Memorium by Basil Wells An old man’s memories may be filled with bitterness. But faithfully recorded, they may change the future of mankind. _Did you ever wonder what would happen if the thoughts of every man, woman and child on Earth were set down in black and white for future historians to read? Or even present-day historians--or your next door neighbor? Could you endure having all of your thoughts laid bare, from the cradle to the grave? Wait before you answer. Basil Wells may persuade you to change your mind_. “Tell me about Gramr, Granthr,” the thin-faced little boy demanded. “You promised to tell me about my three Gramrs.” Vance Norall’s attention snapped reluctantly back to his visitor. It was perhaps not surprising that he should have dropped off for a moment. At a hundred and thirty such a lapse was understandable ... His eyes cleared. “Ah, yes. Your great, great grandmothers, Ronnie. First of all there was Elsie. A lovely woman. Tall she was--taller than I, and dark. She rode well, swam well--even played championship golf. There was nothing she could not do.” _Including lying_, his mind wanted to add. After her death, when in a fit of anger she had driven too fast and crashed into a nest of highway posts, her memorium tapes had been brought to him in the hospital where he was recuperating. And from the tapes he learned what he had never really suspected--that her affections were as unstable and as unpredictable as her golf game was accurate. She had loved him. The tapes, at five year intervals, had confirmed that. But in the fifteen years of their life together she had had many regrettable episodes to recall--times when anger or loneliness had driven her to seek other companions. “We were happy, Ronnie. I was teaching in an upstate college and your Gramr Elsie was touring the world collecting trophies. I remember seeing her on television talking with kings, prime ministers and presidents...” It had been a miserable, lonely life for Elsie. The tapes told the real truth of those years. Her gay letters home had been mainly untruths. Yet a hard core of ambition, of a hunger for adulation, had driven her on. His first hurt anger at what her memories had revealed had changed to sympathy and pity as he came to understand her better. While the second boy, Arthur, was being born he had resigned from his instructor’s position and gone into business. And Arthur’s birth had left Elsie in poor health. Her globe-trotting days as an athlete and a golfer ended. And in rebellion she had struck back at him blindly and secretly--childishly. The last wild ride that had taken her life, had almost cost him his own, and the will to suicide had colored all of her thinking in the last long period before that tragic event.