By Hyoungshim Choi
In the shop tucked away in the corner of the alley, there hung a heavy atmosphere. A grey-haired man stared intently at an old set of scales, placed on a display stand. The reading, steeply rising, eventually came to a stop.
—You hit the jackpot with this one.
The eyes of the man in the jeweler’s loupes gleamed keenly.
—Please give me a good price for it.
I mumbled, as if pleading. The man carefully removed the device that was connected to my head. You’d have thought this device for stimulating the brain might have gotten some upgrade by now, but he was sticking to the old ways. However, he was a veteran with a great many clients, reliable. He knew indeed how to distinguish valuable memories and extract them without damaging them. He was famous in particular for implanting memories neatly and noiselessly. While the man priced my memory, I, after hesitating several times, found the courage to open my mouth.
—I’m here today to propose a very special deal.
This place where precious memories are bought and sold is called the soul’s pawnshop. I’m a regular here. Mainly as a seller. The memories I sell are to do with romance. Some people might call it love, but I just call it romance. So people call those who do this kind of work, like me, the prostitutes of the soul. As the name suggests, it’s not a particularly well-regarded job.
I’ve been doing this for almost 5 years now. The first time I sold a memory was when I had just left the childhood care facility. Since I had nothing, I decided to sell off the memories of what I wouldn’t exactly call my first love. When I sold one of these memories for the first time, I experienced a miracle where my body felt lighter. Perhaps selling that memory had taken some of my darker childhood memories with it. Those memories had been woven into the background of my first love. It’s somewhat regrettable that the memories cannot be removed completely even when they are supposed to be, since some traces are left behind that might be considered as afterimages. In any case, I got into this work because of the lightness of heart I got from sloughing my dark memories, and because I was attracted to the fact my experiences went for a pretty high price to the wealthy.
Memories sold in this manner are sometimes used for basic construction of virtual reality, and if there are people who want to make these memories more vividly their own, then the memories are transplanted after undergoing some slight processing. The kind of people who buy the memories of people like me, I was told, are the ones who are unwilling to experience things in this busy world by putting their own mind and body under stress but who still would like to indirectly have those experiences. Of course, there is no reason to undergo all the sorts of hardships that people like me have to, people who have no place to stay, no parents, and no proper social protection. Plus, they are busy competing to survive in this high-tech world, nor can they afford to use up their mental and physical energy struggling to have and maintain romantic relationships. People who have been closely managed from the time that they were a fertilized egg and have to live their best lives are different from those like me who were conceived and born naturally and have to deal with all sorts of pain and diseases. That is to say, I am of the lowest caste in this society.
—How was the person you went out with this time?
Anna, sitting next to me in the waiting room, asked me while we were waiting for our memories to be transferred to the computer simulation. Anna looked at me with her face all swollen up. She must’ve come here to sell the memory she acquired from staging some tear-jerking melodrama.
—He was okay. Very much so.
I choked up as I responded.
—What does he do?
Anna asked, still wiping away her eyes.
—Space explorer. He went all the way inside a black hole and managed to escape, just about.
—Sounds fun. How did you meet?
—At a space communication club. I became friendly with a man who lives on Planet Titan, and he invited me over to his.
—That’s cool. Then why did you break up?
I could not give an answer. I always used to think of Anna as a silly goose, immersed in self-pity and overly sentimental. But this time around, I was the one crying. In an attempt not to cry I ground my teeth, but the sound of my choking up still escaped. Anna looked at me astounded, then, without words, she wiped my eyes with her sleeves.
As I sat there, the memory surfaced with painful clarity. Once again I was aboard the shuttle, staring through the window at the familiar black sky and starlight. The afterimage of Ian, disappearing into the darkness beyond, was still vivid. Looking at the blue Earth slowly nearing, I touched the empty seat next to mine.
The last night on Planet Titan, he handed me two tickets to Earth. With the words that he wanted me to be with me forever. Except for the check-in process being strangely slow at Titan Space Station, everything went smoothly. That is, before Ian pressed the emergency evacuation button with the terrorist in his arms. For a long time after the spaceship departed from Planet Titan, Ian and I could not sleep at all because of our expectations for a new life. As the passengers went into hibernation for the long journey to Earth, a terrorist tried to force his way into the cockpit. We were just about to go into hibernation. I had absolutely no clue that it was going to be like this when Ian quietly rose and wrapped his arm around the terrorist.
They put him as missing. The terrorist had already broken the security camera in the cabin before he tried to force his way into the cockpit. I, the only witness, testified at the top of my lungs to his heroic sacrifice, but nobody gave ear to what I had to say.
My memories with him—these, I really did not want to sell. I wanted to remember him for long (for a long time / forever) and I wanted to miss him until the day I died. But I had to sell my memories, so at least I could make other people remember him for long (for a long time / forever)
First, I made up my mind to sell all of my memories that might be worth any money except for the scene where Ian, nestled within the emergency evacuation capsule with the terrorist in his arms, disappears into the starlight. Recollections of my mother, faceless and remembered only as warmth deep down in my memories, all the way up to him proposing to me. They were worth pretty good money, for they were ones I had intended not to sell and to cherish for a long time. But then, I placed a very special order with the owner of the soul pawnshop. I asked him to simultaneously insert the scene into the memories of a great number of people—the scene where Ian escapes into space with the terrorist in his arms to save the lives of hundreds of passengers. We agreed that I would pay for this with the money I earned from my memories.
Lying on the memory-harvesting machine, I felt my left arm. On it, I had tattooed Ian’s name. For I wanted to be left with it, only this, even though all of his memories would be erased. Soon enough, the machine lit up. I closed my eyes.
—You may come out now.
The machine stopped and I woke up. As always, my head was hazy. A finalized bill was waiting for me at the cashier. As I was about to step out of the pawnshop having picked up the papers, the owner said wistfully that the new memory-transplant program is astonishingly good. I just smiled at him, not understanding what he meant. My eyes teared up as I was pushing the glass door, strange. The owner’s countenance bidding me goodbye was dark. The door closed behind me and the sight of the street caught my eyes. The sun was shining brightly. The sky was as clear and clean as it’s ever been. A strange man was smiling on the big news billboard erected at the end of the street. His face seemed somehow familiar.
—We all shall remember his noble sacrifice for a long time.
The news anchor was struggling to keep under his control the emotions surging within him. I thoughtlessly put my hands into my pockets and walked up to the end of the street. Anna, recognizing me at the far end, smiled brightly. Tears, whose meaning I could not understand, kept flowing from my eyes.
Centre of the Web 