The Third Forgetting was not the first time civilisation misplaced its memories, and it certainly wasn’t the last. It was simply the most enthusiastic attempt. Entire eras vanished with bureaucratic efficiency, as though someone had decided that remembering things was an optional inconvenience.
The few artefacts that survive from this period behave like objects caught in the middle of an argument about their own existence. Dates slip off them. Names blur. Provenance dissolves on contact. Archivists handling Third Forgetting fragments often report a peculiar sensation, as if they have just woken from a dream they meant to write down but didn’t.
Some historians claim the Forgetting was deliberate; others insist it was an accident caused by too many people trying to rewrite the past at the same time. The truth is probably lying somewhere in the middle, pretending to be asleep.
Relics from this era are paradoxical: broken yet stubborn, faint yet insistent. They refuse to stay forgotten, which is irritating, but admirable.