The Art of Forgetting

And when she found something completely unbearable, she simply forgot it. That was her greatest power, forgetting. For nothing in the world can trouble you once it no longer exists, and what is the past but a selection of memories? Carefully edited and imbued with the light of forgotten summers. She had nearly drowned once, when she was six, or at least so people told her. She couldn’t remember it, however hard she tried. Only when her toes curled over the edge of the swimming pool did a faintness come over her, the afterglow of a forgotten fear. It worked for people too. She had discovered this long ago, the delicate art of dismissal. The cutting out of a figure from one’s life, with neat precision and the edges sewn up so they would hardly be missed. She dreamt of them sometimes, and the shadows they had left behind, but you wouldn’t know it. She was awfully good at making things disappear.