Once Rachel’s left for her run, I download the trial version, scan in our wedding photo from the sideboard, and click ‘Embellish’.
Memorymodifier.com broadens my shoulders, removes the smear of mayo from my Moss Bros trousers, and adds an enticing additional depth to Rachel’s décolletage.
I type ‘estranged son in Australia’ and get an ‘imagined reality’ video of a muscular younger me playing catch with a blond-haired scamp as Rachel watches adoringly.
My first car, a limping Ford Anglia in Ludlow Green, becomes a bird-pulling Lotus Elan in Colorado Orange. Smooching to ‘Nights in White Satin’ in Crawley’s Coronation Hall, convent-girl Caroline begs me to accompany her to the carpark.
The certificate for second place in the sports day consolation race morphs into a trophy as Victor Ludorum. My beginner’s pack from Bridgnorth Stamp Club yields a Penny Black. My birthday Batmobile is the envy of the First Horsham Cub Scouts.
When I type ‘Tracy Fraser’ our First Fumble becomes a multi-orgasm lovefest after which my gross of mail-order French Letters from the Exchange & Mart no longer appears ambitious.
I enter ‘patchouli oil’ and Memorymodifier.com conjures uncannily correct images of the interrailing late-hippy fräuleins Brian and I met on the Left Bank and accompanied to Bordeaux for a summer of grape-picking. Except this time I get the pretty one.
My free hour is almost up. The Premium Plan offers even more powerful memory upgrades, tempting me with a clip of Caroline no longer high-buttoned in Laura Ashley but transformed into an Ursula Andress lookalike, complete with white bikini. I’ll even be able to rebrand myself, so everything from my Tufty Club membership card to my Bolton Wanderers season ticket can vouch that I’ve never been Derek, but Dirk. Rachel, too, can be reimagined, her hair glossier and tummy tauter than ever.
I’m hovering over ‘Buy Lifetime Subscription Now’ when the front door bangs. Rachel’s back, panting and radiant.
‘What’s the wedding photo doing on the printer?’
‘Oh, I was … reminiscing.’
She nuzzles a damp cheek against mine. ‘And I thought you’d forgotten.’
‘Forgotten what?’
‘Our anniversary.’
‘Of course. Twenty-eight years!’
‘Twenty-nine. I’m going to jump in the shower.’
I take the photo off the printer and compare my beautiful bride with the digitally enhanced version on Memorymodifier.com. As, upstairs, the shower starts its whoosh, I click ‘Cancel’.
Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. His work features in 100 Word Story, Fictive Dream, Flash Frontier, Leon Literary Review, NFFD UK, NFFD NZ, Oyster River Pages, Roi Fainéant, The Lascaux Review, and elsewhere. In the early 1970s he lived next door to JRR Tolkien. Find him at chriscottom.wixsite.com/chriscottom
