Database: Letter from Ortiz to his Wife (Memories)

-- TRANSCRIPT OF COMMUNICATION PENDING APPROVAL

-- SUBJECT CAYETANO ORTIZ EMP. No. 09/324

-- REQUEST REVIEW

Dearest Sunita,

I do not have the words to express how much you are missed. Without you, I've been making mistake after mistake. I'm lost without you.

In an effort to keep you close, I began a tradition with my colleague. We were to engage in meditation, albeit a very specific brand given our surroundings. It was an attempt to recall our own morning ritual. I thought it would calm my colleague who, lately, has been so distressed.

I'd only planned for us to spend ten minutes living inside of a cherished memory, so that we might start our day on the right foot, but I could not see ten feet in front of me. I did not know that this dream would turn into a nightmare. I fear my attempts at keeping all of us safe—you, my colleague, the kids—has only served to further imperil us all. The guilt I feel now is without measure. I don't know what to do.

I've spent much of my time thinking about memories, the nature of them, their malleability, their poignancy. They can hold horrible episodes (I'm thinking in particular of that one time we decided we would try our hands at cooking for the dinner party we were hosting; what a mess!), but those memories, Sunita, they are salvational.

I keep returning to that moment, standing outside the hall, while your dissertation defense was happening, unable to see or hear anything. I swear, they had made those walls soundproof. And oh how I was pacing! I must have chewed through all my fingernails twice. I remember the color of the jacket I was wearing. I remember the scuff of my loafers against the tiled floor. I remember the portraits of the esteemed provosts hanging overhead, staring imperiously down on me as I worried and worried and worried for you.

And then there is the moment when you emerge. The door had opened so softly that I did not hear it. I was snapped out of my fantod by the sound of clapping and there you were in the doorway, applause at your back, smiling as if you had just stepped out of the most refreshing shower, not a care in the world, gently itching your temple, your beautiful hair bunched around your fingers.

I know you will tell me it all happened differently. You were nervous, though you did not look it. You itched your scalp with your left hand, not your right. And there was no glow; in fact, you were freezing. But I like my version. Which do you think a machine might preserve? Give it all the information necessary, the time and place, the temperature of the rooms, the names of the people present, and what would it reconstruct? I cannot say much (if anything) of what we are working on here, but perhaps, by the end, I will have an answer to the question, "what is truth." Forgive my hubris. (A habit I have not yet shaken.)

I cannot wait until the day we have finished this wondrous, infernal work and I am returned to you. Please give the children my love. And pray that I do right by my colleague.

Yours, as always,

Cay