4K UHD

confession

Author: Zavair

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I sometimes think that our memory is a living breathing thing in itself that lives within us. Almost like an entity which has its own mind and moods and life of its own. You forget—it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or even hides things from you—and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory, but it actually has you. I’ve always been very self-aware of the limitations of my memory and how it operates. What its good at… what it’s terrible at. I know it’s good at remembering ‘things’. Random things and objects and words and numbers and patterns. I also know that it’s terrible at remembering faces and names and places and directions. It’s a terrible limitation and over the years I’ve tried to come up with many different hacks and designs to compensate for it. Let’s take faces for example. I have this very silly but an effective little hack to remember faces and associate them to their respective names. So whenever I meet someone new I’ll take their name and find something distinctive about them in appearance… something that sets them apart - put the distinctive feature and their name together in the same bracket and save it in my memory. I can’t say that it’s always effective but relatively speaking, it gets the job done I suppose. Most importantly though, and what I think really stands out — is the fact that by going through that little exercise in my mind, I subconsciously somehow am able to instantly recall their faces when I need to. Basically, just the act of going through the motions and that little procedure for trying to memorise something… my mind and memory is able to register and save it permanently or at least semi-permanently for future. Anyway, this memory limitation and my awareness of it was really playing on my mind the day that I came to see you. I knew that, that night was probably my only best chance to pay attention, go through the “procedure” and scan your face intently just so I can provide my stupid memory enough data to print and stamp and remember it forever loll… Add in the other factors like the absence of pictures and the fact that we couldn’t see each other over Ramadan… I’m sure you can understand how enormously the thought of having to memorise everything about you engrossed me thoroughly and throughout my journey to Birmingham.

Just my luck then, by the time I got into Birmingham, it was already starting to get dark. Forgetting my glasses in those circumstances was just compounding the difficulty at that point loll. By the time I met you, the overriding feeling in the back of my mind wanting me to remember you… and remember you flawlessly mind you, was really starting to saturate all my thoughts in the moment. I just didn’t know when or how I could pull off that all important memory exercise. Luckily, it dawned on me - a tiny glimmer of hope if you will - when we stood in the queue to get into Zizzi’s. I suddenly felt calm and confident thinking… surely, we are about to sit across from each other and I can finally steal a look or two to download the bits and bytes I need and commit them to my memory until we meet again :D And then… there it was. The moment I’d been waiting for. Just as soon as we sat down, my luck played a master stroke and gifted me an opportunity on a silver platter (no pun intended) by way of the staff handing us the menu to order. I was living a beat ahead of each moment that passed us by. Any moment now, I thought to myself, she’ll start reading the menu and I, her lolll This sounds weird just typing it but honestly… I was so happy when you looked down to read the menu… It was as if a hundred different gears shifted into action simultaneously in my head. Silos carrying terabytes of your image data… primed, pruned and wrapped into neat little packets started flooding my memory. All this occurred intermittently, and sporadically in flashes and in windows and spaces of time divided by moments. At some points it even seemed to me that I had been staring at you for an impossible amount of time lolll Lost in my thoughts, lost in the sight of YOUU. Here’s the kicker though… tried as I might.. to the best of my ability and through all the years of training prior, I could NOT… for the life of me, pick anything distinctive or something that’d stand out. Something I could latch onto as the ultimate trigger to recall to my memory the entirety of your face in 4k glory lolll I just couldn’t. I’m not sure if you noticed, but when asked, I simply said I’ll have whatever she’s having. Same pizza, same drinks. Mainly cuz I didn’t read a word of that menu. I might have been pretending, sure… but my mind was pretty darn pre-occupied with the task at hand lolll It was slightly disheartening to say the least that I failed. My memory failed in that moment to pick and assign a distinctive feature with which I could leisurely and at will miss you thus remember you vividly. I couldn’t tell you why either. Never happened before. Seeing that it was probably the only opportunity to sit across from u, face to face - I thought sod it! Why dwell on it. Maybe it was meant to be so. Spent the remainder of the time just being thankful and frankly over the moon loll

Next day, as I sat in my office and stared blankly at the screen of my laptop, I couldn’t help but wondered - even with the knowledge of procedural failure loll - I thought I’ll still give it a try. Try to remember you in all your brightness… with as much detail as I could fathom. It was almost a half-resigned effort if it makes sense. Cuz I knew the result wouldn’t be what I had hoped it to be. Put it this way…. Had I been successful in agreeing with my memory to have found something distinctive enough to trigger your memory to my recall at will - I’d have been able to remember you in 3840 x 2160 pixels loll whereas now when I knew that it wasn’t the case, I’d consider myself lucky if I could remember you in 480 x 360 pixels. Mildly dismayed, I still had a go and tried remembering you. You came in flashes. As if the memory was short-circuiting and regurgitating those neatly wrapped packets of raw still images. All of them blurry. Every single one of them. Ngl, thinking back…. It was kinda sad too cuz it seemed like the flashes of an already fading memory. Bits and bytes of chopped up info. Each flashing image representing a failed attempt of scanning and looking for THAT distinct trigger that would magically just illuminate your entire face before me. Literally a sequence of monochromatic, dimly lit bytes of data in 0s…. and 1s. I concentrated harder… I could see your bigggg beautiful eyes. I concentrated even harder. I counted 3 little moles. (I’m sooooooo sure I saw them lollll) The tiniest one just above your left brow, another one.. half an inch under your lips to the right…. And the third one perched westwardly over the fine line that brackets your mouth; like parenthesis around a lifetime of words I wish I’d been around to hear lolll Alas! The full picture just like the logic of it all eluded me. They were all but fragments of a memory.

Just as I prepped myself to snap out of this seemingly pointless exercise and stopped for a moment to think of you as just another face that I ought to remember, YOU…. my dearest womannnn… dawned on me in all your glorious 4k ultra high definition lolll It was such an epiphany, I can’t even express in words. Quite overwhelming in that instance if I’m being completely honest. The moment I let go of my in-built tendency to recall distinctions as triggers to remind myself someone’s face, was the very moment I also realised that you weren’t just someone. You were unlike anyone else. And your face was unlike any other face that I’ve ever cared to remember. It became clear to me that when I look at u in parts…. nothing is meant to stand out cuz u are not like anyone else that I’d naturally be inclined to forget about. Some parts are absolutely nothing to write anything about… because my memory will fail me if I ever thought of you in parts. I could reserve picobytes of admiration in parts reserved for your eyes, your hair, your ears and the three moles… but I can’t use any of those as a trigger or an excuse to think of you. And to remember you. Mainly because I don’t need a reason to remember you. My memory doesn’t need any triggers for me to see you in my mind. Mostly because you never leave my imagination. I think of you… and its like it all just comes together and becomes!!! The most beautiful sight to behold.

I had such a weird, instantaneous but VERY RIGHT SOUNDING thought in that moment... so I took out a pen and scribbled 1° of H on a sticky note and stuck it on my computer and it’s remained there ever since. The meaning of it, if you're wondering? Its more of a juxtaposition of an already established concept to a newly discovered one which allows me understand how I'm able to see you at will, whenever I want... without ever resorting to any memory hacks.

Six Degrees of Separation All people are six or fewer social connections away from each other.

One Degree of H All thoughts are only ever one excuse away from thinking about Halima.