Mr. Nobody

In a dystopian future, the world is vastly different from what it once was. Towering skyscrapers and advanced technology have shaped the society, but amidst the chaos, a peculiar phenomenon occurs. Nemo Nobody, a 118-year-old man, finds himself stranded in a hospital bed, clutching his memories of a lifetime. As he awakens, he becomes aware that something has changed, and he is met with an unfamiliar face - a young doctor in a crisp white lab coat. Panicked, Nemo's mind attempts to grasp the current circumstances, but his memories of the world in 2092 are disjointed and hazy. He learns from the doctor that he was once a healthy and vibrant individual who had achieved significant milestones in his life. With great reluctance, Nemo learns that he has become a centenarian in mere days, which he initially finds impossible to believe. His confusion transcends to questioning the very nature of his reality. To compound the issue, Nemo was once a famous actor, playing to sold-out crowds in his heyday. However, apart from the fame and fortune he had gained, he seems to lack much of his past. With an overwhelming desire to connect with his past self, Nemo's thoughts drift back to a moment marked by the convergence of diverging streams of life, causing alternate realities. Sensing a desperate urge to move towards a definitive life-course in a time before all this confusion came to be, he yearns to move backward to relive his decisive moments. Among his recollections, fragments of Nemo's younger years unfold - including an ordinary yet ardent marriage to Elise and three endearing children. Unbeknownst to him, the pivotal choice of marriage awaits him. In an existential junction, Nemo chooses between Elise and the alluring Anais, leaving him entwined with treasuring these contrasting life paths that he currently can't recognize within his uncertain wake. Only one choice prevailed in his life, yet, during his final grasp of his pre-destiny lifespan, the other paths now open like branches for which to select from alternatively. Among the alternatives, Nemo is drawn to each fork in his path. Now torn between remembrance of his life's reality, and a search for answers in his enigmatic past, Nemo is forced to revisit all those lost moments. These choices prompt him to engage in conversations with his teenage self in the presence of each of his early life companions, while traveling back in time, he reviews at various pivotal junctures - ones for instance when he never married Elise or Anais, and pursued some paths that Nemo would later realize never contributed to a moment of ultimate perfection. His visits start becoming increasingly frenzied and as he delves into a deeper understanding of the varied ways he lived, Nemo starts confronting various stages of nostalgia. The quest to preserve memories keeps him moving in both directions across these past paths, but understanding time's effect keeps dethroning a sense of satisfaction that he derives while reminiscing each individual point. Compounded by chaos and disorientation, Nemo's ever-continuing reality in turmoil takes over as anxiety encircles him, increasing significantly from minute to minute. Reminiscing with echoes of the countless dead paths will, at some point, however, eventually dictate that his mortal life is ceasing at age 118. Faced with insurmountable time running out, Nemo's choice becomes clearer as life comes tumbling around him in the end, through reflection, the loss of time lost, leaves but a single true love on the horizon for him - the reason to love which brought us a story in the first place, proving that despite diverse endings, true love has evolved beyond both divergent branches of life, providing its own eternal definition of perfection amidst ever swirling reality's unfathomable labyrinth.