years seem so few

Tea. Music. Memories.

It's not a real house, not a real sitting room, not a real cloth wrinkling and budging with cups removed, reset.

"You could have picked anyone in Origin to visit, right?"

Instead of answering, A flicks vivid, undulling eyes to the "door" walling off the rest of proto-memory space. Back to the table (the wrinkle, the round-nailed fingertips, the biscuit crumbs, the piano behind the host).

Then, A says, "I did not feel like anonymity today."

"Oh? So you do have to pick someone, every day?"

A shake of untousled head. "No. I don't have to do anything. But...I find it keeps me sharp."

"You're a computer," Flora teases from behind her teacup. "I wouldn't have thought 'keeping sharp' was an issue for you."

Back to the door, the piano, the windchimes, the half-knit socks. If A doesn't continually take inventory, the room might change. Not very important, to the other occupant's illusion, but...well, such is the lot of one composed of memories.

Looking. Looking. Looking.

Recording nothing. Compiling nothing.

Trying not to fall asleep. And Flora is nothing if not engaging.

(Well. Maybe she is a little too comfortable to be around, at times.)