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Disclaimer/explanation of Forgotten, But Not Gone

FBNG is an idea I had bouncing around in my head for a while that I just had to get onto paper. I enjoy it and I'm actually pretty pleased with how it is turning out, but I cannot let myself take any credit for the thought. The inspiration came directly from the anime adaptation of Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl-Senpai. If you enjoy my take on it, I cannot encourage you enough to check out the series whether it is the anime or the original books.

• Rez, 04/26/2025

Chapter 5

It is said that the only thing certain in life are death and taxes. What this fails to take into account is that to pay taxes you have to earn money, and that need waits for no one. And so, in spite of the tumult of the previous evening, I still woke up to my alarm, got breakfast ready for Marcus, made sure he had everything he needed for school, hugged him goodbye at the door, and then walked myself onto the bus that would take me to work. “And you say it's gotten worse?” My pen stopped moving and I looked up. Isabelle Crane – Izzy – stared at me over the tops of her horn-rimmed glasses. “That's what it seems like, anyway. Now that Marcus has lost awareness of her I'm wondering what's going to happen next.” “Assuming that things continue happening the way that they have been then the only logical conclusion is that eventually she'll be forgotten by everyone – a living ghost.” “I've heard of 'the living dead' before, but I'll confess that you just gave it a chilling new take. Also I'll remind you that this is Alice we're talking about. My wife.” “You act as though I'm a soulless, heartless statue that wouldn't care if her own parents were pushed off of a cliff in front of her.” “Your monotone delivery doesn't really convince me otherwise.” “How rude. I'd miss Alice very much if I forgot about her. Her roast at the very least should be considered a national treasure. I still don't know how she gets it so juicy. I'm not sure what I'd do if I forgot that.” “I suppose that would be the blessing of forgetting – you wouldn't remember what you had lost.” Isabelle had been a friend of the family for several years – she and Alice had been friends in school and they had just continued to keep in touch. Me working with her had been a stroke of serendipity. I sighed, shaking my head, then returned to the paperwork in front of me, but I couldn't bring myself to focus on it. “I've tried to think about what this could be, but I haven't found anything that could even be considered a hint. I'm trying to not lose hope, but I also don't have anything to go off of.” Isabelle stopped pretending to work and pushed away her suspiciously incomplete stack of paperwork. “Not to state the obvious, but it sounds like it's simply a matter of perception.” “Come again?” “Perception. To perceive. To see.” “Thank you for the language lesson. I'm indebted to you for your bottomless wisdom and guidance. What do you mean by perception?” She thought for a second, thinking about how to phrase her answer. “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” “Of course it does. After all, the tree doesn't know that there is no one to hear it, so it would need to make the sound every time just to be safe.” “A fair point. Uncertainty brings about a certain consistency. But let's take a scenario where the tree is certain that no one is around.” “In that scenario we cannot be certain since there is nobody to measure anything.” “So we must conclude one of two choices: Either it has made a sound, or it has not made a sound.” “Why are you starting to sound like a philosophy professor? Yes, two choices. Each one mutually exclusive to the other.” “It was my other choice for a major. So not unlike Schrödinger's famous cat, we can only conclude that it has done both until we prove otherwise.” “Are you trying to mess with me right now?” “That's just a bonus. But think for a moment if you will that rather than hearing something we are perceiving something, or in this case someone. One person fails to perceive someone. Not an uncommon occurrence. But what if that number began to grow – the lack of perception turning into something almost like a pandemic. They do not perceive her, therefore as far as they are concerned, she does not exist. Yet you perceive her, therefore she also exists. Two separate states happening at the same time, and neither one is stable because no one has confirmed one or the other.” There was a moment of silence as I stared at Izzy that was only broken by the clattering of my pen as it slipped from my fingers onto the desk. “You're saying that-” “I'm not saying anything. This is just a hypothesis. Granted, it's a hypothesis from me so the baseline accuracy is abnormally high.” “Fine. So you're hypothesizing that if I ever find myself in a situation where I.... what, overlook her? If that happens then I'll just completely forget about her?” “I think it's more accurate to say that her existence will become more nebulous, but sure, that's more or less accurate.” My mind start rapidly shifting gears, trains of through slamming into each other and the force of it was enough to make my eyes start losing focus. I had to get home. With even Marcus having forgotten her now, I was one of the only people left that remembered her and I needed to do everything I could to keep on remembering her. “Izzy, I need you to try to keep on remembering Alice. Whatever it takes, keep on remembering her.” “Go on, I'll take care of things here.” I grabbed my coat and it took everything I had not to run like a madman through the office on my way back outside.

Chapter 4

Sleep is never easy to come by when you're worried. Your mind is filled with about a thousand different “what-if” scenarios and each one throws pure alcohol on the fires of anxiety. My thoughts raced with hypotheses about what could be going on with Alice, how to fix it, how to care for Marcus, and practically any other facet of the problem that I could come up with. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. The hands showed it was a little before 3 in the morning. Looking at the hands, I noticed their shaped looked reminiscent of someone throwing up their hands to cheer me on. I was grateful for the encouragement, but slightly less grateful that it chose to arrive at such an unwholesome hour in the morning. Still, there wasn't much point in trying to go back to sleep now, so I got out of bed as carefully and quietly as I could so as not to disturb Alice and went down the hall to the kitchen. There's really only one thing to do when anxious thoughts wake you up at times when decent folk should be sleeping: have a cup of coffee. There are some people who would sternly tell you that coffee will only help make the anxiety worse like adding accelerant to an already towering inferno. Some people are also wrong. I choose to file such advise appropriately and then shut the drawer on that mental filing cabinet. The ritual of making coffee gave me something to focus on, and as the rich aroma of the coffee percolating hit my nostrils I felt a wave of calm come over me like a heavy blanket and for just a fleeting moment my mental landscape leveled out. I felt a pair of arms reach around my waist and draw me in for a hug from behind. “Did you make enough for me?” I leaned my head back and pulled Alice's cheek against mine, returning the embrace. Being the considerate husband I am, I told a white lie, “It's just about done.” Alice saw straight through my attempt to appease her and smiled. “You're a terrible liar”, she whispered as she pulled away and walked toward the couch. “But then, that's one of the things I love about you.” Smiling right back at her I poured her coffee and started a second cup brewing, then walked Alice's cup to her. She took it from me graciously and I couldn't help but notice the simple elegance with which she did it. I just watched as she blew on the surface of the coffee, then took a slow sip. It was a simple act, but as her “condition” worsened I had come to cherish the simple things about her more and more. Now, as the only other person we had found that knew of her presence my anxieties began to stir again as I feared losing something precious to me. My mind was snapped back from its worried spiral by the sound of the coffee maker gargling out the last of the water signaling that my own cup had finished. Still filled with worry I retrieved my cup and returned to sit down next to Alice on the couch. There was a long period of silence in the dimly lit living room; the only thing interrupting the quiet was the two of us sipping on our hot drinks. We carried on like that for an eternity, or maybe it was just my mind wishing that it was an eternity. An eternity with her right there by my side. But the coffee couldn't last forever and eventually the cups were emptied. An idle part of my brain thought that this was essentially sacrilege and should be corrected immediately. I contemplated following through on that impulse when Alice broke the stalemate. “Charles, what do we do if we can't fix this?” She gave voice to the very fears that had been lurking just below the surface, bringing them into the light and forcing me to look at them. Slowly, carefully, I thought through my answer. We both knew that being unable to fix this would only have one eventual outcome: I would forget all about her. Unable to see her, hear her, remember that she had ever existed. In short, for me, life would go on and I would be none the wiser about the life that I had left behind. Sure, I would have Marcus, but I knew from what I had seen with everyone else that my mind would just gloss over the absence of his mother, or that it would craft a new past that would explain why it was just him and me. But Alice? She would remember. She would remember everything. Presumably she would be forced to watch as the family she had helped put together lived life without her, forgetting that she had ever been there. The thought of that sent an icy chill straight to my heart. I set my coffee down and scooted closer to put my hands on her shoulders. “Alice, we are not going to let that happen. You mean too much to me to let that happen.” She was still visibly shaken, but she managed to crack a small smile. But it was one that didn't quite make it to her eyes. She heard my words and understood what I was trying to say, but right now her fear was bigger than them. And that was okay. No one, no matter how strong they look on the outside, no one is a superhero all the time. Sometimes you have to let yourself experience what you're feeling before you can move beyond it. I would be there for her, right beside her while she experienced it, all the while reassuring her that there was more than fear. I gently squeezed her shoulders, hoping that it would convey what I was thinking. “Come on, honey, I'll clean things up in the morning. Let's turn in.”

Chapter 3

I did my best to keep up the mood during dinner after that. Marcus started telling me about the adventures that the dinosaurs were having, assaulting the castle of pop bottles and I would react with shock and relief at the appropriate moments. Afterwards we cleaned up the table in silence; Marcus had exhausted his creative energies and any conversation I had with Alice would only leave Marcus looking at me like a lunatic talking to an imaginary friend, sans hallucinogenics. In the silence I started cleaning up the table. I mentally reopened the case file of Alice's situation and reviewed the contents. My wife was there, that is for certain – I glanced behind me and saw her reading a book at the kitchen table. I threw her a covert smile, then went back to the washing the dishes. As nearly as we have been able to confirm it, Alice both existed and did not exist at the same time, but now I was the only one that could see her and confirm her existence. It was like those old overhead projectors, the ones that use those plastic sheets that you could use the markers on – imagine one sheet held the entire world and it was projected up on the screen. Now imagine a second sheet, identical in every way to the first one save for a single difference – one person has been added. If the sheets were put on top of one another it would look like it was just a single sheet, the image projected on the screen wouldn't be anything particularly special. However, if you imagine that people were living inside of the world of the first sheet, they would have no concept of the person in the sheet of the second world. What Alice was experiencing was something like that. I wasn't sure if the “sheet” that she existed on was being pulled away, or if the world decided to start looking at the sheets directly rather than the combined image on the screen, but whatever it was, Alice had faded away from the perception of everyone except for me. It didn't take long for the contents of the case file to overwhelm me, so I closed it and took a break. “Hey buddy, do you need help with school tomorrow? Do you want me to talk to your teacher or the principal?” Marcus may have only been 10, but his face reacted like he was 16 as a wave of disgust flashed across it. “Dad! Come on, don't do that!” Sometimes Marcus was too considerate for his own good. I knew that he didn't want to cause a fuss for the school or his class, not to mention the long-term social consequences of crying to daddy when you had a problem – he was 10 and the cool kids did not go crying to daddy. Still, I couldn't help but worry for him. “Tell you what – how about we make a mommy for you?” He looked at me with a mix of confusion and apprehension; he was old enough to know about Dr. Frankenstein and he wasn't too sure of where this conversation was headed. I let out a laugh. “Go sit down at the table and I'll be right there.” He went back to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair, unconsciously avoiding the char that Alice was currently occupying. I flicked a glance at her and saw her peeking over her book, curiosity gleaming in her eyes. I think that a board would have been less stiff as Marcus sat there, nervously. I grabbed a piece of plain paper and a pencil, then I sat down next to him. “What if we draw a picture of what your mom might look like – then you can show it to your friends!” The comparison to the board now extended to his face as he gave me a flat look. I was pretty sure he was going to start getting splinters soon. “Dad, that is the dumbest idea. Why would they believe that?” Sheesh, the kid reaches double-digit years and suddenly he thinks he can point out flaws in my reasoning. “Okay, you're not wrong there, but with a picture you could at least imagine what it would be like. And besides,” I looked over at my wife, “I am pretty sure that she would be the most beautiful mom in the entire world.” Alice raised the book higher so that I couldn't see her face, but not before I caught a glimpse of the redness in her cheeks. “Well, if you think she'll be pretty then I guess it wouldn't hurt.” “Awesome, let's get to it.” I'm not a professional or anything, but I've loved to draw for as long as I could remember and I could think of plenty of people that weren't as good as me. I began to sketch Alice as she sat across the table. I captured the way that her hair fell over her shoulders and to the top of her back; how her eyes, filled with kindness and love, were also a little impish and playful; how the edge of her mouth had begun to slightly wrinkle from smiling. My pencil flew across the page as I tried to capture all of that and more. Marcus looked on. He had been ready to offer his input on his perfect mommy, but as he saw the picture take form, he sat watching, silently. When I finished I turned to him, “Well, what do you think? Is she good enough to be your mom?” And as I finished saying it, I turned my head to look at Alice. “Dad, this is great! She is the most perfect mom ever!” “Charles,” Alice choked, “It's beautiful.”

Chapter 2 Alice began to suspect that something was odd 3 days ago. She was out shopping and had tried to get the attention of a clerk. She called him over, but the young man stood around like nothing had happened. She became more emphatic and it got to the point where she was yelling at his face. At the time she thought that the clerk was simply the most rude employee she had ever encountered. She stormed off, poor Marcus in tow, trying to find a manager to vent her frustrations to. She finally found one in another part of the store and demanded to know what was wrong with the young man that had denied her assistance. The manager initially showed concern, nodding as her tirade continued, but around the sixth time she stated just how disappointed she was in the store's training, his face became perplexed, then perplexed reverted to the bored state she had initially found him in and he returned to stocking the shelves. Slack-jawed and stunned at the audacity of the manager, she went for the exit, her fury following her like a storm cloud. The walk home was no better for her. People would bump into her on the sidewalk without so much as blink. As she was crossing the road a car turned and nearly hit her, forcing her to jump back and pull Marcus out of the way. The driver showed a reaction, but that was only after he had seen Marcus. By the time she made it home she was practically in tears and I had to console her for over an hour before she could calm down enough to explain what had happened. Sadly, it only got worse from there. The next day would be the hardest by far. Alice had gone to the bus stop to meet Marcus after he came home from school. She had slowly gotten used to the unusual fact that her entire existence had simply disappeared as far as anyone else was concerned. Even our wedding photos were not excluded from this strange phenomenon – if you tried to look at her picture in the photos your eyes would skip over anything specific about her, like someone that was glancing through an article, picking out the highlights but not actually noticing most of the words. You knew that she was there – there was definitely a bride in those photos, but they couldn't put their finger on any details. But she felt that as long as she had her family to support her she could keep trying to make sense of things. But when Marcus got off of the bus that day and walked right past her, Alice's heart nearly cracked in two. At the dinner table with the food dish in my hands, I wasn't sure which is worse – that the boy had forgotten his mother, or that this was not the first time he and I have had this conversation. I had mostly gotten used to the pain his statements brought, but moments like these still put a knot in my chest. Still, without missing a beat I pulled myself together and went with the absent-minded-father approach: “Now that's strange, why did I put a third place setting out? Didn't you say something about bringing a dinosaur over for dinner?” Marcus just laughed; “Dad, you can be really weird some times.” I nodded, sagely, as though he had said something profound. “Yes, yes, truly I am a master of silly. You would do well to imitate me should you wish to follow the path of the goofball.” Alice put her hand up to her mouth to suppress a chuckle as she sat down. She was a good wife who would laugh at my weak attempts at dad-jokes. She reached down and gently ran her hands over the plate, slightly disturbing it and the tablecloth underneath. You would not have noticed it if you didn't know what you were looking for, but Marcus' eyes which had been looking at the extra place setting, briefly lost focus, then just as suddenly snapped back. “Hey little guy, let's try not to think too hard about it right now. Let's just finish dinner, huh?” The meal continued, but I saw that Marcus was getting more downcast as we ate our food. “So what's up, little man? Did something happen at school today?” What can I say? Sometimes the direct route is the most effective method. He shoveled his food around on his plate for a little bit, staring as the tines drew lines in it like a zen garden. “The kids at school made fun of me.” Alice put down her fork and turned to look at Marcus, concern written all across her face. I could see that she wanted to say, “It'll all be okay!”, but her affirmations could only fall on deaf ears. She wanted to embrace him as only a mother can, keeping him safe from the harms of the world, but no matter how tightly she hugged him he wouldn't know she was there, and if she hugged him too tightly, parts of her would start to pass through him. It was another strange aspect of her condition that defied all reason. Taking my cue from her, I pushed my chair back, got up, and walked to the other side of the table to put my hand on his shoulder. “It's okay, buddy. I know, it sucks.” The words were left hanging there, an open invitation for him to reply. The silence continued until the words started to drift away like smoke. “Do you want to talk about it?” Why be subtle when a hammer will do the trick? Marcus sat for a moment more, then said, “They were making fun of me because I don't have a mom. They said that my mom left because she hated me and couldn't stand to be around me any more.” Had Marcus taken a loaded gun and fired it directly into his mother's stomach, I don't think her reaction would have been any different. The blood drained from her face and she became visibly shaken. She got out of her chair and did her best to embrace him tightly in her arms while not being able to physically move him. I took a deep breath to steel myself. “Marcus, I can't tell you why just yet, but that is not what happened. Not at all. ” I glanced over at Alice and saw her shaken features begin to solidify into a look of determination. “If your mom could talk to you right now I can guarantee she would tell you that you are the most important thing in the world to her.” “What do you mean you can't tell me?” Marcus' face was becoming more and more tear stained and it was clear he wasn't going to be able to keep it together much longer. “Charles, please, you have to drop this! It's only working him up more!” I looked at the heart-breaking sight in front of me and realized I could not fix this with words alone. “Nothing, Marcus... It was a slip from seeing you getting worked up about this. Sorry about that, buddy.” Marcus thought this over, staring into my eyes as though he was trying to read my thought. And then, as though nothing had happened he slowly nodded and sat down, then we began to eat our meal. I glanced over at Alice and could see the occasional splash of her tears as they fell to her plate.

Chapter 1

It was with a sense of dread that I walked up the flight of stairs to my apartment. It was the same thing every day, but somehow it never got any better. I stared at the worn carpet in the stairwell as I slowly took each step. I took my keys out and turned the lock – the clunk of the deadbolt echoed in the empty hall. The door swung open and I held my breath for just a moment, then felt a wave of relief wash over me – there she was, my Alice, as lovely as ever. “Oh, welcome home, dear.” It was a simple phrase, one that I had heard nearly every day, but that simple phrase conveyed so much more to me. Just hearing that meant that she was here. “Hi, honey, thanks. How was your day?” I indulged in routine pleasantries. There was really no need to ask since I knew the answer, but there are some things you just do. “You know, keeping the house clean, taking care of Marcus,” she held up a book of sudoku puzzles, “I'm going to need a new one pretty soon. I've almost finished this one.” I walked over to her and she put the book down. I bent down and gave her a kiss and the touch was something reassuring. The sound of plastic crashing against plastic accompanied by amateur animal noises came from down the hall where Marcus' room was. If I had to guess based on the sounds, I would say that the dinosaurs were invading the pony kingdom, but the defenders were putting up a strong fight. Marcus didn't discriminate with his toys – if he could make them fight each other then it was fair game. Alice smiled. “He's been at it for an hour now. It's at least given me a chance to tidy up.” The smile on her face became pained for a moment, then she regained her composure. “Well, shall we have dinner?” I nodded as I took off my coat and hung it up on the wall. “Marcus, dinner!” I called down the hall while I began to set the table. The dinosaur sounds abruptly stopped, then I heard his door open. “Hi, dad! I didn't hear you come in.” At 10-years old, Marcus was still on the small side for his age. He pulled out his stool and washed his hands, then he grabbed the plates and forks and began to set the table. Alice, meanwhile, began to pull the food out of the oven and put it onto serving plates. “How was school?” He fidgeted as he looked around the room. “Fine.” I raised an eyebrow at him,You are way too young to be giving me the teenager treatment. “Monosyllabic responses? Come on, you can tell me.” “It's just... there are some kids at school making fun of me.” My other eyebrow joined the first in a look of surprise. I looked over at Alice who only nodded her head. “Making fun of you? Why would they be making fun of you?” The nervous shifting continued. I knew I had to throw him a carrot here. Kids, especially kids who are getting made fun of, tend to have a hard time sharing their thoughts because they're afraid that it will lead to more teasing. “Marcus, it's okay, I won't get mad and I won't make a scene at your school. But sometimes it helps to talk things out. You might even find a solution that you couldn't see on your own.” Marcus let out a big sigh; “It's because I don't have a mom.” The bottom fell out of my stomach for a moment and I looked over at my wife. From her earlier nod she was telling me that she already knew the cause of Marcus' distress, but even still, as I looked at her, tears began welling up at the corners of her eyes. She set down the pot she was holding and put her arms around her son, but he just stood there. I walked over and hugged him, too. “Hey, little guy, it's okay. Every family is a little bit different. Ours just happens to be making due with what we have.” I looked over at my wife, tears welling up in my own eyes. Marcus began to let out soft little sobs and he pressed his face into my shirt. I could feel the damp warmth of his tears as they soaked through my shirt. I reached out and grabbed Alice's hand as we let Marcus get it all out. When the moment had passed and he had calmed down we sat down and started serving up the dinner. Marcus had just picked up his fork when he slowly stopped. “Hey dad, why is the table set for 3?”