Mistakes Made ✅

Chapter 4: Past Reminders

Errol hadn't seen Jordie ever since their last encounter just the previous week. Normally, he would feel less worked up about it - delighted even at not having to see the boy around. Conceivably, the boy had to be far too engrossed in whatever it was at his campus. Not that Errol minded.

The issue with Errol, however, was that he couldn't seem to stop casting Jordie off his head, as though there was a malfunctioned system in his brain that he couldn't quite reach, causing everything to go on a loop. Maybe not Jordie himself, but more to the conversation that they'd had. Incontrovertibly so, something along the line was still not resolved. It wasn't yet finished, and it just remained there, stewing. The case was still open to more interpretation.

And it was what had been resulting in Errol to be unable to sleep at night, tossing and turning in his bed, trying to sweep them all away. All this time, he kept thinking, but never once obtaining any form other closing sentence to it. Of course, he had always been conscious of the fact that his life - his reasonably contemptible life - was constantly facing various kinds of dilemma. And this matter with Jordie - and Shandee, he reminded himself - had to be one of them. Certainly one of the many.

It could be something minimal, an affair as nugatory as a young couple breaking up. Even if such matter was parallel to Errol's case, there was more to it, like interwoven branches converging to form one horrendous sight. It was as though motives and consequences had both been divulged, and nobody knew how to discern the contrast between them. Just a solid grey area filled with ambiguous conjectures. Whatever it represented, all Errol could just surmise that it was reprehensible.

There should be a 'reset' button, Errol thought to himself as he ambled down the aisle in the convenience store, trying to look for a jam, and my life will be smooth as a baby's bum.

He came across a petite woman around her early forties, who was standing on the balls of her feet, one of her arms stretched upwards as she tried to grab what looked like a strawberry jam sitting on the topmost shelf. Her fingers barely even grazed the body of the jar, and she let out a whimper of vexation.

Errol rushed forwards at once. "Here," he said, grabbing it for her.

"Bless your soul," she panted, receiving the item and putting it into her basket.

"Do you think," Errol began, "that in the future, scientists will introduce chips that can be inserted into the human brain?"

The woman blinked up at him, as though he had just sprouted another head. Errol received that kind of reaction quite often when he started talking to people randomly. "And why would they do such thing?" she asked.

"So if things get awful, that person can just start all over again," Errol shrugged.

"Like ... replacing memory cards?"

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Unless that's a bad idea for a sci-fi movie."

"It's not," she said, beginning to walk away. "As long as you have a good plot. Thank you for the help, by the way."

He smiled at her. "Have a nice day, ma'am."

Suddenly Errol forgot why he was standing in that particular aisle. He frowned, looking around, and left the area.

Near the exit, an A3-sized laminated poster stuck on the wall caused him to double-take as he was passing by it. Normally, he didn't pay those kinds of things any heed, merely chancing them a swift glance before proceeding towards wherever his destination was. But this time, it was the bright purple bold letters that drew his attention, as though they had been superimposed on the paper itself with the sole purpose to catch anyone's eye. And it was doing its job quite well.