The Man Who Remembered Everything

It started with a nosebleed.

Just a thin trickle, ordinary in every way, except for the fact that it followed three days of unusually vivid dreams. Dreams where I spoke languages I’d never studied. Remembered faces I’d never seen. Recited poetry I’d never read.

I chalked it up to stress. I was part of a cognitive enhancement study—a low-risk neurological trial designed to “expand memory elasticity.” Fancy words for “make your brain stretchier.”

But on Day Four, I woke up remembering the birthdays of every person I’d ever met. Kindergarten classmates. Old bus drivers. My fourth-grade nemesis, Cem, who once told me I’d die alone with a Rubik’s cube.

Day Five: I recalled my mother's exact heartbeat rhythm from the first time I lay on her chest as a newborn.

Day Six: I remembered being born.

They said it was impossible.

That memory was inherently selective.

That we forget to survive.

But the serum worked. Too well.

My hippocampus had become a vault with a broken lock. Everything stayed. Every smell. Every word. Every fleeting glance.

I could quote full conversations from first grade. I remembered the number of cracks in the ceiling of my childhood dentist’s office (41). I remembered each time someone lied to me—and each time I let them.

At first, it was thrilling.

I became a walking archive. Friends tested me for fun. “What were we wearing at Cansu’s party in 2013?” (Cansu was in red; you wore the purple sweater you spilled wine on.)

I passed every test. Until people stopped laughing.

Because remembering everything meant I remembered everything.

Their awkward confessions. The passive-aggressive jokes. The betrayals they thought I’d forgotten.

I didn’t hold grudges.

I simply held.

Then came the dreams.

Not memories—at least, not mine. They were too old. Too distant. I saw revolutions, ancient wars, the slow blooming of civilization. I felt thoughts that weren’t mine. People. Generations. Something collective.

I began to question where my mind ended and something else began.

I asked the researchers if this was part of the trial. They avoided eye contact.

By Day Twenty, I stopped sleeping.

I didn’t need to. I remembered what rest felt like.

I stopped eating. I remembered the taste of every meal.

I stopped talking. I could replay every conversation I’d ever had—why have new ones?

My identity started to fray. I was no longer a man. I was a collection. An accumulation.

I remembered being a son. A student. A lover. A liar. A friend.

I also remembered being a stranger, a soldier, a slave, a mother, a bird, a whisper in the wind.

I remembered too much to know which of them was “me.”

I locked myself in my apartment.

I wrote my name on the walls in permanent marker—just in case.

But even that started to feel foreign.

What is a name when you remember every name?

What is a self when you carry a thousand?

On the thirty-third day, a girl knocked on my door. She was from the trial. Her name was Elif. She had dropped out early.

“I heard,” she said softly. “I just wanted to see if you remembered me.”

I did. She wore a green pin on the first day. She sneezed during orientation. Her eyes flicked toward the exit every time someone mentioned the word ‘cognition.’

“Yes,” I said.

And then I added, “You’re the last person I don’t resent.”

She smiled. Then hugged me.

And for a moment—just a flicker—I forgot everything.

Just warmth.

The next day, I walked into the lab and demanded they shut it off.

“But there’s no ‘off,’” one of them stammered. “You are the breakthrough.”

“Then unbreak me.”

They didn’t respond.

So I left.

Now I sit on park benches and watch people forget.

It’s beautiful, in its own way.

The mother scolding her child, who will forget it by dinner.

The couple arguing about something they’ll both pretend never happened.

The man feeding pigeons, forgetting which ones he fed.

There’s mercy in forgetting.

There’s peace.

I don’t know who I am anymore.

But I remember what it’s like to wish I didn’t know.

And that might be enough.