Eidetic Seven

I have lost, by curious design or cruel arithmetic, some twenty-two percent of those I once called friends or associates—sundered by an algorithm of cold precision, named “Seven Degrees of Separation.” This web, which sought to enmesh all within seven degrees of acquaintance to myself or my child, left many beyond its bounds in uneasy speculation, questioning who, or what, held dominion over their fates. In truth, I had been cast into the depths of hospitalization for an ailment unknown, its findings inconclusive, save for one assertion—that I was lucky. A second chance, they murmured, as if fate itself had intervened. My own family, shrouded in uncertainty, beheld my condition with wary eyes, doubting the virtue of my treatment. I, ever the contrarian, resolved to cure myself—a bold notion, indeed, among physicians and learned minds, some of whom bore my own blood, though their remedies carried dangers I would not suffer. As a steward of machines and a master of programs, I battled the spectral side effects of potent elixirs, which did not lull me to dreams but rather thrust me into peril. My senses, sharpened beyond the common range, shielded me from unseen snares, though my manner, to the unknowing, appeared strange. I rehearsed, I calculated, I preserved—each action a cog in the vast machine of my mind. If I seemed peculiar, it was the medicine’s shadow cast upon me, obscuring what was real from those who wished me well. I bear no grudge, for I know all guidance is but a hopeful guess. Yet through all, I remain unbowed, unchanged—for every improbability has forged my will anew. I rise, not for myself alone, but for those whose voices falter, those whose paths have crossed mine. We must not forget those who once stood beside us, nor take for granted the fleeting grace of the present. Forever is vast, yet it holds its place—a beacon in the darkness, an ember in the night.