The Archivist of Regrets

Content Warning: This story contains themes of death, grief, emotional loss, and existential identity dissolution.

Everyone has something to regret, at least once in their life. Someone has said words that must have been left unsaid. Another has remained silent when they should have spoken. Another has taken a wrong step that they have pursued their whole life, convinced that there is no turning back.

Regret does not just appear like that; it accumulates and settles until it becomes a burden that, over time, you begin to feel like a part of yourself.

But what if I told you that someone can fix this? If there is a way to continue living, but without this regret. And we are not talking about money here; money does not matter in this deal. This deal requires something much more essential - a piece of who you are. Memories, habits, pieces of your character, seemingly small and insignificant things, but things that ultimately make you human.

I am the mediator; they call me the Archivist. I do not remember a beginning, nor do I expect an end. I am the shadow after every choice; I am the voice that whispers- "What if it were otherwise..."; I am a gift and a punishment. I was created not to remember, but to correct, and this is not work, this is fate. You do not find me, nor do you look for me. I move along the cracks of regret, as the river moves in its bed, and when you need me, I am already there.

The last person I appeared before was a man, bent under the burden of sorrow and pain. He sat in a dark room on an old wooden chair, his hands clenched into fists, clenched so tightly that his fingers almost pierced his palms. His gaze wandered into the void somewhere beyond me - where, most likely, nothing was left. And the man looked as if he expected the past to return on its own.

When he spoke, the words came out of his mouth with a heavy sigh.

"That moment," he spoke quietly. "If only I could bring it back."

I nodded, because words were superfluous at that moment.

I touched his temples, and reality spiraled, and the world opened up around us for a moment and disappeared. Only the memory remained. The smell of wet ground and a cold breeze. It was spring, and the river had just increased its volume from the melting ice in the mountains. The water was murky and restless. And on its bank, two boys - smaller versions of the man - were chasing each other. Both blond, but one was shorter, with skinny legs and a loud laugh that the wind carried everywhere. The other boy was older and moved with a sense of timidity.

"We shouldn't get so close," the older one said. "The current is strong."

"I just want to look," his younger brother answered. "I promise."

He took a step or two, and his sole slipped on a wet root. For a short while, the world swayed. There was no more laughter. His arms spread out, and he fell into the water, and the current carried him away powerfully before he could barely shout. And ... nothing.

Right here in this moment, the man remained as if frozen, nothing on his body twitching. His pupils dilated, his lips half-open, and his feet dug into the ground. It seemed as though fear had paralysed him.

"This is it?" I whispered.

He didn't answer; you can't speak in your own memory. I saw everything. I saw his mind shaking with fear and horror.

I can't change great things, I can't save your whole world. I can't create miracles, but I can erase fear - yes, precisely that terrifying fear.

I raised my hand and touched time.

He stirred, took a step, and threw himself into the water. The cold pierced him like a thousand needles, but he reached his brother, grabbed his collar, and pulled him to the shore. The boy coughed, wet and frostbitten, and his eyes shone with hope. He was alive and gave a faint, thankful smile.

At that moment, the memory slipped away, and we were standing in the same room. The man was breathing heavily, as if he had been running. His eyes were teary, but not from grief, but from happiness and peace.

“He is alive, God,” he muttered. “He is alive”.

I did not answer anything. Everyone accepts it in their own way. Some rejoice, others cry, others simply remain silent.

But the price always comes; sooner or later, they realize things they thought were the opposite.

“Strange... I don't remember ever liking water. I don't know why.”

He smiled, his gaze no longer deep, his pupils no longer dilated. He was calm.

And me? I remained behind the curtains, in the shadows. But this time, something was different. Usually, after an intervention, I feel the loss like a faint whiff—an unrecognizable memory, or a word I can’t utter. But now I felt it was more, something had changed. There was an emptiness, but much greater than usual. I tried to look deeper, to go back into my own memories. And that can't happen; we archivists can't access our own past. We don't exist in these dimensions - for us, the archivists, there is no past or future, we are rather somewhere in between. But nevertheless, it was as if something was pulling me.

I was looking for some traces - a name, a voice, a feeling, but I could find nothing. Only a deep silence that was not empty, somewhere there on the edge of consciousness - something flashed. Like when you close your eyes, but still see and feel the light. Like a name that your heart remembers, but dares to pronounce.

My next intervention was to be routine; a young woman feeling guilty about a conversation she had missed. The scene was this: a living room, a telephone on the table next to a vase of fresh flowers, a disgruntled mother, and a door slamming too hard.

The last words. The last chance.

And as always, I appeared - without sound, without warning, and without shadow. The room was small and tidy, bathed in late-afternoon sunlight that cast long patterns on the walls. The young woman was standing on the sofa, her hands shaking, but still dialing a number. It seemed like this conversation had taken place a thousand times in her head, and each word spoken was too late.

The mother stood by the door with her arms folded, her face showing the weariness and disappointment that had been imprinted on it for years.

"If you leave now," she said, "you'd better never come back!"

The door slammed shut, leaving only silence. I moved closer, ready to touch time and erase the bitterness. I wanted to leave the door open just a second longer - sometimes no more is needed. Then I saw her. Not the woman from the memory or the one filled with regret. Instead, another woman stood at the room’s end, right next to the mirror. She was more like a reflection, her silhouette blurred as if the air around her wouldn’t let her fully reveal herself.

Barefoot, she stood there with long dark hair cascading over her shoulders. Her eyes, fixed on me, made my heart skip a beat. I recognised those eyes, not from a memory I could recall but from an emptiness within me.

“Do you remember me?” she whispered.

Her voice pierced through me, a warm, comforting sensation like a good memory. Then I abruptly emerged from the memory, the room dissolving and reforming around me. Time resists when it is left without permission, and in the next moment, I was alone, listening to the echo of her question: “Do you remember me?”

She began to appear constantly in different memories and lives. Sometimes she was like a reflection in a window, sometimes as a shadow, sometimes she just stood there, as if waiting for someone or something to happen. She didn't interfere; she never spoke unless she had something to say, but her eyes were always fixed on me. With every appearance of her, I felt something loosening inside me, something changing. It was as if the bonds that held me together were starting to break. I began to feel things I couldn't explain - maybe like the pain of a tooth that's been pulled out. Тhen it dawned on me, and I realized that I wouldn't find the answers I was looking for in other people's memories; I had to go into my own.

Let me tell you something, we archivists were created without pasts or memories, or so we were told. But I dug deeper, beyond the boundary where there should be nothing, and I broke the rule. Going deeper and deeper, I reached my archive, which was almost empty, only somewhat filled with layered oblivion. I kept digging and finally found the woman. She stood there as if held by force, a prisoner in space, without form or time.

“I told you not to come back here,” she said quietly.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I was the reason you wanted to forget.” She smiled sadly.

Hearing this, fragments of memories began to return. Not all of them, but enough to remember.

She was human, and I loved her, but not as an Archivist, but as something else, something physical, far from who I am now. The memory was becoming clearer, manifesting itself. She was dead, and I, overcome with loss, had done something I never should have done – I had fixed myself. I had completely erased her memory and everything that defined me beyond my function.

“Why are you still here?” I asked.

“Because that’s not enough,” she replied. “Love cannot be completely fixed.”

This was my final intervention, but it wasn’t for someone else – it was for me. I managed to return to the moment before her death. In the room bathed in soft warmth, she seemed more alive than ever. She wasn’t surprised to see me.

“You’re late,” she murmured.

“I know,” I replied.

Then I touched her hand, and for the first time in countless interventions, I didn’t alter anything. I simply stayed.

“Do you remember me?” she asked.

“Always,” I replied.

And in that instant, time stood still.

I'm sitting in what looks like a coffee shop. Maybe it's a memory, maybe it's just a place my mind has invented to survive. The coffee is cold. I don't remember ordering it. Outside, the rain is making curving rivers on the window pane. People pass by, blurred and faceless. Sometimes the door opens, but no one ever comes in. Especially not her. I don't remember her name, I don't remember her face, I don't even know mine. I think I was someone once. Now I'm just a shape sculpted by longing.

Sometimes I feel something, but neither a thought nor a memory - just pain. Like pain that has forgotten where it came from. And the regret... It never left. It stayed long after I didn't.