AreYouSureThatYouRemember/Chapter_0.md

ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU REMEMBER?

J.Y.Amihud (C) Under the GNU Free Documentation License

Do you know that feeling when a person passes you and you are not sure whether you know this person or not? This person looks familiar, perhaps it's the old friend of yours about whom you think sometimes. But maybe it is not that friend. Since you don't have a picture of that friend. And it was so long ago that you don't even remember how that friend looked. And yet, now you are almost sure. You think to yourself that maybe this person thinks exactly the same thoughts right now. And perhaps it's true. But... you continue on your path and that other person continues on his. "I may never see him again" you think. But trying to test your assumption would be too embarrassing if this was someone else indeed. So you don't dare.

This is what happened to Michael three times during his life. The second time it happened when he fell unconscious on a side of the road, drunk to hell, in a crushing depression. Remembering the sudden death of his sister that was only five years of age. It happened here. On that road. Roughly five years earlier.

Back when it happened, he already lost him mother to a terrible disease. He could not remember what it was. He was about six when it happened. Quite frankly, he did not care about the details. Him mommy was dead. The sister wasn't from the same mother, though. She wasn't even really his sister. Rather a step-sister. Since not very long after the death of his mother, his father started dating a woman. A woman who already had the little Molly. When Michael met Molly for the first time - it had happened for the first time.

The third time it had happened was when he was approaching eighteen. It was in a clinic for patients without money to pay. His back was all too terrible. The back-holding device that his father bought him long years before that had deteriorated and longer functioned. He was still wearing it since removing it was a costly procedure. It was bonded to the spine in more then a hundred places. It was a day before his birthday when he saw a familiar face of a girl reminding him of his long deceased sister. "It could not be her." he thought. And so she passed by.

But let's come back to that one night when he was only fourteen years old. He bought a few green cans on vodka plus, an energy drink that makes you very drunk, using an anonymous payment method and contact-less delivery. It wasn't because it was illegal for him to buy such a drink. It wasn't illegal. It was just a good norm in those days to have privacy in absolutely everything. He went to the road where his sister died five years prior. And he sat down under the curve. It had sixteen lanes. All much wider then me and you are used to. It didn't happen today or in the past. It happened in the future. Cars resembled tiny houses, rather then just means of transportation. And the roads were made to accommodate the larger size.

That road that Michael was staring at, was tilted to allow high speed turning. So he looked up at its majestic hugeness and it had seemed as if there is nothing but him and those cars passing by with high speed. He had attempted the climb before. But never got farther than the first lane. But fortunately for his drunk stupidity, there was a way to walk around. The other side of the road belonged to some gentleman that Michael didn't know personally, or even remembered the name of. But he knew that the gentleman was quite rich. A thought of infiltrating his property and trespassing it for a purpose of seeing the road from above, crossed his mind. But he didn't do so. He preferred to climb the mega-structures instead.

The mega-structures are the buildings of the future. First humans were living in the caves. Then they built houses out of mud and finally out of concrete and metal. With time the cost of building dropped significantly. But the cost of land increased in price. So higher and higher buildings were built. Later, due to lack of land on the entire planet, that now consisted of a mega-city with no spare land, the builders started building on the sea. When the depth of the oceans was also brought to it's limit. There was no other choice but to build building in between other buildings. An agreement was signed between most of the countries that building standard should allow sun light to penetrate the mega-structures. To allow rain to fall. And to allow seeing the stars. Builders built is such a way that buildings resembled trees more than boxes of concrete. But trees, branches of which, often merged. From a far, earth resembled a sponge like surface. Buildings were on all heights. Between each other. But built in such a way that straight lines of pure air could still be observed from most points of the mega-structures.

From where Michael sat, he could see the moon. A straight diagonal line from his point upwards had no structure obstructing the moon. But the moon was surrounded by structures from all sides. It was a long, rough tunnel. But through it, he could still somehow see the moon. If he looked right above him, there was a building. If he looked between were he was and the road, there was a hole in the structure. With more endless levels and branches underneath. But he knew the route to take to get to the high part of the road. Of course it required a great knowledge of the mega-structures. Of which branch connected to which branch. He thought he knew that well.

When he entered the first elevator, he suddenly felt dizzy. Vodka plus started working. By the time he reached the escalator to the opposite branch, he lost his ability to stand still. Then, to avoid the property of the rich gentleman, he had to climb the wall, down to the road. There was a bit of ground between the road and the wall. This wall was already a part of the gentleman's property. But he avoided getting inside. So for him it counted as not trespassing. He fell just a little. Forgot where he was. Then saw the road again. And since vodka plus kicked in the hardest, he screamed at a top of his voice "Molly!". Few moments later, he fainted. The spine device showed low battery. And a rain started pouring. But the boy was not capable to climb back anymore. He just laid to the piece of ground besides the road. And that was it. The last memory of that night that penetrated though the vodka plus was the view of rain drops concentrating on the mega-structures due to surface tension.