I did try.  I got back two weeks, with great effort.  Then I ran into the muddle you might expect.  Had it been Tuesday or Monday that I weeded the garden?  Or was it Sunday?  No, Sunday I knew I had finished off the last of a smoked ham, so it must have been . . .

It was impossible.  Even if there had been more variety in my days, I doubt I could have gone back more than a few months.

Was there something wrong with me?  I didn't think so, and the CC confirmed it.  Sure, there were those with eidetic memory, who could memorize long lists instantly.  There were people who were better than I at recalling the relatively unimportant details of life.  As for my belief that a recalled scene can never be as alive, as colorful, as sweeping as the present moment . . . while I will concede that a trained visual artist might see things in more detail than I, and recollect them better, I still maintain that nothing can compare with the present moment, because it is where we all live.

"I can't do it," I admitted.

"It's not surprising, since forty-six days ago is one of several dozen days I never bothered to write.  I knew you would never notice it.  You think you lived those days, just as you think you lived all the others.  But as time goes by, the memory of the real and the imagined days grows dimmer, and it is impossible to distinguish one from the other."

"But I remember . . . I remember thinking things.  Deciding things, making choices.  Considering things."

"And why shouldn't you?  I wrote that ParaHildy thought those things, and I know how you think.  As long as I stayed in character, you'd never notice them."

"The funny thing is. . . .  There were some things that were not in character."

"You didn't get angry often enough."

"Exactly!  Now that I think back, it's incredible that I'd just sit back and wait for you for a year!  That's not like me."

"Just as standing, walking, and talking is not normal behavior for a catatonic.  But by implanting a memory that he did stand, walk, and talk and that he thought there was nothing unreasonable about doing those things, the catatonic accepts that he indeed did react that way.  The problem in that case is that it was out of character, so many of them eventually remember they were catatonic, and return to that state."

"Were there other things out of character?"

"A few.  I'll leave them as an exercise for the student, for the most part.  You'll discover them as you think back over the experience in days to come.  There were some inconsistencies, as well.  I'll tell you something about them, just to further convince you and to show you just how complex this business really is.  For instance, it's a nice place you've got here."

"Thank you.  It was a lot of work."

"It's a really nice place."