Stephen Snyder

Though I’ve tried, I’ve found no way to fill in the voids left by the Memory Police.

floating in a pool where the sunlight never reaches

may think that the memories themselves vanish every time there’s a disappearance, but that’s not true. They’re just floating in a pool where the sunlight never reaches. All you have to do is plunge your hand in and you’re bound to find something. Something to bring back into the light. You have to try. I can’t just stand by watching as your soul withers

The moon and the stars were nowhere to be seen, as though they had been scattered by the brilliance of the flames, and only the corpses of burned books lit the sky.

the intense light and heat chased away all traces of the fear and sadness I had been feeling

I could read the words out loud, but I could no longer understand them as parts of a coherent story with a plot to connect them. They were just characters on the manuscript page, and they evoked in me no feeling or atmosphere, no recognizable scene.

His soul is too dense. If he comes out, he’ll dissolve into pieces, like a deep-sea fish pulled to the surface too quickly. I suppose my job is to go on holding him here at the bottom of the sea

My mouth was dry as dust, my tongue glued to the roof.

no matter how wonderful the memory, it vanishes if you leave it alone, if no one pays attention to it. They leave no trace, no evidence that they ever existed.

“I know, but I worry that the earthquake changed everything too suddenly, that it was too shocking.”

“No, the truth is that I was dying under that rubble and you saved me. There was nothing to be shocked about. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for what you’ve done, and I’m not watching the boat out of nostalgia, but to remind myself how lucky I am.”