If a gun is visible on stage, it must go off. Otherwise it should not have been there.

The useful vector is not “if we kept it, we owe it a use.” That lets inventory conscript the narrative: the prop demands a plot because it exists. Capture-everything memory makes the same demand with less taste.

The right vector is the opposite: don’t show what you don’t use. Presence on stage is an obligation created by the toward, not a reason created by storage. An unused prop is noise. It lied about mattering.

Chekhov is a rule for what the audience may see, not a rule that every object in the warehouse must eventually be fired. Most of what is kept should remain in the wings. Forgetting, in this sense, is dramaturgy: taking unused scenery down so the scene can stay honest.

A gun that should have gone off and didn’t is the other failure: the one thing that mattered, left in the wings.

A philosophical exploration in memory systems, part 3. Terms · Previous: Equipment · Next: Withholding