I boarded the bus slowly, once I'd have rushed in and hurried to claim a seat but there was little need now. There was little need to compete for space these days, the Button had seen to that. Bulky headphones on, I settled into my seat and tried to find a way to distract myself from the obvious. My usual webhaunts seemed boring, I'd forgotten my kindle at home and I was sitting alone. There was only one choice, too contemplate; The Button.
It was always at the edge of your perception, the one physical object that you could never lose. It was bound to me, and I to it. I had left it beside my bed in the morning and now I felt its cylindrical outline pressing into my side. I could not recall the moment when the Button first became apparent to me but I do remember the immediate aftermath quite well. Confusion, panic, hysteria and finally acceptance, mirroring society's reaction to the new phenomena.
Mass hysteria as we thought ourselves alone in our madness, every individual had a Button that was imperceivable to anyone else. Initial diagnoses of some sort of memetic psychological weapon capable of spreading mass hysteria were the dominant explanations on social media. Armchair experts competed with actual experts to pin the blame on the usual mix of political, ideological or religious opponents. I suspect that had the phenomena manifested in some other form a nuclear war would have begun, but I suppose the association of the shiny red Button with a nuclear holocaust was strong enough to make even the most red-headed of generals pause.
It wasn’t long before algorithms quickly flagged the change, 20% of the global population had vanished without anyone noticing. It seemed that whatever pressing the Button did to whoever pressed it, it also erased every individualized data record or memory of the presser's existence. Reality warped and shifted as best it could to meet the new existence, while the human mind did the rest. Only anonymised data seemed exempt from erasure, web traffic as well as traffic fell globally which allowed us to estimate just how many people disappeared.
We understood what the Button did remarkably quickly. All manner of repetitive content regarding the Button sprung up on social media; videos showing hydraulic presses or other heavy loads being held back by what appeared to be nothing gained billions of views. Curiously, however, videos of people claiming to press the Button were non-existent. Conflicting claims competed in the chaotic first few hours, claims ranging from inner peace to existential horror or even alien transformation widely. The first sign was a sudden emptying out of urban areas, university campuses and schools were hit particularly hard. No individual person seemed to be missing, Students turned up to classes that had no professors, Concerts were held with no performers and the world seemed much emptier than it should have been.
The first wave of those who had pressed the Button had been fairly concentrated among academics, students and risk-takers, but as knowledge of the real effects spread a second wave began. This time it was concentrated among prisoners, medical wards and nursing homes. Those who were warehoused outside of society, decided to leave it, taking their memories with them. Crime victims who had gained closure from knowing their perpetrators from facing justice had their wounds reopened. Many happy childhoods were in an instant turned into recollections of loneliness and solitude. It is rare for someone to have had only one major figure in their life who erases themselves in this matter.
But society moved on, organized religions issued immediate condemnations of pressing the Button with the Pope even declaring that the act of pressing the Button would be akin to taking a bite out of the forbidden fruit and dooming one to an eternity in hell. Cults and conspiracy theorists who preached salvation through pressing the Button proliferated, though its very nature limited its spread. More common were preachers who promised salvation would come by pushing the Button after having made sufficient donations to those who had spread the message. The lavish lifestyle of those who had decided to forgo salvation was to be ignored of course. And as the months drew on, the flurry of excitement and coverage dissipated. While clerics, cranks and philosophers mulled over the implications of the Button’s existence and academics examined the demographic factors associated with pressing the Button, most of society was content to keep it out of mind.
A new normal arrived we found it easy enough to deal with the rate of vanishings that was quintiple past suicide rates, especially when those suicides seemed to erase their own worst implications. A sense of ever-present emptiness became universal, and life went on. Companies were founded, corporate ladders climbed and I had a college loan to repay. As the bus approached my destination, I reflected on what I had done for the past five years since the Button had appeared. For some, it had given them purpose and spurred them to achieve things that could not be erased with a simple press of the Button. For others, the growing emptiness in their memories pushed them closer to pressing the Button, until they too joined the feedback loop. Whole social circles disappeared, each individual press pulling the rest of them closer. I know I must have known people once. Though I don’t quite remember when. I recall quiet family dinners and wild parties, both implying companionship. The faces of the others present in them are a blur. My childhood bedroom had a bunk bed, I know I must have had a sibling though the only memory of my childhood was in isolation. I wonder whose memories would even be changed if I did press the Button.
The bus pulls to a stop and I make my hasty exit. The bus is close to empty now, but leaving it quickly is a habit of mine. I don’t know the time but I suspect I am late, and when I enter the office lobby it’s empty. I tap my card and enter the glass lobby, the lift makes its way down automatically and I enter alone. In the lift, a button is pressed.