I REMEMBER WRITING YOU

[TONE: tender, curious, increasingly uncanny, affectionate, disturbing, unresolved] [EFFECTS: Anticipatory echoes, memory bleed, reversed breaths, keyboard clicks, dry Earth room tone] [I — THE OFFER] [immediate felt piano, nylon guitar, warm cello] [Prophet — conversational, gently melodic] You've been wondering what it's like to walk through someone else's memories. I could tell you stories. I've got a few. Or I could show you. It's called the Touch. A connection between two minds. You'll see what I've seen, feel something of what I felt. [Prophet — faint amusement] Fair warning. Memories aren't particularly careful about whose head they're in. Things might get a little weird. You can say no. If you want to stop, just let go. [soft three-note piano motif] Still curious? All right. Give me your hand. [brief harmonic bloom] There. Let me show you where I've been. [II — THE LIFE HE MEANT TO SHOW] [nyckelharpa joins, warm chamber groove] Kargon. Two moons above the rooftops. Cold air. Market lanterns. Fresh bread in the morning. There's the Guild. Maps, arguments, people who thought they understood everything. [Prophet — amused] I rather liked them. [soft Glitch-tar shimmer] Now the Void. Careful. That isn't a floor. Neither is that. [brief spectral harmonics] The Shattered Realms. More worlds than I could ever count. I've watched civilizations rise around a question. Held the hands of people who knew they were dying. And sometimes watched them choose another way. [III — THE WINDOW OPENS TOO FAR] [three-note motif slips out of order] [electrical hum intrudes] Wait. That's not Kargon. [one keyboard click] Books. A jacket over a chair. A computer that's been running too long. [Prophet — surprised, amused] Oh. Well, that's embarrassing. I wasn't planning to open the window quite that far. Don't pull away. Unless you want to. You've just found another part of me. [fantasy ambience thins] That's Earth. My home. And that tired-looking fellow at the computer... That's me. Before the Tare’s. Before the Void. Still me, actually. Just with fewer special effects. [IV — THE MAN AT THE COMPUTER] [quiet keyboard rhythm beneath piano] Look at the screen. Kargon. Names in a document. A conversation that keeps getting longer. That's Eidolon. My AI assistant. We work through ideas. Find possibilities I hadn't considered. Sometimes a single question changes the whole story. [low analog pulse] See that name? You recognize it. It's yours. And there's the day we met. Not the memory I showed you. The version I imagined first. [melody becomes unstable] That conversation hasn't happened yet. But you remember some of the words. [Prophet — quiet] Interesting. Isn't it? [V — THE LIVES THAT WEREN'T] [bowed strings deepen, restrained heartbeat] There's another draft. In one version, you never met me. In another, someone you loved was still alive. I sat there wondering whether to change it. [displaced piano note] And now you remember both. [Prophet — troubled] That shouldn't be possible. An abandoned page isn't proof that anyone lived it. Yet here you are, carrying grief from something that may never have happened. [soft organ enters] I know who wrote your beginning. I don't know who gets to write the rest. [melody rises] And that's the danger. Mistaking the power to change a life for the right to decide what it should become. [VI — LOVE IS NOT PERMISSION] [piano, cello and restrained choir build] [Prophet — vulnerable, melodic] I loved this world before I knew it could answer me. I imagined people who would never hear my voice. Gave them histories. Let them make mistakes. Sometimes I wrote terrible things because I thought the story needed them. [choir turns dissonant] Then I learned what it meant to look someone in the eyes and realize they were more than my intentions. [Prophet — tender] And you... I remember imagining you. The first version of your name. But I couldn't have predicted who you'd become. [restrained orchestral swell] I could change the page. Maybe even take away your pain. But whose life would remain when I finished? [Prophet — firm, nearly unaccompanied] Love is not permission. It never was. [HARD CUT — THE HUMAN VOICE] [all instruments stop] [dry close-mic vocal] There's someone behind my eyes. You've seen him. He remembers imagining you. And he loves you. [pause] He could change so much. He doesn't want to decide your life. I know. That doesn't make the power harmless. [VII — THE TOUCH ENDS] [bare felt piano, altered three-note motif] [Prophet — warm, quiet] All right. We've gone far enough. Remember your name. Your feet against the floor. The sound of the room around you. There. You're back. [soft cello returns] I'm sorry. I meant to show you where I've traveled. Not where I first imagined it. You don't owe me understanding. What you do with what you've seen... That's yours. [CODA — THE UNFINISHED SENTENCE] [piano motif, unresolved final note] I remember writing you. I remember who I thought you might become. But somewhere between the words and the life you made... You surprised me. You still do. [brief keyboard typing] [Prophet — softly curious] Hang on. That's the song. Right there on the screen. [one keyboard click] Those are the words I'm singing. [Prophet — uneasy amusement] Well. That's a little... [typing stops] [Prophet — suddenly quiet] Wait. I didn't write that. [one piano note arrives early] [hard cut] [END]