In the movie 2010, Dr. Chandra explains to the other characters the reasoning behind HAL 9000’s break with sanity and why HAL ended up purging the Discovery of all it’s human inhabitants. During this discussion, Dr. Chandra turns on the comm channel and asks HAL 9000 about the missing crew members. HAL hasn’t a clue what happened to Frank or Dave or those in hibernation. Everyone is shocked that HAL, instrumental in such a terrible act now can’t remember a jot of any of it. Dr. Chandra explains, after turning off the comm that he introduced a tapeworm that destroyed selected memories from HAL’s system.

A matter of mercy. To not remember.

I have done something very similar here, to this blog. Since about 2010 I’ve been sharing unpleasantness and pain with friends and family members using WordPress and password-protected blog posts. I only gave the password out to people who were not involved with “That Place That Must Not Be Named”. The sense here is that pain shared is pain cleaved. The more people knew of my problems, the less the problems affected me because those that cared for me could see everything that was to see and there were many conversations privately regarding “That Place That Must Not Be Named”.

It bears mentioning that the public IP address space for “That Place That Must Not Be Named” is permanently banned on this blog. I do not care either way, but at least it is something. Not that anything can be done to me now, I am beyond their reach.

So, I have sent my own tapeworm, after a fashion. I have dumped many postings, certainly all the ones with the passwords, and I have eliminated the Category from my blog entirely. The memories only exist in my Journal now.

It’s a bid, in a way, to attempt to forget everything between 1998 and 2013. The only thing that will really help is time, as the distance in time grows I will recall less and less of “That Place That Must Not Be Named” until it’s just a fuzzy blur. Something happened for those 15 years, but it’s all gone now. It’s the best and most adaptive thing I think I can do for myself and those that truly care for me. It just fades away. Much like the physical representations, such as the pins, tokens, and photos – the congratulatory cardstock emblems of “xx years of service” that have been shredded into chaff. I would throw away all the relationships but there are only a spare handful that I retain because they are truly special to me, the rest have been forgotten. Their names allowed to fade, the images of their faces growing blurry and indistinct.

Maybe somewhen down the line I will open up my journal and I will read through my life’s history. I will endure all the pain and tears and all the horribleness again, but not now. Now is the time to lose every mooring to “That Place That Must Not Be Named”. It’s taken a long while, but I feel that my progress in moving on has been a solid and successful one.

Now that I am no longer in Hell, those that visited can all attest that I am a far more happier soul now than I was for a very long span in the past.

If somehow, you are a part of “That Place That Must Not Be Named” and you aren’t a “Special Person”, you are invited to forget all about me and lose this blog’s address. If you have my name and number, forget those as well.

What ever happened to Dave and Frank? I’m very enthusiastic about the mission and I have total confidence in my abilities to execute my programming… 🙂