A Memory for Your Thoughts

The world did not end with a loud bang or a piercing cry, but rather a memory at a time.

A few minutes before the sun came up, Darla had arrived at the abandoned overpass. If the world didn’t end, the view would have been fantastic: tall, futuristic buildings slicing through the sky instead of a cloud of black, poisonous smoke, but the choice wasn’t hers, and the world, in fact, had ended. Or it would make more sense to say it like this: the idea of a world worth living had perished, at least for Darla and the rest of the Old Wasteland settlers.

Darla took a deep breath as she continued walking. She hated this bridge because nobody cared about its condition, the wild grass, and the fact that it could collapse anytime soon. The Elite Government in the capital didn’t give a single fart to the residents of the Old Wasteland because this place was simply a wasteland, a dumpster.

A long time ago when the old world ended, the low lives were pushed out of the capital and forced to live in forsaken buildings without access to electricity, clean water, or even food. Though the low lives were allowed to work for private-owned companies, they would be paid with food stock. Nearly-expired meat and vegetables as Darla called it.

So Darla had been working in A Memory Trade Center for the longest time. She couldn’t remember exactly how many years had passed because the Wastelanders didn’t have a calendar. She only knew that it had been five summers since her first day as the receptionist.

She had never been so sure whether the place was legal or illegal, but she knew that there were two types of people who knocked on the door, a wealthy person or a desperate low life.

A wealthy person usually came to wipe off a bad memory like a passing of a loved one, a divorce, a bad breakup, or even a crime they committed but escaped because they could silence the police with a stack of money.

On the other hand, a desperate low life usually had a dying family member who needed medication or starving children to be fed. They would trade their happy, precious memory with access to those needs.

For example, one of Darla’s neighbors, Bryn, exchanged her childhood memory with her loving dog — which had died — for a lived chicken. The next day, her mother came in to swap the memory of her children, Bryn, and her brother, for medication because her father had been ill for quite some time now. So it was upsetting that Bryn’s mom knew who Darla was but completely forgot about her own children.

“They sent a doctor from the capital!” Bryn seemed happy.

Darla didn’t want to steal the joy, but she also didn’t think that Bryn should be happy about it. “They had to, Bryn. They completely erased the memory of you and your brother since you were born until today from your mom’s head. I think that is expensive.”

“Darla, we can’t lose dad.” Bryn was looking at her open-toe shoes, and wiggling her toes in the open air. Darla wanted to ask why Bryn didn’t volunteer to have her memory erased, or her brother, and why they let their mom went through such a thing, but Darla assumed that would be too personal and she didn’t want to lose her only friend.

“Look, Bryn, if your family is low on food, you can come to my place. I don’t have any siblings, so we have more stock than you.” Bryn didn’t say anything back, but Darla could see tears welled up in her eyes.

This is part 1 of a fictional (super) short story following the topic of “A Memory” from a #WritingChallenge.