I would have to choose the bougainvilleas. In the photographs they are almost always more real than the hands. Halfway into wakefulness I would always remember the small, dried leaves that blew in from the balcony, under the morningsun which is white to the eyes but in the camera always yellow.

We can archive you like a bougainvillea. Since every bit of information requires complexity, we can place complexity in the thorny stem and leaves. When you remember something, it's already fallen and dead. Losing colour from the parent and taking on the colour of the world; losing its shape it takes on a new shape genderered on it by the world.

There is a crispness of form in the sepals that suggest intent without expectation of anything in return. There is a selfsame insistence with colour. Purple, among the thorns. Small white flowers within. Time after time I would stare at them on my belly, tracing the leaves' veins.

I think we can stretch the metaphor like that. When you wake up again, we can track your eyeballs and see what they latch onto first, and use that to structure the virtual memories that will bootstrap your real ones. The first things you will see in the year 3,000 will be dried purple sepals and tangles of thorns.

I'll sign for it. My mother always told me I learned to read before I could walk.