Save Data

The Japanese text you see above is what appears at the very end of Part 1. They translate as such:

"Would you like to save your data?"

"Yes."

"Save completed."

And it is a common sequence that all video game players have seen (but probably in English). In my amateur capacity back then, I thought it was funny to end the book with that. 10 years later, I find that it means something different.

Why?

Because save data doesn't work in real life. Well, we are always saving data at any point in time via our memories. We just can't do anything with it. You can't reload an old save and redo things. So if you have a good memory like I do, what you end up with is a lot of seemingly unusable save data. And all I can do is to reload them inside my head before they are all eventually corrupted by time.

It becomes a race to document them in these things I make.

Unfortunately, it is a race that cannot be won.