The Burden Of Memory

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Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

It looked like a pool of inky water. Except that no matter how well illuminated the cave was, the surface of the pool never glinted. All light which touched it was swallowed.
The man stared at it, tilting his head one way then the other, trying to tell if it was a trick of the light. Finally he turned to the waiting sage.
“You promise that it works?”
“It does.” The sage was serene. Unbothered by the worry and scepticism. They were normal. “If you drink of the pool while remembering, that memory will leave you.”
“Leave me?” The man frowned. “Do you mean I’ll forget?”
“Yes. You will forget. Because the memory will become part of the water.”
The man blinked and stared down at the pool again. “This… is memories?”
“No.” The sage had enacted endless variants of this conversation for nearly three hundred years, which gave one a remarkable tolerance for repetition. Rare were the travellers who showed up ready and simply drank. “This is the Spring of Lethe. A mystic font bubbling from deep Below. It accepts your unwanted memories. Holds them until they are ready to fade.”
The man shifted from foot to foot. “So I just… drink? And think about what I want to forget?”
“Yes. And it will melt like a dream.” The sage leant forward, expression serious. “There is no catch, but you must understand this - who you are without your pain is not who you are right now. It may be that forgetting will make you a better person. It may be that forgetting will make you happier now, but rob you of a lesson. Consider both your pain in this moment and how you think you might feel years from now, looking back on what caused you this pain.”
The man stood silent. A new, deeper uncertainty enfolding him.
“There is no rush.” The sage smiled with gentle sympathy. “The Spring is always here. Ready to accept your unwanted burdens. And if you wish to talk of your pain, I will listen. And if you wish, I will then drink, so your pain stays your secret.”
“Truly?” The man flushed to hear the desperate hope in his own voice.
“Yes.” The sage waved him to the worn stone bench. “Let us open up your burden and examine it. Know what you are casting into the Spring. Then, whatever you choose, it may be done with clarity.”
So the man took a seat and slowly, falteringly, unwrapped the weight clinging to his soul. And the sage listened. And the water waited. Without judgement.

Prompt was the title.