was I always like this? 🡒No, you weren’t.

Where have I gone? 🡒You lost your way.

Where is the version of me that you loved? 🡒He was transformed, an aeon ago.

And who are you? 🡒I know his name. You need only but ask.

I could dream for the lifetime of a star—and I would never remember. 🡒But I will, for you asked me to.

You’re gone, aren’t you? 🡒He gave himself with the selfless.

Isn’t it only natural that all I ever was would follow suit? 🡒It need not be so.

🌕︎