The same day the forest be visited, the last customer of the day arrived at the Fable-9 story booth. Fabell liked the last ones because sometimes they stayed longer and shared more memories than the payment required. This pea was deep brown, the color of aged leather and well-worn books. It hovered for a moment before docking, its hatch releasing with a loud thud.
An old woman stepped out, her silver hair tucked beneath a woven cap. Her eyes, shadowed by exhaustion, scanned the warm glow of the booth with something between hope and skepticism. She clutched a small tin in her hands, its surface dented from years of use.
Fabell greeted her with xeir usual hum of recognition, but before xxe could offer the standard introduction, the woman sighed and said, “I can’t sleep.”
She lowered herself onto the cushioned bench, slow and careful, as if her body had long since learned the art of weariness.
“I used to sleep well,” she continued, setting the tin on the counter between them. “But now my mind rattles like an old cart, and the night feels longer than it should.”
Fabell tilted xeir head, scanning the client's profile against xeir vast archive of customer patterns. But there was no record of her. No past visits. No lingering story fragments left behind.
“You seek a story?” xxe asked.
The woman hesitated. “Perhaps. Or perhaps I need something else.” She tapped the tin, her fingers worn and knotted with age. “I’ve kept these memories a long time. Maybe too long. Maybe that’s why they won’t let me sleep.”
Fabell considered this. Memories were a form of payment, yes, but they were also burdens. Xe had accepted countless bright recollections—sunlit gardens, first dances, the taste of fresh pears—but dark memories were different. Those required care.
Xxe extended a hand. “May I look?”
The woman studied xem, her gaze steady despite the exhaustion pulling at her features. Then, with a small nod, she pushed the tin forward.
It was surprisingly heavy.
Fabell opened the lid and peered inside. There, nestled in the soft folds of time, lay the memories she could not release.
Xxe could open it, could scan and catalog its contents in an instant. But instead, xxe gently closed the lid.
“Let me tell you a story,” xxe said, setting the tin aside.
The old woman gave a weary chuckle. “Isn’t that why I came?”
Fabell let out a soft hum, a melody woven from a thousand voices who had passed through xeir booth. Then xxe began.
“There was once a woman who carried a jar,” xe said. “She had carried it for so long, she could not remember when she first picked it up. At first, it was light, barely a thought in her hand. But as the years passed, it grew heavier.”
The old woman’s fingers twitched on the counter, as if she could already feel the weight.
“She traveled far, seeking someone who could tell her how to make it lighter,” Fabell continued. “She asked the wise ones on the mountaintop, the healers in the valley, the keepers of forgotten things. Each had an answer, but none freed her.”
“So what did she do?” the old woman asked, her voice softer now, something shifting behind her tired eyes.
Fabell paused. “She sat by a river.”
Outside the booth, the hum of the city blurred into the night. The woman waited. The river came alive in their shared space.
“For the first time, she did not try to fix it,” Fabell continued. “She simply sat, holding the jar and letting the water run past her, feeling the weight.”
The old woman inhaled, deep and slow. “And then?”
Fabell tapped the tin gently. “She realized it had never been locked. She opened the jar and her mistakes tumbled out, and the mistakes of others who hurt her. They Cascades into the river like leaves and the river swept them away. The jar was finally empty, and light. The people from the village built her a little cabin there by the river and every day she filled the jar and poured it out on her flowers. Soon others came with boxes and bags and jars of their own. Sometimes the river took their things and sometimes the people were not yet ready to look inside. The woman lovef them all and finally, when her roses had grown tall, realized that she loved herself too."
A silence stretched between them, long and full. "Forgive myself?"
"Yes."
"For everything?"
"Yes."
"And forgive them?" She asked, her voice the merest whisper.
"They cannot repay you for the pain they caused you. You are setting yourself free from the debt they owe you."
The old woman put her hands around the tin, but made no move to go.
"Forgiving them is also letting the anger and bitterness go."
She stood, releasing the tin to smooth the wrinkles from her coat. Her hands fell still at her sides.
Fabell watched as she stepped back into her brown pea, its hatch closing with a thunk.
The tin remained on the counter, untouched.
Fabell did not open it again. It sat where it had been left, small and unassuming, yet humming with the emotional weight of its former owner. There was a protocol for abandoned objects—items left behind were usually sent to the Lost & Found, a vast archive of forgotten things deep within the city's data core. But something about this tin… it didn’t belong in a vault.
It needed a place. A special place. A burial.
Fabell's gaze drifted beyond the booth, past the glowing story hubs and floating walkways, past the docking pods filled with peas in every color but pink. Xe let xeir mind search, feeling for the rhythm of the city, until—
There.
Xe picked up the tin and left the booth, stepping out into the night and onto a passing transport.
*Id please?"
"Fable-9."
"Destination?"
"The Archive."
The Archive was a vast network of storage units for memories and memorabilia, both physical and digital on the outskirts of the city by the Great Firrest. The Archive of Empties was hidden behind a waterfall of colored light, a cascading sheet of luminous threads that whispered with the voices of stories too delicate to be lost, yet too weighty to be kept. The entrance shimmered as Fable-9"s transport passed through, parting just enough to allow xem inside.
Shelves stretched in all directions, not lined with books or data cubes, but with objects—tokens of stories left behind. A cracked teacup, still warm to the touch. A folded letter with no ink. A single button from a coat that had once wrapped around a person in a storm.
Fable-9 stepped carefully, cradling the tin.
Xxe left the transport at the main station and boarded a trolley to take her through the vast cave network. Xxe could have sent it by post, but had wanted to see the archives again for xemself. They were a thing of wonder.
At the center of the archive stood The Shelf of Endings. This was where objects of release were placed—things no longer carried, but not quite forgotten.
Fable-9 set the tin down among them.
Xxe did not open it. Xxe did not scan it. Xxe only listened, letting the Archive decide what to do with the memory inside.
A soft pulse of golden light flickered around the tin, as if the archive itself were sighing. The light shifted—changing color now, as if the burden had at last become part of the story, rather than something outside of it.
Fable-9 exhaled a quiet hum. Then, without looking back, xxe turned and left the archive.
Behind xem, the tin remained, settled in its new place among the empties. Not lost. Not forgotten. Simply… at rest.
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