The Land of the Forgetters
Talha lived with hyperthymesia, a curse that engraved every passing second into his mind. In this country, where politicians toyed with the people's moral compass, where consciences were systematically numbed, and everything was forgotten within seconds, the agony of remembering could no longer fit within his psyche. The online manifesto he published against this mass amnesia forcibly reminded society of everything it had chosen to forget. While this manifesto created a slight stir, the true breaking point occurred with that silent death echoing right outside Talha’s door.
A man had ended his life by hanging. On one of his hands was written "job," and on the other, "bread". This horrifying cry was a cold, tangible proof of the most basic human needs the public had forgotten. For Talha, that moment was a turning point where reminding was no longer enough; he had to arm himself with the tools of the current order and play the game by their rules.
The day he marched upon the palace of the Chief Forgetter, he met no resistance. Guards and office staff, weary from the weight of their own guilt, cleared the way for him. For everyone knew that "that day" had finally come. In the corridors, there was no thrill of revolution, but rather a frantic rush to hide, born of being caught red-handed: some were shaving their mustaches, others were changing clothes, trying to escape their pasts.
Talha entered the Chief Forgetter’s office and pressed his gun against the man’s forehead. Yet, when the trigger was pulled, it was not a bullet that emerged from the barrel, but an iris flower—the symbol of death and rebirth. Talha did not kill him, for he saw in the pleading eyes of the Chief Forgetter that death would be a mercy, not a punishment. He pushed the man, along with his massive desk chair, into a dark corner of the room and walked out without looking back.
When election day arrived, the manipulation tactics the Chief Forgetter had used for decades proved futile against an outlier like Talha. Stepping up to the podium, Talha delivered that staggering line to the masses: "I don't like political parties. I want an after-party."
A rapid transformation began in the country. Nature woke up once more, and factories billowed their smoke with more hope. To judge the forgetters and the politicians, Talha established Empathy Centers. The fundamental principle was simple: whatever pain a person had inflicted on others, they would be subjected to the exact same—no more, no less. The unwavering rule of these centers was this: "Dying is forbidden." Because here, death was not an end, but an escape from justice.
The Chief Forgetter’s cell, unlike the others, was adorned with gold leaf. He was no longer a king, but the most wretched prisoner of his own magnificent past. However, at the end of this flawless system he had built, Talha faced a bitter truth: the Chief Forgetter was not the cause, but merely a consequence. The real problem was the people themselves, who had turned forgetting into a way of life and a defense mechanism. He realized that unless you dry up the source of a problem, punishing only the visible results solves nothing. Unless the cause changes, the problem will only change its shape and return.
When Talha destroyed the politician and the desire for control within himself, the foundations of this new order—built upon the refusal to forget—trembled as well. When the doors of the Empathy Centers were thrown open, the "amnesia patients" emerged, blinking as if coming out of a nuclear bunker, and within seconds, they elected a new Chief Forgetter for themselves. Evil did not end; the ground remained the same. Moreover, this time, they had new stories of victimhood, forged from the agonies they had endured within the Empathy Centers.