1321-1325

*Chapter 1321: Boundless Creativity*

Chaos. Noise. Coarseness.

Coupled with an overexposed film-like visual effect, the entire Angelika Film Center felt like it was caught in a storm.

Yet, no one disrupted the silence. In the space created by streets and skyscrapers, only the sound of the film surged, leaving everyone holding their breath.

Imagine this: If this were a mainstream cinema chain, people drawn by the romantic Valentine’s Day movie hype or the star power of Anson and Kate would likely lack the patience to explore such an indescribable work further.

But at the Angelika Film Center, the atmosphere was entirely different. The audience was wholly captivated, and even those watching from office buildings and apartment complexes nearby were no exception.

No one left. No one grew impatient. No noise. Nothing.

This level of focus exemplified the magic of the big screen.

In the deluge of information, an answer slowly emerged—or at least a small part of it:

The timeline rewinds slightly, though the film's timeline had already been thoroughly disrupted. No one could quite grasp what was happening, but at least it became clear that this was three days before Joel and Frank’s conversation.

In other words, three days before Valentine’s Day.

Joel was seeking help from a couple of friends, trying to figure things out.

He had planned a romantic Valentine’s Day date with Clementine. But when he called her, he discovered that her number had been changed.

Realizing something was wrong, he hastily picked out a small gift and went to Barnes & Noble.

There, he found that Clementine didn’t recognize him at all. Not only that, she had a new boyfriend. Joel tried to get a clear look at the new boyfriend’s face, but he was always obscured behind the cashier counter or bookshelves. Clementine and her new boyfriend were utterly engrossed in each other, completely ignoring Joel, plunging him into despair.

Heartbroken, Joel turned and left. The lights at Barnes & Noble dimmed one by one, the world plunged into darkness, and Joel walked straight into his friend’s living room.

The transition? Flawless.

The spatial continuity-breaking montage was full of imagination, effortlessly drawing the audience into Joel’s world.

Joel couldn’t understand why Clementine treated him this way.

His friends, Rob and Kelly, had differing opinions. Kelly thought Joel should cleanly forget Clementine and move on from the relationship, but Rob disagreed, thinking Kelly was being overprotective of Joel.

This led to an argument between Rob and Kelly. In the end, Kelly stormed off angrily, while Rob handed Joel an envelope.

Inside was a card:

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Akin,

Clementine has had Joel erased from her memory. Please refrain from mentioning this relationship to her.

Sincerely,

The Forget-Me-Not Clinic"

The next day, Joel found the Forget-Me-Not Clinic.

Nervous, uneasy, and awkward.

Joel saw the cheerful, blonde receptionist at the front desk. Stiffly averting his gaze, he pretended to look elsewhere, though his peripheral vision kept sneaking glances at the objects on the desk.

The blonde receptionist, busy working and talking with a client, noticed Joel and looked up, giving him a bright smile and a second glance.

Unintentionally, their eyes met for a split second. The receptionist, Mary, smiled politely in her professional role, which made Joel quickly lower his gaze to the floor in a panic.

He looked like a child caught doing something wrong.

Ha! Ha-ha!

The entire theater erupted with laughter.

Whether it was the spatially disruptive montage of the bookstore and hallway transition or the playful nod to breaking the fourth wall with a "Spider-Man" reference, these were details only true film enthusiasts could appreciate.

The audience couldn’t help but smile knowingly—

That blonde receptionist was Kristen, who played Mary Jane in "Spider-Man." Even though early promotions for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind hinted at Anson and Kristen reuniting onscreen, no one expected it to happen this way, and the film even subtly poked fun at it.

It was just the right touch.

The movie didn’t overdo it; it was a fleeting moment. Those who caught it got it; those who didn’t weren’t left out.

Clearly, the Angelika Film Center audience got the joke.

Then, the movie continued.

The blonde receptionist—Mary—took Joel to meet the doctor, only for a figure to jump out from the corner of the hallway to startle Mary.

It was Stan!

He was one of the two people who sneaked into Joel’s apartment to fit him with an astronaut helmet!

Hah!

In the streets and plazas, murmurs arose. No need for genius-level intellect to piece together the details—

Bit by bit, they connected.

The doctor explained to Joel that Clementine wasn’t happy. She decided to erase all memories of her past and move on with her life, and they helped her accomplish this by erasing all her memories.

That letter, originally meant for Clementine’s friends, had mistakenly been sent to Joel’s friends—the Akins—due to a filing error.

Joel, drowning in despair and confusion, couldn’t understand Clementine’s decision. He turned to Rob and Kelly again, but they were too preoccupied with their own petty squabbles to offer much help.

Anger. Frustration. Regret. Sadness.

In a moment of impulse, Joel stormed into the Forget-Me-Not Clinic, demanding that the doctor erase his memories too.

Mary tried to stop Joel, explaining there were other clients in line. But the doctor, feeling responsible for the situation, allowed Joel to cut ahead.

Under the doctor’s guidance, Joel gathered all objects related to Clementine—leaving nothing out—and returned to the clinic. There, he found it packed with people. Appointment calls kept coming in non-stop.

The doctor explained that Valentine’s Day was their busiest time of the year.

With the doctor’s guidance, Joel began recounting how he first met Clementine, as the doctor needed to trace the origins of their relationship to erase his memories properly.

Joel revealed that two years ago, he was living with a woman named Naomi. One time, Rob and Kelly invited them to a beach party. Naomi didn’t want to go, but Joel went anyway. It was there that he met Clementine.

The audience fell silent.

Karen glanced at Blair, and Blair returned the look.

So, what was the opening scene of the movie about?

Clearly, it was the beach, but there was no party. Moreover, Joel’s muttered words suggested he and Naomi had already broken up.

If that wasn’t their first meeting, what was it?

The flood of information was overwhelming!

And that wasn’t all.

Blair noticed the doctor and Stan using lasers to scan Joel’s brain, with blue beams targeting his temples. On those spots, there were visible marks drawn with carbon pencil.

Blair: "That black dot!"

That was the same black dot on Joel’s temple!

What’s going on? The timeline was scrambled!

So mind-bending!

What’s even happening in this film?

Indeed, Charlie Kaufman lived up to his name. What seemed like a simple concept unraveled into a chaotic, timeline-twisting narrative, with boundless imagination leaving the audience struggling to keep up.

But it was exhilarating!

(End of Chapter)

Chapter 1322: Chasing Memories

A dazzling whirlwind of chaos—

The movie felt like a rapidly spinning kaleidoscope of light, a mesmerizing vortex of colors and shadows. It pulled everyone present at the Angelica Film Center into a realm of illusion, memory, and reality, where disorientation reigned, and imagination shattered walls and boundaries, freely traversing between realms.

First, the timeline was fragmented, interweaving past, present, and future. Then, spatial barriers were broken, causing a dance between reality and memory.

On one side, the employees of the Memory Clinic, Stan and Patrick, arrived at Joel's apartment to systematically erase all memories of Clementine from Joel's mind.

Patrick, the staff member who had been concealing his true self, was finally revealed—he was the baby-faced man who had knocked on Joel’s car window in the film’s opening. Patrick clearly disliked Joel, taking every opportunity to mock his apartment and belittle him.

Their fragmented, disjointed conversation broke through the "memory-erasure machine's" confines, echoing like a voiceover across Joel's memory landscape. Patrick eventually revealed a shocking truth:

He had fallen in love with Clementine while erasing her memories.

Exploiting Clementine’s vulnerability, Patrick had inserted himself into her life, beginning a romantic relationship with her. He was the "new boyfriend" lurking in the shadows when Joel had gone to Barnes & Noble to find Clementine.

All the clues finally connected.

On the other side, Joel ventured into his own memories, systematically reviewing and deleting everything tied to Clementine.

First, the Memory Clinic itself—after all, it was Clementine who had driven him to seek their services. Memories of Stan, Mary, and the doctor were all erased.

Next came Joel’s final memory of Clementine before she disappeared on Valentine’s Eve—the night she stormed out in anger and decided to erase Joel from her life completely.

Clementine reappeared, her hair dyed an eye-catching shade between orange and pink, but greasy and disheveled like a wilted mop. Drunkenly sprawled on the sofa, she admitted to Joel that she had scratched his car.

The severe dent in Joel's car door—initially thought to be caused by a neighbor—was, in fact, the result of Clementine brushing against a parking bollard.

Gasps filled the Angelica Film Center, Blair included.

Could it be that the scratch Joel saw at the film’s start didn’t occur first in the timeline, but was actually after their breakup, following their mutual memory erasure?

Wait. How exactly should the timeline be arranged?

Blair didn’t have time to untangle it—she was entirely swept up in the temporal storm, feeling as small as a speck on Earth staring up at the vastness of the universe.

Karen glanced at Blair, confusion etched across her face. She clearly couldn’t keep up with the narrative chaos, but it wasn’t her fault. The sheer volume of information was overwhelming, flooding the mind with relentless intensity.

Besides, the movie was deliberately disruptive—

The camera alternated between Stan and Patrick and Joel, now in the present, now in the past. Sometimes, present-day Joel appeared in past memories alongside his former self. At other times, the Joel immersed in memories could hear the voiceover of Stan and Patrick’s conversation, further blurring lines.

Memories collided with reality, past intertwined with present, while rapid cuts and transitions shattered all sense of order. The sheer density of details was explosive, spinning the world into a dizzying blur.

Blair gently patted Karen’s knee, signaling her to stay calm and just watch.

Total concentration was required—any lapse, no matter how brief, risked missing something crucial.

Joel and Clementine argued.

Joel’s anger wasn’t about the car damage, Clementine’s late-night return, or even her drunk driving, which endangered herself and others. It was her reckless, unrestrained lifestyle. Their differences were growing.

Clementine called him out—he was worried she might be seeing someone else.

Joel, surprisingly, grew calm. In a tone of quiet disappointment, he said, “Look, Clem, I just assumed you hooked up with someone tonight. Isn’t that how you usually make people like you?”

The theater fell silent.

Even Karen covered her mouth in shock. After all, Joel and Clementine’s love had started in just such a way—Clementine inviting Joel to her place for a drink late at night, even asking him to stay. Now, Joel wielded that memory as a weapon, branding her as promiscuous.

Time seemed to freeze.

On the screen, Joel and Clementine stood still, avoiding even eye contact.

Off-screen, the theater was equally silent, save for the faint roar of engines outside. The grainy texture of the visuals amplified an inexplicable sadness.

One moment, their love was vibrant and sweet, filled with butterflies and heart-racing excitement. The next, it was a painful late-night argument, tearing each other apart.

How had they reached this point?

The film’s fragmented narrative and disordered chronology amplified the sense of helplessness and regret, as though time itself had paused to let the weight of it all sink in.

Clementine stormed out, furious and unyielding.

Joel chased after her, apologizing and begging her to stay, but it was no use. His desperation turned to anger. Enraged, he declared that he would also erase her from his life completely.

Past Joel and present Joel silently merged into one.

Then, Joel returned to the river of memories, following Stan’s procedure, revisiting their fights, their growing distance, and their petty conflicts. The cracks in their relationship had long been evident in the mundane details of daily life.

Yet, it wasn’t all bad.

Traveling further back, their arguments faded, replaced by moments of sweetness.

Joel vividly remembered the day Clementine dyed her hair orange. She was ecstatic, spinning around the room like a child who had just been given the world.

That same night, after a passionate moment, they lay together beneath the blankets, creating their own little fortress of warmth and intimacy.

“Joel, do you think I’m ugly?”

Joel still remembered the vulnerability in Clementine’s eyes, illuminated by the soft, orange-tinted sunlight filtering through the blanket. In that moment, he thought he was looking at an angel.

(End of Chapter)

*Chapter 1323: Eternal Sunshine*

“…When I was a child, I thought I was ugly.”

“Heh, I can’t believe I’m crying about this.”

“Sometimes, people don’t realize how lonely it is for a child, like you don’t matter at all.”

“When I was eight, I had lots of toys and dolls, but my favorite was an ugly doll. I named her Clementine.”

“I used to yell at her, ‘You can’t be this ugly! You have to be beautiful!’ It was strange… as if, by some magic, if I could make her beautiful, then maybe I could change myself too.”

In a blanket fort, Joel quietly gazed at the scarred Clementine. Gently, he reached out to wipe away the hot tears streaming down her face.

“You’re beautiful,” Joel murmured softly.

Clementine whispered back, “Joel, don’t leave me.”

“You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

But then, the light dimmed. Joel suddenly jolted awake, desperately trying to hold onto Clementine, his voice trembling as he begged, “Please, please… let me keep this memory.”

Just this one.

The light faded. The world plunged into darkness.

No pause. No time to grieve. Not even time to catch his breath. Another memory began—

Clementine’s hair was bright red, vivid and radiant. The two of them ran across the frozen Charles River in winter, chasing each other and laughing so hard it shook their chests.

Finally, they lay on the ice, counting stars.

Clementine found Joel’s right hand and held it tightly, intertwining their fingers.

“I could die happy now,” Joel said. “I’m just… so happy. I’ve never felt like this before. This is what I’ve been yearning for.”

The next moment, they were lying in the middle of a busy street, surrounded by crowds.

Then, Clementine was gone.

Joel looked at his now-empty right hand, his eyes filled with bewilderment.

“I want this to stop.”

He raised his head, looked toward the sky, and clasped his hands together in a fervent prayer, shouting toward Stan and Patrick.

“Stop! I want this to stop!”

“Can you hear me? I don’t want to go on! I want to stop!”

Joel’s voice was raw, nearly breaking, his lonely cries echoing over the Charles River—

Meanwhile, the real world was a completely different scene.

Mary and Stan, wearing nothing but their underclothes, were… dancing on Joel’s bed.

Doing the twist.

The absurdity of it shouldn’t have been funny. Yet the stark contrast and sharp reversal swallowed the sadness and bitterness that had been lingering on the tongue, only to leave the viewer caught off guard, choking on laughter that spilled out unbidden.

Clearly, the director had done this intentionally.

In Joel’s world, he was retracing his memories, piecing together his past. But in the real world, Stan and Patrick were dealing with their own troubles.

Patrick… had left. His “girlfriend” was extremely upset.

Patrick had been tempted to call Clementine to Joel’s apartment. After all, Clementine no longer remembered Joel at all.

But to his surprise, Clementine had been on the verge of a breakdown on the other end of the line.

Patrick hurried to Clementine’s apartment, finding her there with her unkempt, seaweed-like hair, looking panicked and completely lost.

In the theater.

Blair suddenly sat upright. This!

Karen, startled, looked at Blair with confusion, her eyes silently asking, “What’s wrong?”

Blair waved her hand dismissively, quickly regaining her composure, signaling Karen to focus on the screen.

Blair was just thinking—Clementine’s hair color kept changing. Could it be a clue to the timeline puzzle?

And now that she thought about it, Joel’s tie seemed like another hint.

But there wasn’t time to dwell on it. Blair refocused her attention—

Clementine was in a state of panic and fear.

While she was vanishing from Joel’s memories, Clementine felt like she herself was disappearing too. A nameless, inexplicable emotion gripped her heart and dragged it downward, the suffocating pain leaving her directionless.

She needed a lifeline. Any lifeline.

Patrick, seeing Clementine so lost, panicked as well. He didn’t know what to do, so he secretly pulled Clementine’s journal from his bag. He decided to follow Joel’s footsteps and take Clementine to the Charles River.

Perhaps Patrick did like Clementine, but now he was trying to love her the way Joel did. Inside his shell, it was still Joel’s soul.

And not just Joel—the perfect Joel from Clementine’s memories.

Patrick was trying to escape Joel’s shadow, yet time and again he found himself retracing Joel’s steps. He used Joel’s words, Joel’s gifts, Joel’s methods to pursue Clementine, trying to fill the void like a cuckoo in another bird’s nest.

But Patrick had no other choice. It was the only way he knew.

Patrick wasn’t the only one trapped in emotional turmoil. Stan was, too.

Stan liked Mary.

That was a fact, and he’d never tried to hide it.

So when Mary showed up at Joel’s apartment door, Stan, who had been diligently working, tossed his responsibilities aside. Not only did he allow Patrick to go save his girlfriend, but he threw a party with Mary.

Pizza. Alcohol. Music.

Stan and Mary partied wildly, leaving Stan’s computer unattended. This gave Joel an opportunity—

Clementine was disappearing, but not as quickly as before.

The Clementine who had vanished from the Charles River reappeared moments later.

Joel, overjoyed, threw himself at her, wrapping her in a tight, desperate embrace.

In that moment, he finally understood.

This was the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind. There was no such thing as perfection. Love, free from pain and struggle, could never burn bright and radiant. The brilliance of happiness lay in its fragility, its imperfections, its fleeting nature. And yet, as long as that single ray of eternal sunshine remained cherished in the depths of memory, it could preserve happiness and light the path of life.

“Run, Clem, run!”

Joel shouted at Clementine.

But Clementine, puzzled, laughed at his seriousness.

“Run on the ice? Haven’t you fallen enough already?”

It was this scene—simple, unremarkable—that hit Blair’s heart like a hammer—

Joel had finally woken up. He finally realized the importance of memory.

Turning his head, Blair saw Karen, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably.

Blair was startled.

Karen couldn’t care less, covering her mouth as her tears fell like rain.

Blair, caught between laughing and crying, felt her own tears retreating as she turned back to the screen, clenching her fists tightly.

Joel had finally realized his foolishness. But was it too late? Could he turn things around? Could he stop the memory erasure?

If this were a typical Hollywood commercial film, the next scene would be a last-minute rescue. But Blair had a strong feeling Charlie Kaufman wouldn’t do that.

And sure enough, Joel grabbed Clementine and started running. They raced through different memories, trying to find the doctor from the memory-erasing clinic—

If they could find the doctor, they could stop all of this.

He had to stop it.

(End of Chapter)

*Chapter 1324: A Burst of Imagination*

As they continued running and escaping, Joel called out to Clementine, moving through the scenes of his memories, trying to outrun the memory-erasure program, hoping to return to the Forgetfulness Clinic and find the doctor to seek a solution.

However, it failed—

This was Joel's memory, and the doctor was merely a projection in Joel's mind, essentially a figure Joel had imagined. The doctor held no power and, naturally, could not help Joel stop the memory-erasure process.

So, what to do?

While fleeing and moving through memories, Joel explained the situation to Clementine, hoping to find a solution, but it was clearly not so simple.

In the real world, Patrick was trying to make Clementine truly fall in love with him. He took her to the Charles River, where they lay on the ice and counted stars, repeating the words Joel had once said to Clementine.

"I am at peace with dying now; I was just too fast, I’ve never felt like this before. This is what I’ve been longing for."

It was as though he was reciting a script.

But it backfired.

The exact same words failed to move Clementine. She simply felt irritated and anxious, turning around without a word to leave and go home.

In Joel's mind, Joel and Clementine tried childish and foolish methods, but unexpectedly, they sparked an idea in Clementine.

"...Joel, why don't you take me to a place where I don't exist? A place I don't belong? We could hide there until dawn?"

This way, Stan and the others wouldn't find Clementine in the depths of his memory.

Joel thought seriously for a moment but realized it was all in vain. "I honestly can’t think of a memory where you're not in it."

Clementine replied, "Oh, that's sweet; but try harder."

Joel quietly gazed out the window, watching the gentle rain, and memories of his childhood—wearing yellow rain boots and a raincoat, splashing in puddles in the yard—came flooding back.

Humming, Joel softly sang the childhood songs he used to love, and then, strangely, rain began falling in their apartment as well. Even the green bicycle from his childhood memory appeared in the apartment.

An incredibly surreal romantic scene unfolded before them.

Clementine beamed, "It worked! I’m a genius!"

Joel took Clementine back to his childhood memories. He became a baby again, crawling under the kitchen table. Clementine wore the clothes of the neighbor, Mrs. Hanlin, and busied herself in the kitchen.

This scene was bursting with imagination—

On the movie screen, it was still Anson and Kate, but Anson had shrunk to the size of a baby, crawling on the floor in pajamas, while Kate, in a vintage long dress from thirty years ago with red hair, remained at her normal size.

It wasn't just imaginative—it was a truly mind-blowing, wild idea!

For a moment, Joel was four again, attempting to open the fridge to find ice cream, then crying uncontrollably because he missed his mother. Inside that baby’s body, there was a soul caught between childhood and adolescence, hard to distinguish.

Clementine tried to calm the baby, scrambling around, and in the end, to divert Joel’s attention, she had no choice but to pull up her skirt.

Joel: ...Gross.

At the Angelica Cinema Center, laughter erupted, and no one was exempt from it. The space created by the surrounding buildings reverberated with the echoes of laughter and applause—

It was truly a comedy.

To be honest, an ordinary person would never have such an imaginative mind. Even if they saw it with their own eyes, they'd be dumbfounded and unable to keep up with the speed of these wild ideas.

There, Joel and Clementine finally hid in his four-year-old memories.

Back in Joel's apartment, Stan and Mary, who were growing close, finally heard the warning from the computer. It was then that Stan realized the memory-erasure process had gone off track. They might end up damaging Joel’s brain.

Stan was stunned.

In a panic, Mary insisted that Stan should notify Dr. Howard.

Stan tried to refuse, but Mary believed they had no other choice.

Eventually, Stan couldn't argue anymore, and reluctantly, he called the doctor, waiting for Dr. Howard to come and handle the crisis.

Stan didn’t want Dr. Howard to see Mary, so he tried to persuade her to leave, but Mary refused. She even began adjusting her appearance, preparing for Dr. Howard’s arrival—

Thinking back, Mary's admiration for Dr. Howard was hard to conceal.

She had been like this at the clinic, always hanging around Dr. Howard; when they first arrived at Joel's apartment, she couldn't stop talking about how great Dr. Howard was, how he deserved to be remembered in history.

When Dr. Howard arrived at the apartment, Mary greeted him in the most perfect way. However, the doctor was too busy to pay attention to her. He had to resolve Joel's situation quickly.

The doctor took action and solved the problem immediately.

Please... You... Collect_6Ⅰ9ⅠBooksⅠPlease (Six\\\Nine\\\Books\\\Please)!

He found Joel and Clementine floating in the pile of dishes in Joel’s mother's sink. One press of a button, and both were sucked down the drain.

However, inside the apartment, Joel, who had been tightly keeping his eyes closed, suddenly opened them. This startled the doctor, Stan, and Mary. The three of them crowded around Joel, trying to see if he had woken up.

Things were not looking good. Very bad.

The doctor quickly got to work again, finally managing to bring Joel back on track. The memory-erasure process continued, but the doctor soon realized that Joel and Clementine had deviated from the memory blueprint once more.

They were heading back to the Forgetfulness Clinic. They were returning to the memory blueprint that had already been erased tonight. They were trying to stop the memory-erasure program.

The doctor sighed in relief—at least now they knew where they were. As long as there were traces, Stan could erase the memory.

The doctor packed up and prepared to leave, but unexpectedly, Joel and Clementine vanished again. On the computer's brain blueprint, their figures disappeared once more. The doctor's footsteps faltered, and he had to stop.

Joel was trying to find his most shameful moments in his memories, following Clementine’s idea, hiding her in the corners of those memories:

As a teenager, secretly touching himself in bed when his mother accidentally walked in and interrupted.

A bed suddenly appeared on the freezing Montauk beach, fulfilling his wild fantasies of being on a beach in the open, in the wilderness.

At four years old, he was coaxed into using a hammer to strike a dead sparrow but broke down crying afterward. Then a little girl appeared and saved him, and after that, he developed a strange liking for the sensation of "suffocation."

Then, the Montauk beach scene returned. Clementine realized that the beach house might hold Joel's most private and shameful secrets. She tried to approach it, but Joel tried to pull her away. They chased and laughed across the beach.

Joel was hiding, Joel was concealing, Joel was slowly revealing his most shameful memories.

This troubled Dr. Howard and Stan, to the point where the doctor had to remain by the computer at all times, ready to pull Joel out of the corners of his memories at a moment’s notice.

A chase was happening, filled with absurdity, romance, sadness, and brokenness, slowly unfurling like a painting.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter 1325: Vibrant Colors

Joel was running—running with Clementine, fleeing through his shameful, unforgettable, yet blissfully happy memories. He sprinted with every ounce of strength he had, desperate and frantic.

It was a wild escape, reckless and imaginative, like Peter Pan leaping through time and space.

Yet, the memory erasure process had already begun. There was nowhere left to hide.

Dr. Howard, methodical and exceptional, always managed to locate Joel and the hidden Clementine in the deepest corners of memory. The situation was finally somewhat under control.

Meanwhile, Stan couldn’t help but notice Mary’s gaze, which revolved around Dr. Howard constantly.

He felt he might as well be lying under the car.

Using the excuse of needing some fresh air, Stan left the apartment.

Sure enough, Mary seized the opportunity to shower Dr. Howard with compliments, barely concealing her admiration. She fawned over him like a schoolgirl meeting her idol, babbling with excitement.

Eventually, Mary couldn’t restrain herself. She leaned in and kissed him.

But as soon as she pulled back, regret washed over her. Covering her cheeks with her hands, she was filled with remorse—she had crossed a line she shouldn’t have.

Dr. Howard cupped Mary’s face gently and kissed her back to comfort her.

Outside the window, Stan witnessed everything. His mouth filled with bitterness.

Worse yet, another car pulled up and parked by the roadside.

Stan’s heart sank as panic overtook his grief and bitterness—

It was Dr. Howard’s wife.

She had seen it all. Her gaze met Stan’s, and without a word, she landed a heavy punch on him. “Thanks, Stan. Really, thank you so much!”

Stan fell to the ground. Dr. Howard’s wife didn’t linger; she turned away, her expression shattered and sorrowful, heading back to her car.

The commotion outside disrupted the night. Dr. Howard and Mary were startled.

Dr. Howard rushed out and grabbed his wife’s car, pleading and attempting to explain. He insisted he was there purely for work—nothing else. He swore he hadn’t known Mary would be there.

Mary followed, desperately shouting her own explanation to Dr. Howard’s wife.

“I’m just a foolish girl who admires him! It’s all my fault—I pushed him into it. He barely went along!”

Dr. Howard’s wife, who had been about to leave, stopped the car, engaged the handbrake, and gave a scornful look at her husband.

“Howard, stop being a coward. Tell her the truth.”

Dr. Howard froze.

Mary asked, “Tell me what?”

Dr. Howard’s wife let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, you poor thing.” Then she turned to Mary and said, “You can have him. You already had him once.”

With that, she released the brake and drove away, leaving only the fading taillights to flicker in the night.

Mary stood there, puzzled, her face full of confusion.

At last, Dr. Howard let out a sigh, reluctant but unable to avoid the truth. He began to stammer, explaining in broken sentences:

They had once been romantically involved. Afterward, Mary had undergone memory erasure at the clinic. She’d chosen to continue working there, seemingly unaffected by what had happened.

Dr. Howard couldn’t bring himself to elaborate further. Words failed him, and he swallowed the rest of the explanation.

Making an excuse about work, he returned to Joel’s apartment.

Mary remained standing in place, utterly devastated, as if her soul had left her body.

Even when Stan approached to comfort her, Mary’s eyes were blank, devoid of light. Eventually, she turned and left in silence.

So, can people truly step into the same river twice?

The scene shifted abruptly, as if returning to the world inside Joel’s mind.

But... was it really?

Blair raised an eyebrow, suspicious. Joel’s outfit!

He was dressed in a suit and tie—neat, formal, and rigid. His appearance was serious, stiff, and restrained. Clementine’s bright red hair was still vivid, yet subtly different, as though burning with unrestrained vitality. Joel’s clothing style was entirely unlike anything else seen in the movie thus far.

A small yet undeniable difference.

Even if viewers didn’t notice these details, they would feel the shift in the atmosphere between Joel and Clementine—it was completely different.

This didn’t feel like two people navigating Joel’s memories. Nor did it resemble any prior interaction between them in the movie.

So, was the timeline scrambled again? Was Dr. Howard’s memory-erasure procedure progressing to the point where the two first met?

Wow!

Without a doubt, this movie was like magic—its timeline utterly shattered. The boundaries between fantasy and reality, imagination and sci-fi, were obliterated. Characters moved through different storylines in a seemingly chaotic fashion. Yet beneath the surface, there was a framework and a central thread, weaving all the vivid scenes together seamlessly.

Yes, “vivid” was the word.

A peculiar adjective, but it perfectly captured the unique charm of this film.

As Blair’s thoughts spiraled, it became increasingly apparent: this seemed to be before Joel and Clementine started dating.

Joel visited Barnes & Noble, where Clementine was sorting books.

Clementine looked surprised. “I thought you didn’t want to see me again.”

“You were probably embarrassed. I mean, you literally ran off.”

Joel appeared tense—not shy or nervous, but stiff and formal. He seemed cautious, as though this was their real first encounter. “I just wanted to see you again…”

Clementine, however, was different—bold, candid, and radiant. Her tone and demeanor were entirely unrestrained. “And then what?”

Joel hesitated. “I thought, uh, I could ask you out.”

Clementine responded bluntly, “You’re married.”

Gasp!

Everyone at the Angelika Film Center was stunned. Everything they thought they knew about the story crumbled.

Who am I? Where am I? What am I watching?

The audience was completely dumbfounded.

They had watched the entire movie and still had no idea what was happening. For the first time, they felt like fools.

Joel was married? When? To whom? What’s his marital status?

Through fragments of dialogue, they knew Joel had once been in a relationship with a woman named Naomi. But marriage? That had never been mentioned.

Wait—could it be that this Joel and Clementine were reenacting Mary and Dr. Howard’s story?

In an instant, countless thoughts raced through their minds, leaving them breathless. The theater was utterly silent.

Joel shook his head gently. “No, not yet. I’m not married.”

The Angelika Film Center collectively exhaled.

Clementine turned sharply and closed the distance, her tone fierce enough to make Joel backpedal. “Let me be clear. I don’t mess around. I won’t interfere with your marriage, whatever you’re thinking.”

“If you want to be with me, then be with me.”

Her words were firm and straightforward, drawing boundaries early on.

If this was the true memory of Joel and Clementine’s early days, it was entirely different from the opening train scene.

In this version, Joel pursued Clementine—not the other way around.

(End of Chapter)