By the third night, I was hollow. The Jedi-tricks had worked too well. I could no longer picture her face. I could no longer hear her laugh. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at my own hands, and felt nothing.
Curious, I pressed it.
“I want to remember,” I said. “I want to feel it again. The whole thing. The fight. The door slamming. The note.”
The concierge smiled the resort’s signature smile. “I’m afraid that package is no longer available, sir. You have completed the Love Me Baby protocol.”
The brochure said Krilinresort was the last place in the galaxy where you could truly forget.
And for the first time in my life, I missed the pain more than I had ever missed her.
The walls shimmered. A holographic attendant—half-therapist, half-sage—appeared. “The Jedi-tricks package,” it cooed, “is not about lifting rocks. It is about lifting burdens. A gentle suggestion. A subtle nudge. You will not feel us inside your mind. You will simply… let go.”
And that was when the silence became unbearable.
I tried. I failed.
I agreed. Why not? I had come to forget.
I was here to forget her.
The Seduction of Silence
The second night, they played a recording of her voice saying my name. Softly. The way she used to before the fights started. My hands clenched the sheets. The attendant returned: “Attachment is the path to the dark side. Breathe. She is not here. Only the memory of her is here.”
“The what?”