Ars Memoriae

January 21, 2019·21 min·2 clips

Peri's attempt to recall her brother summons a distorted version of her younger self who accuses her of remembering everything wrong.

The episode opens with Perry and Benny at home, Perry reluctant to go outside after a long period of not leaving. She agrees to a short walk. Benny comments on the overcast day and mentions a background in portrait photography. They spot what appears to be a funeral procession and Benny follows it despite Perry's objections, leading them to the Ars Memoriae Foundation. The facility manager, who speaks in a precisely formal register, explains that Ars Memoriae specialises in grief counselling but also works with couples, coworkers, and pet owners. It also has a 'lost items' retrieval program as its slogan suggests. The core service is recreating semi-physical manifestations of memories — not the actual deceased person, but the memory of them. The payment is a personal detail about the manager herself, whose existence is sustained by collective memory. Perry offers a detail about the manager liking the geometric shapes yellow cranes make against the sky. The manager takes Perry to a private memory room while Benny waits behind glass. Perry draws a chalk circle, intends to recall her brother Aces, but instead her younger self — Hesperia — appears. Young Hesperia tells Perry she is misremembering her own childhood, presenting specific counter-memories of bravery and boldness: walking to the grocery store alone, throwing rocks at seagulls, getting into trouble with a neighbour who made her and her brother Horace shower. The two argue about the nature of memory and change. An antagonist — a woman seemingly responsible for Perry's recent deterioration — invades the session without visible form to Benny. The facility manager tries frantically to break down the door. Perry eventually sings 'Clementine' — specifically the version her caretaker Ruth taught her — as a means of reasserting herself. The intruder withdraws with a threat to return. Afterward, Perry explains to Benny that this woman magnified her worst qualities without removing her capabilities entirely, leaving everything she could still do far harder. She also confesses she hid her own anger at herself for allowing it to happen. The episode ends on a note of tentative restoration, with Perry having recovered her voice and Benny assuring her she is not alone.

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