Remember, remember

At the age of 13 I fell down two flights of stairs and hit a very specific spot in the back of my head. According to the testimony of some witnesses I was running at full speed after a bumblebee (the motivation behind such chase remains unknown) when the ground decided to fold itself down into the earth in successive perpendicular planes, becoming stairs. The bumblebee flew away without worrying because it's in a bumblebee's nature not to worry about the arbitrary foldings of the ground. I, on the other hand, rolled down the first flight of stairs with the speed and resolution of "a garbage bag full of socks" according to the recount of the same witnesses. After completing the first flight of stairs, the point where a regular stair tumble is expected to end, I managed to make a turn to the left and kept rolling down a second flight in a similar manner, only to be stopped at the end of it by a pile of old, hardcover books.

I remember picking up the book against which I hit my head and being furious at Jorge Luis Borges, who restricted himself to smiling back from the back cover of his Ficciones. In fact I remember everything that happened afterward but the tumble down and the previous couple of hours seem to be gone from my memory. The very specific spot in the back of my head where Borges had attacked me was located slightly left of center, above the fold of the neck and below the weird, pointy bone¹. After it healed a tiny bump remained, making the very specific spot soft to the touch and painful to the soul. It didn't hurt constantly, only when I touched it, so it did hurt constantly. It could be a gentle pain that is entertaining to endure or it could be a pain so intense that it demanded my full, undivided attention. I ended up taking advantage of this feature using it as a rescue mechanism. Whenever I needed a time-out I only had to push the panic button in the back of my head and for a minute or so the whole world was made of hurt, which allowed me to take a break from myself.

That, however, is only the beginning of the story. I discovered that, in addition to the pain, striking the very specific spot with the appropriate amount of force would make me forget a chunk of the immediate past. After listening to the testimony of others and conducting carefully designed experiments I figured out the laws behind the mistery. Hitting the very specific spot with a flick of the finger would erase the last five to ten seconds; a couple of minutes could be taken out with an accurately delivered punch; and the best part of an evening would be forgotten by placing the blunt end of a screwdriver on the very specific spot and hitting the other end with a frying pan, particularly useful to watch movies for the first time many times. I still don't know why it works but I know how it works and that's enough for me.

When it comes to superpowers there is no competition. Some people praise teleportation but no amount of instant travel will leave my thoughts behind. Time travel will only be good to make me miserable at different epochs. Telepathy will force me to deal with other minds bypassing the senses when I'm already swamped dealing with one. Flying... could be useful when chasing bumblebees, I'll admit that, but there has never been anything in the heavens for me. And invisibility will stop everyone from detecting me but it can't make me undetectable to myself, the one from whom I need a break the most. None of those discount superpowers could help me deal with what burdens me. Fortunately, I acquired the best superpower of them all.

I gained the ability to forget at will.

December 2018. In bed with a Santa hat on, Tacoronte.