The Vault (2) The hamster factor

The same woman was on the desk the second time I visited the Vault. 

"I'm here to use the archive," I said. 

"Have you booked?" she said.

"I haven't mastered the booking system," I confessed.

"Your usual booth is free," she said. She didn't bother to show me the way this time, she stayed at her desk, reading a book, one I vaguely remember reading. 

The hamster was in its wheel when I arrived in my booth, as if waiting for me, as if expecting me.  She started running before I'd even sat in the chair, and the screen kicked into life.

The image on the screen shows a hamster running in its wheel. I can hear the noise, the echo of a hamster running on its wheel in real life, alongside the on-screen hamster running in its wheel, a slightly older, noisier, clunkier wheel. 

'Something's gone wrong', I think. 'I'm seeing the hamster's memories instead of my own'.  I don't know what to do, should I go to the receptionist and report the problem. I am worried though, about walking out mid memory. Would it damage the memory?  

So I simply sit and watch. I soon realise that the hamster on the screen isn't the same as the one in the cage. It is younger, with a large patch of white on its underbelly.  The wheel is clunkier, old-fashioned, from a different era. The equivalent of watching footage of a 1970s gym session inside a 2020s gym.

I recognise the hamster on screen. It is Hettie, the hamster I had as a child.  I had three hamsters altogether, one after the other, all called Hettie (you get used to things). I can smell the musky eek of Hettie's cage, much more present than that of the actual hamster in the room with me. I recognised the wheel, the cage, the bulge of her bedding, the little bowl of seeds, the water bottle.

I must be there in the room, watching, the same view I have now, sitting on the floor in front of the cage. Watching silently, saying nothing, my young-child-eyes watching the hamster making the wheel spin, running, running, running. I can see Hettie's leg muscles as she runs, her movements, her effort, I can sense her determination. 

I've been running/jogging for over a decade now. I started when I was twelve and I'm still doing it. I've never been able to explain the appeal, the reasoning behind it, I'm not athletic, I have no fitness 'goals', I don't do social running, I have never had a single running buddy, and frankly I'd rather go to the park to pick up litter than participate in a park run. 

But witnessing myself watching Hettie running, running, running and running in her wheel, for no purpose, no goal, just for the sheer hamster-satiating joy of it, I suddenly understand why I too am now a runner, and always will be. For that memory, the one I am witnessing now, stayed in my brain. 

The screen goes blank. The hamster in the room with me had stopped running. I looked at it closely, trying to capture the way I had looked at Hettie as a child, but there was no longer the same magic in my gaze. The hamster left its wheel and hid itself in its bedding. 

The session was over.