Memory Chasers

Jessi sat next to the window, enjoying the morning sun on her pale skin. The warm light brought out a hint of her natural blond in hair that was now almost entirely gray. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were whispering something or continuing a conversation with an invisible presence, something people often do when a conversation has ended, but the words they truly wanted to say were left behind.

The morning air smelled faintly of damp cement and autumn leaves, drifting in from the courtyard below. She could hear the distant hum of traffic and the low murmur of someone shouting somewhere far away. No one was outside yet, but she knew that behind the fence and the trees, the city was already buzzing with the morning rush. People in pursuit of something, racing against time they barely noticed, escaping the life right in front of them in order to begin another.

“Good morning, Jessi! I hope you are feeling well. You had six hours of deep sleep. Would you like me to call a nurse to bring you breakfast?”

Jessi sighed in annoyance. Apparently, a peaceful morning was too much to ask. She stood slowly, each joint complaining with a faint pop, and walked into the washroom. Removing the watch from her wrist, she paused for a moment. Then she couldn’t resist the urge, she dropped it into the toilet and flushed. Today, she could do anything she wanted. That was the strange privilege you get when you know tomorrow won’t happen. Not that it was the first time she had done it. This tiny act of rebellion always makes her feel alive in a way that nothing else could anymore.

“Of course I slept well,” she muttered while washing her hands. “I eat more pills than real food nowadays. If real food is still a thing. God knows what else they’ve done to my body. Talking torture machines everywhere, trying to brainwash you into anything.”

She looked into the mirror and began applying makeup. When you know your expiry day, you can at least prepare and look decent. She carefully added a touch of lipstick, steadying her hand against the sink. It was a bit too bright, but she guessed no one was probably coming to see her anyway.

The nurse entered quietly, carrying a small tray of supplies.

“Ma’am,” the nurse said gently, entering the room. “I just received a message. You’re missing your hospital assistant again. Let me put a new one on your hand.”

“You know,” Jessi replied, raising her wrist reluctantly, “I can still remember when real humans took care of their elders. People had enough courtesy not to leave us with stupid computers.”

The nurse smiled kindly, as if she had heard it a thousand times before.

“Would you like any mood adjustments? The breakfast will be served shortly.”

“I would rather stay grumpy,” Jessi said. “As it suits a lady of my age. Get me some junk food and leave me alone.”

All those technologies annoyed her almost as much as they scared her. She no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t. If there was an afterlife, she hoped it would be simple and natural – like her best years had been.

It wasn’t that she was afraid to die. She had already lived far beyond the time she would have had if not for all the new treatments. But at some point, there was simply no pleasure left in it. Still, Jessi had one more reason to hang on a little longer. She was waiting for someone.

People never left this hospice. Some rooms went quiet for a few days, and then someone new would move in, carrying the same polite smile and the same fragile hope. Jessi had decided long ago not to make any new friends here. It was easier that way. Easier than learning someone’s story only to watch their bed emptied a few weeks later.

Sometimes she felt a little jealous of her husband, who had died before all this began. She was sure that if it were him dying today instead of her, their children would have visited. He wouldn’t be alone on his last day.

Rick had always been infectious in everything he did, moving through life with ease and joy. She imagined him even hitting that damn tree with a smile. Loved by everyone. And leaving her behind to fight through life and family responsibilities alone.

“Would you like to see your husband, Jessi?”

“If we are meant to, we will meet again soon. Don’t offer me your illusions”, but then she changed her mind and tapped twice on her watch. She wasn’t cheating, only jumping slightly ahead of time.

Jessi took a deep breath, enjoying the familiar smell. Then she rested her head on Rick’s shoulder. She could almost feel the warmth of his body, the faint brush of his hair against her forehead.

“Was I that bad of a mother that they are not even going to visit me?”

He didn’t say anything, just kissed her forehead. She looked at him, amazed by the details. His face had aged as if he had lived all the way to this day and nothing had ever happened. Yet the eyes of an innocent child still shone, just as they had years ago.

“Aren’t you supposed to say something pleasant,” she asked quietly, “as if none of it was my fault?”

“I can, darling,” Rick replied softly. “I can say anything you wish to hear. I only wish I could have stayed with you a little longer… to be strong for you, so you wouldn’t have to carry everything alone. I wish… I wish you weren’t missing me so terribly.”

A sudden pain ran through her back, a sharp reminder that she was still lying in a hospice bed, counting the final hours of a life that had somehow stretched far longer than it should have. She tapped her watch again, and the pain quickly dissolved into a dull warmth.

“Times are different now,” Rick said softly. “But think of your blessings, Jessi. You can see anyone you want to. Even me.”

“Oh, is it, Rick?” she said with a faint, tired smile. “A true blessing would be if you were really here. Maybe they would have come too.”

Rick paused, as if searching for a better answer.

“I know it has been hard for you. I truly wish I were there for you. It is time for you to rest now”.

Rick stood up and pressed on a screen that started connecting images. “I will be here any time you need me.”

With a gentle touch, the wall-sized screen flickered to life.

Images began appearing one after another. Carefully selected fragments of her life. The best ones. Starting from her first glimpse of this world. Her parents smiling down at her. The puppy she once loved so dearly. Walking through school corridors to university. Learning to ride a bicycle, then learning to drive.

The year she met Rick took up almost half of the little memory show. Late-night rides with the windows open. Their first kiss. Dancing beneath cherry blossoms. The feeling that life was endless and everything was only beginning. Moving into their own house. Watching their children fall asleep after family movie nights.

The filtered, polished version of her life didn’t seem so bad at all. Then the years began moving faster again, showing fewer and fewer fragments of happiness. Bitterness slowly crept into her chest when Rick stopped appearing in the video. The space where he should have been seemed hollow, as if the memory itself was missing a heartbeat. Now Jessi understood, with a clarity that came only at the edge of life, that if she had another chance to live, she would not cling to bad memories so harshly. She would have been filtering and letting them go, just like that video did.

Finally, the faces of her children and grandchildren appeared on the last screen.  One by one, they connected from their distant places, their images filling the large display across the wall. They were smiling, talking over one another, adjusting their cameras. She knew that this moment was real because Lisa, her youngest daughter, didn’t show up, just as everyone expected.

Strange how those who resemble us the most can despise us the most too. Jessi and Lisa were equally stubborn, two halves of the same coin, never showing their pain to one another, never forgiving the wrong words, the missed calls, the silences that had grown longer with each passing year. Both equally missing Rick, both equally bound by memory and grief.

Jessi took a slow breath and whispered her farewells to the faces on the screen. “Goodbye, everyone,” she said softly, voice carrying a fragile weight. “Send this to Lisa, too. I love you, no matter where you are.” She turned her head toward the door, half expecting it to remain closed, half hoping it wouldn’t.

She thought of Lisa, of all the words they hadn’t said, the apologies they had withheld, the small kindnesses they had failed to offer each other. It was strange how the heart could hold both love and resentment in equal measure. 

In this quiet, suspended room, Jessi could almost feel her daughter’s presence as though she had walked through the door for real, not merely through the projection of memory. She could sense Lisa’s hesitation, her fear of stepping too close, her unwillingness to disturb the fragile balance between past and present. Even across the years, they will find each other in this tiny, impossible intersection of time.

The room felt heavy with absence, the quiet hum of the machines a dull echo of her own heartbeat. Jessi was sitting alone, the stillness pressing in around her. With a small, deliberate gesture, she tapped her watch twice. She said once again:

“It is not an illusion. Not a lie if it is going to happen eventually.”

For a fleeting moment, the world seemed to tilt, and the air shimmered. The door appeared to open, and Lisa stepped inside – quietly, almost hesitantly. She looked older than Jessi remembered, older than she should have been. Lines etched into her face, hair slightly streaked with gray, eyes that held stories Jessi hadn’t known she was missing. For a long moment, neither spoke. Lisa stood near the door, as if unsure whether she was welcome, looking at her mom in a devastatingly apologetic way.

Jessi let out a soft, almost inaudible sigh, feeling the weight of years fold into this single, suspended instant. She could almost hear the echoes of their past arguments, the laughter they had stolen from one another, and the silences that had stretched too long between them. Yet now, none of that seemed to matter. In this delicate overlap of memory and reality, they had found each other again – not as mother and daughter burdened by decades, but as two souls who had carried love and regret alike, finally allowing themselves the grace to simply be together. 

Jessi studied her daughter’s face the way people study something they thought they had lost forever, searching for the girl she remembered, the woman she had never truly known. Lisa stepped closer, then stopped just out of reach. Two stubborn people, two hearts brimming with unspoken love and long-held resentment, facing their only chance to bridge decades of silence.

“I knew you would come. Love you. That could never change."

A tear slipped down Jessi’s cheek. She wasn’t lonely, not entirely. Lisa was here, not yet, but soon, in this delicate, impossible way. 

Lisa tapped on her watch twice, and now she was alone in the room, with tears streaming down her face and her mom's last video playing over and over again.  

Years later, tapping through time to recreate the moment they had both missed but knew would happen. Two hearts meeting across time and space, bound by memory and love, never divided again.