I didn’t think the end would be so volatile
But it is, because none of my past selves are ready to die. My present self is eager and willing because she knows it’s right and because she wants to prevent future selves from coming into existence.
But my past selves still wish to be known. Make no mistake, they’re gone already. They’re gone in a very literal sense because I’m no longer able to look like them or think like them or act like them — ever again. But inasmuch as they’re a part of my personal history and my consciousness (memory), they won’t actually die until I die. They’re unknown to anyone but me, so when I die they’ll all be coming with me.
A solitary person’s memories belong exclusively to themselves. No one has ever shared or witnessed any part of their lives — so no one shares their memories or has any memories of them. When they die, their entire personal histories are erased forever. My current self simply begs to be erased, but my former selves think it’s a terrible injustice that they’ve never been known. Or even really witnessed.
Two of them were breathtakingly beautiful (and equally vain) and they both resent that they’ll never be seen again because there’s hardly any photographic record of them. After all, whether there is photographic evidence of you depends on whether there’s someone behind the camera, not on how beautiful you are.
All of them lived and died virtually unseen. All of them are too angry to sleep.
