James Bradberry

 

 

 

 

Time moves in one direction, memory in another.

William Gibson

 

A car. A snowstorm. A dark mountaintop. A protagonist stripped of his memory. These are the events that set in motion what I hope is a harrowing journey. For most of us, a lost memory is fleeting. It either returns to us naturally, or others do the favor. I once read that the best time to destroy a memory is during the act of remembering it. Fiction is rife with memory loss as a plot device (think Spellbound or The Bourne Identity). Undoubtedly overdone. I hope, however, that its treatment here is different. Marc Beck’s torment is that he while he knows that a heinous event has taken place, he has no idea whether he was in any way complicit. The closer he gets to the truth, the more the truth seems to invert itself. At the story’s climax. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning … Enjoy.