Two alternate openings for the same story.
Home by Seven
Memory clinic · Late afternoon
In a modest clinic, memory technician Ivo helps an elderly man recover damaged memories. He kneels beside the patient and pads the contact behind his ear.
A recorded message lights Ivo's wrist: Mara, his fiancée, holds up two inexpensive wedding rings.
Scroll down in two stops: context, then illustration with dialogue. Swipe left or right to turn pages, starting with context.
MaraGot the rings. Home by seven?
The patient catches Ivo smiling at Mara's message. Ivo keeps working gently on the contact behind the man's ear.
PatientGetting married?
IvoSaturday.
The woman on the bedside screen is the patient's late wife, in a recovered memory of their kitchen. Her lips move, but there is no sound. Her image has survived; her voice is still missing.
PatientShe's been gone ten years. I'm forgetting her voice.
Ivo sits at the patient's eye level. He turns from the screen and listens, helping the man find a particular moment he can remember.
IvoWhen did you last make her laugh?
The patient touches his hair, remembering an ill-advised haircut. Ivo smiles and adjusts the memory image until the kitchen steadies.
PatientI cut my own hair.
IvoStart there.
A sharp electrical crack. The lights fail. At the main console, Renn—the senior technician—takes the discharge and collapses. The wife's image starts breaking apart. A junior attendant reaches for the cable connected to the patient's head.
AttendantDisconnect him?
The recovered memory is still being written back to the patient. Pulling the cable now would interrupt that process and lose this memory. Ivo catches the attendant's eye and raises his hand to stop her.
IvoNot mid-write. He'll lose the memory.
Renn lies beside the damaged console. Ivo takes charge: the attendant must get Renn clear and call for medical help while Ivo keeps the patient's memory connection alive.
IvoGet Renn clear. Call medical. I'll hold this.
Ivo clips a manual bridge across the damaged connection. Its catch snaps. He has to hold the metal contacts together with his right hand. Smoke rises beneath his palm. The patient notices and starts to sit up.
IvoStay with her. What did she say about your hair?
The patient's wife remains on the screen, flickering. Ivo keeps the hot contacts pressed together. He draws the man's attention back to the memory, away from his burning hand.
PatientShe said…
The image wavers again. Ivo tightens his grip and waits. The patient searches for the words his wife used about his haircut—then almost laughs.
PatientShe said I looked like a wet dog.
A woman's laughter comes through the speaker, clear and close. The wife's voice has returned. On the screen, she reaches toward her husband's badly cut hair.
WifeSit down, you fool. Let me fix it.
The write finishes. Ivo releases the bridge and lifts the contact from the patient's ear. The man closes his eyes to hear his wife's voice again; tears come.
Emergency staff reach Renn. He is conscious. The grateful patient takes Ivo's uninjured hand.
PatientHow much extra?
IvoSame as we agreed.
The attendant wraps Ivo's burned right palm. He winces, then helps put the tools away and collects his coat. She watches him with new respect.
AttendantYou should be running this place.
IvoAsk me after the honeymoon.
Outside the clinic · Evening
Ivo retrieves a paper-wrapped bunch of flowers from his locker and straightens a crushed stem. He lifts his bandaged hand to his wrist communicator and records a message to Mara.
IvoI'm coming home.
He walks out into the evening light, tired and happy, on his way back to the woman he is going to marry.
Read the other opening: Everything Useful