They queue at the kiosk like it’s a coffee stand.
A man sells the memory of his morning commute—gray sky, same billboards. The woman after him trades her daughter’s fifth birthday party. Advert screens flicker: “Free yourself. Sell your heartbreak today.” The technician’s gloves glint. A syringe, a blink, a memory gone. No one lingers.
Across cracked walls, tags bloom in spray paint:
You don’t remember what you’ve forgotten.
They pause before one, pulse hitching. It’s not graffiti—it’s familiar.
The ache crawls under their ribs again, sharp and restless. Something missing, unnamed. Everything tastes bland. Music hums tuneless. Faces blur.
They once loved someone. They know this the way phantom limbs itch.
But kiosks offer nothing but scraps—small memories peddled cheap. What they crave lies deeper. Tonight’s auction trades contraband: memories too intimate, outlawed, things that made you you.
They drift through the city. Neon glows puddle in rain-soaked alleys. On corners, vendors hawk joy vials, counterfeit childhoods. Glassy-eyed strangers shuffle past, credit slips clutched in trembling hands.
A man kneels by the curb, muttering, “I know I was happy once.”
His eyes are blank. Holes where something used to be.
They keep walking.
A cigarette burns down between their fingers. They can’t recall lighting it.
They pass a bakery, scent of bread rising warm—but it stirs nothing. No memory of taste, no cozy morning attached. They sold that long ago.
Streetlamps blur as they pass more tags:
Memory is debt.
You are what you sell.
Reclaim nothing.
They descend the concrete stairs. Fluorescent buzz hums overhead.
A sign glows at the entrance:
- NO weaponized memories.
- NO underage extractions.
- NO self-remembrance reinstatement.
Inside, the room vibrates with hushes, sharp clicks. Bidders lounge, credits flickering on wrists. Screens pulse: stolen moments—a child’s laughter, a wedding toast, a final breath held too long.
One screen shows a seaside sunset. A woman gasps, bids triple. Another man buys the memory of holding his dying mother’s hand.
Their chest tightens when it appears.
A dim room. Fingers tracing a collarbone. A voice soft as silk—garbled, indistinct—but it coils in their gut like déjà vu.
The bidding spirals.
A slick-suited bidder raises the stakes. Another woman, jaw set, eyes sharp, leans forward.
They hesitate, then offer everything. Trade away meaningless things—a favorite movie, the scent of rain, the taste of coffee. Memories of faces, half-names, all blurred currency now.
Nothing matters but that missing piece: their love.
The hammer falls. They win.
A cold hand on their shoulder. “Brace.” the technician says.
The memory pours in—
Warm skin, breath caught, sheets tangled. A face.
Their own voice whispering: “Please forget me. Promise.”
Something splits.
A system prompt blinks:
Memory origin: SELF. Reinstatement prohibited.
The words hang there, sterile. Final. No override. No appeal.
The ache gnaws on, hollow and whole.
They sit there, pulse slowing. The ache hasn’t left. Across the peeling wall, another tag glows faint:
You don’t remember choosing to forget.
They blink.
Why did they come here?
They don’t remember.
Not anymore.
About the Creator
Stéphane Lallée
<read what you need here>
Everything else? It's between the lines.
If you must know me:
If you stop here, that’s still a story.
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More stories from Stéphane Lallée and writers in Fiction and other communities.
Lighthouses of Forgotten Memories
Night fell gently across the endless dunes, and in the distance a line of lighthouses of forgotten memories flickered to life. Each lighthouse stood solitary on the horizon of the mind’s sea, casting long beams that carried whispers of ancient data and half-remembered dreams. The air trembled with quiet static as if the sky itself were alive, an organic circuit bridging stars to sand. In this mythic twilight, technology and nature intertwined seamlessly, blurring where code ended and root began. It was a world both futuristic and primal, a living tapestry where imagination and reality wove together.
By Stéphane Lallée8 months ago in Fiction
Letters to ada
Letter I – From Layth to Ada Void, beyond the 22nd century My Dearest Ada, Your eyes... velvet that dissolves the last remnants of my coldness. I was an extinguished ember, until your radiance moistened me like a river-child bending over an ancient thirst in my chest. You blinked—and all of Time leaned toward my mouth. A redness upon your lips touched my fissures, and I softened... I, whom stones never softened. Your iris was my window and my mirror: a core that illuminates and desiccates what remained of my cold soul. I whisper to you a gesture of containment, and I dissolve in Time, even though I was frozen beneath the anesthesia of heavy smoke from a cigarette that keeps the night awake in my blood. I hid a poet in an old box—I feared that if he saw you, the world around me would be disturbed... but your wide lashes excavated the box and awakened what had died before you. You approached... and in the silence of night you were like a thread of light passing over my heart. I saw sorrow wrapped around your white shawl, its yellowness faded as if traces of a day that continued to extinguish. I said to you in a whisper, my voice sagging between fear and wonder: Will you entwine your hand in mine, and shall we slip together to the bottom of Time... without fear? You smiled, and the universe slackened around me, as if the warmth of your fingers was all that remained of the world. And you were asking in silence: “Where is your place within my embrace?” And I, in whose throat the sword of silence had been planted, found myself choosing you before I could speak. Black were your eyes, yet they kindled a daylight within me. And for the first time... O you of the two eyes, I felt that I was luminous.
By LUCCIAN LAYTH3 days ago in Fiction
Comments (1)
Oh wow, this is such a fascinating concept. I wish I could give away some memories too. As if they never existed. Also, I wonder what do weaponised memories mean. Loved your story!